I will just chime in with this as I am in bit of a unique position to have some real insight.
I have half a dozen forum based web sites 3 of which are over a decade old so I know what spammers or just plain trouble causing dicks are first hand.
Since I don't have any sponsored ads people touting their own wares is not a problem with me and I don't get product spammers so with just a couple of seasoned Mods that have been with me that long it's an easy job.
I also know first hand what it costs to host a real web site and it ain't cheap.
At one point I was paying over $100 a month just for hosting which is a tough nut to swallow just to host a site about something you are passionate about with no consideration for the countless hours you work for free to keep it going and that's why most have ad's, just to break even.
Then there is the computer your web site is hosted on and what you can do at that level to combat things like spam or just plain dick head people.
Personally I feel for the owners of both of these main motorized bicycle sites as neither are as fortunate as I am. I have great friends, one just happens to be computer expert in Norway that built me a kick ass Win2K3 server and has it hooked up to a super fast fiber internet connection that I access directly via Remote Desktop to do things that would curl your hair ALL FOR FREE!
For example in about 5 minutes I can cut off access at the server level of an entire foreign countries internet provider which at the moment includes all of Nigeria and most of China and Russia as well.
This is stuff you can't do from a hosting company web site interface.
Anyway, I was banned from motoredBikes.com a couple years back but the new owner (Anton) let me back and even allowed me to put my site link in my sig.
I am an equal opportunity user of resources when I need help as well as share help as there is no such thing as too many thoughts on something.
The bottom line in my eyes is if you help as much as post or promote you are are a welcome member anywhere, if not well what do expect?
Just my 2¢ worth but something to think about before you go about bashing or just being an otherwise not so desirable community member though even doing all that doesn't make you immune no matter how good a member you are.
When a forum has been pounded for a long time with crap you can still get crap from just regular users too which I got recently there with this topic.
http://www.motoredbikes.com/showthr...-shifting-Kent-Bayside-Trike-with-Special-Box
As Anton pointed out to the guy that replied to my obvious electric trike bragging it wasn't spam, I was sharing what I learned and did it for the benefit of others too.
Yes, I brag a lot and sure, when I finally have something in production that I could actually ship I'll promote that too but pay for an ad as that is how you generate sales, with real paid ads.