Originally Posted by
anon
Well, rules are necessary to keep a community running smoothly. The unmoderated approach can turn into chaos pretty quickly (I'm on one such place where it works because the people it attracts are level-headed, but it is not representative of the majority).
With that said, the bigger and more long-winded rule pages are, the more likely people will not read them, or even actively disregard them. I have been on forums like that and didn't post much on most, because I was afraid to accidentally break some rule and suffer the corresponding negative consequences. That's the reason why rules here are very short and easy to understand, being mostly common sense, and were last updated in August 2008.