Steve-O and Walt:
As I see it, the situation is thus: Keating runs a martial arts instruction business. He really DOES have a good rep, but inevitably there are people who disagree with his style and teachings. That's *normal*. Some of the people coming and ripping into his style and teachings were simply rude.
That's also normal in the endlessly squabbling MA world
, and he's decided not to tolerate it.
Now remember, the situation is more like Bram's forum here than, say, the Practical Tactical which is there for general MA/combat discussion here on BF. The *main* difference between Bram and Keating is that Keating to date has a more widely-known name, and that means he's going to attract more loonies who want a "verbal piece of him" than Bram gets. Now, I have no problems with Bram becoming better known or more commercial; from all I've heard, he's got the potential to do that. More power to him. If he does, believe me when I say, he's going to have to take strong measures with nutcase flaming trolls too.
One example of a specific problem Keating seems to have run into, is some guy ripping into him for favoring the reverse grip. Now, if I were commenting on such a thread, I might explain that I personally prefer forward because it fits my personal style, my "gameplan", my training. But that doesn't mean I don't respect the reverse; on the contrary, for somebody like me my worst nightmare would be to let some smaller, faster dude get "inside" and up close in the reverse and just chew me up. My defense would be to try and stop somebody from getting that close and up against somebody at Keating's level, or Bram's, or Bob Taylor's for that matter, I doubt I'd pull it off. I might explain why I like forward. None of that is the sort of thing that pissed Keating off.
There's a huge difference between polite comparisons of the pros and cons of two techniques, and ripping into somebody well-known just to get a "rep".
Now, this brings up something else. It's to a forum's benefit to attract "business moderators" who run forums for their own shops. I think I can solidly say that if somebody did a comparison of, say, a REKAT Carny and a similar-size BM Axis, that would be on-topic on the REKAT forum, especially if it was fair. But a post doing nothing but praise some other vendor's stuff, or ripping into REKAT products *unfairly*, based on personal opinions or personal dislikes, or personality clashes, could easily be deleted by the REKAT moderators if they so chose. (And no, I don't presume to predict what they may do, this is all just examples.)
I believe that these "business moderators" should be able to control their own forums to the same degree they could control what happens in their own shop (or Dojo as the case may be). Their forums should be seen as an extension of their business. If we DON'T give them that level of control, they might as well go off and form their own independent forums the way Benchmade still does, rather than come here (or to KF). And *then* the whole community gets fragmented into a buttload of tiny forums with no central discussion area, no place to do independent comparisons such as the non-manufacturer-controlled Reviews areas or the general tactical areas like our own Practical.
Follow? By that logic, Bram has more theoretical control over Commonsense and Sal has on the Spydie forum than I do over "Politics" or Para has over this forum. I don't see that as "unfair", I see it as a necessity.
Jim