Maybe I'm wrong on this, but if my memory serves me right the admins/mods used to make a lot of post invisible and close threads a lot, which they didn't for a while when they were light on staff, and now it's just back to normal.
Fundamentally most of us grew up with strong ideological views on freedom of speech and thus feel "violated" when threads get closed and posts made invisible, but i start to think that it's a good thing that more discussions are shut down earlier on. It moves the focus from bickering to what this server really should be about, namely roleplay and fun.
Some of the pointless threads I have personally argued viciously in could easily have been locked or made invisible, and for the better really. I know I'm very guilty of forum PVP, but really we should be doing the fightin' in our little pixel ships.