[nvarsj]

This... so much this. The few, good subreddits are _really_ good and it's due almost solely to a great moderation team (/r/anime is one example). I've seen a lot of small communities die off because they grew and the moderation did not happen.

In my opinion, moderators of an online forum are like the leadership team of a company. With bad leadership all the good people leave, and only the bottom feeders remain.