[eqvinox]

> there's no referee, most everyone does their best to just play hard and follow the rules

Only in small groups. Any sufficiently large groups will have a number of people (possibly sociopaths) that will break the rules for personal gain. And in a lot of cases it's enough if very few people do that.

[BrenBarn]

That's right, and that's when the rest of the people say "we're kicking you out", and if the offender says "but why" everyone say "because you broke the rules" and if the offender tries to rules-lawyer everyone says "it doesn't matter, we're kicking you out because we believe you are not playing by the rules".

[pooploop64]

That's where gatekeeping comes in.