So when you come in to a new community and you don't have your personal ban list set up to keep out the most egregious fools in that community, what do you see?

So when you come in to a new community and you don't have your personal ban list set up to keep out the most egregious fools in that community, what do you see? Chaos. So you turn around and leave to seek out a nicer, better kept garden. Everyone ends up with different, overlapping ban lists. Conversations become fragmented when you can't see some of the replies. It turns into a mess, so you leave to seek out a better-kept garden where people still talk to each other. You already have this power in a moderated community. You can leave and find a new one. This works pretty well for online communities because the switching costs are very low. And who says that moderators from within an online community, who are unpaid volunteers who want to see the garden remain well-kept, are "large powerful entities"? I think you are confusing the idea of a commumity moderator with institutional censorship, which is an entirely different beast.