I feel obligated to chime in here because like the Skiffer, I too run a website for a living. My website has 400,000 registered users and over 100 paid advertisers. The site has been up for about 15 years and there is rarely a situation that we haven't experienced at one time or another.

Unlike Jim's industry, which has only a relative few potential advertising customers, my industry has hundreds. Many large companies, which could benefit from my site, don't advertise with me and it doesn't make any sense, from my perspective. After all, I have the number one website in my industry with the largest audience available. How could they not advertise?

Well, they have their reasons and in some cases they simply don't understand or appreciate internet advertising. I don't fight them and I don't treat them any differently. I don't give them free advertising either, no matter how big they are. I do allow my users to mention them, in both praise and condemnation, as long as they have no personal interest in the company. This is true for all suppliers, regardless of their advertiser status.

My users, on the other hand, are very difficult to corral, much like herding cats. Censoring them is fraught with some risk and in general, we only censor for profanity, hate speech, and taunting. Sometimes, a user will trash one of our paid advertisers and this can be tricky. We can't just silence someone for speaking the truth about a vendor. The problem is, "what is the truth?". There are always two sides to every story and so we usually have to let the complete story flush itself out before we take action, if any. Usually, other members will chime in to defend the vendor, or agree with the original poster. On balance, things tend to even out and problems do get solved. It's worth noting that our premier advertisers seldom have to deal with this sort of thing as they already know the value of keeping their customers happy to begin with.

Sometimes, vendors have to jump in and defend themselves. I view this as a perfect example of a free market in action. There have been cases that have gone over the top where a user, who was clearly in the wrong or had unrealistic expectations, had to be censored. It takes a clear head to know when to pull the plug and sometimes the choice is far from black and white.

One thing that bears note is that if we start censoring our users for voicing opinions regarding our paid advertisers then our credibility and neutrality risks being called into question. The site exists for the benefit of the users first, even though it is supported by the advertisers. In the end, advertisers come and go but the users will always be there. They are the legacy of the site, not the advertisers.

In the end, a website isn't a democracy. The free speech rights are held by the site operator, not its users. Users often fail to realize this. I've been threatened many times with legal action over censoring user posts, which makes me laugh. No lawyer has ever called me on behalf of an angry user.

So, I know exactly what Jim is facing, and can vouch 100% for the fact that it's often more complicated that it appears to manage all the competing interests in this type of website. Jim is doing a good job and only he knows which decisions are best for his site.