That's how it should be. Too many people start posting on forums without any respect for the norms of the place. That worsens the experience for everyone.

Those whose criteria include "their commitment to free speech" usually have an ax to grind about something, which would explains if they've been banned from other places before.

> That's how it should be. Too many people start posting on forums without any respect for the norms of the place. That worsens the experience for everyone.

Not really in Metafilter's case. It's norms changed under the feet of a significant fraction of its long time community members. I also wasn't talking so much about norms than a rather narrow range of orthodox opinion.

To put it in HN terms: think of it as a forum where it's orthodox to love Ayn Rand, think in Objectivist terms, and a transgression to voice anything but the most indirect critical perspective of her or her ideas. You might not realize it because there are tons of great threads about other things, but God help you if you venture the opinion that the government should increase mandatory taxes to fund assistance programs for the poor.