WAY back when, in times when few went online, the most popular online "site" (mind you this is pre web) was Compuserve(CIS) (which still exists, and is a pale shadow of itself - but nevermind)

One of the BEST parts of CIS was the forums. Forums were "limited" to 16 sections, one of which HAD to be private to admins, and the rest could be public/private as the Top administrator (called the Wizop) desired.

The Wizop could appoint "sysops" who had a set of admin rights to ALL the sections in that forum (as determined by the wizop) and "section leaders" - folks who had some set of rights in one or more sections. In general, sysops watched everything, Section leaders ran "their section" - and they all met in the Admin section to discuss what was going on on the forums in private

One of the NICE features was that as a topic drifted, we would move the thread to a new section - and if a flame war broke out, we had a few real options - the BIG one being that we could take the "branch" of the thread, and mark IT private, and MOVE it to the admin section - Now, if you were one of the people who were subscribed to that branch of that thread (by posting to it) - you would STILL see it, but NO ONE else would - what would then happen is the S/L or sysop who "killed" that part would usually give a polite talking to the members involved - laying down the law

The BIGGEST advantage however - was that to join CIS, you had to PAY - by the MINUTE - an advantage you say? Yep - because the SYSTEM (not the people) KNEW who you were - and you could be banned, and it was REALLY hard to get around a ban - going to a new IP didn't work, a new login didn't work - because they had your credit card, and therefore your credit info - unless you had a complete new ID - forget it

Most forums had between 10 and 14 public sections - it allowed specialization