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IMHO any unmoderated forum is an open invitation to a de facto denial of service attack, in which the perspective of the forum is drowned out by noise expressing other perspectives without limit.

Perhaps....

Or perhaps there are other ways of dealing with the potential of these sources of noise that don't require censorship and overt control...

Many are under consideration.

That's what makes the net fun.

Perhaps....
Or perhaps there are other ways of dealing with the potential of these sources of noise that don't require censorship and overt control...
Many are under consideration.

That's what makes the net fun

Dude, replace the next to the last word of your above italiciced passage with the word "commune" and your above italicized passage could have been lifted from a 60's Berkeley flyer, IMO.

Or perhaps there are other ways of dealing with the potential of these sources of noise that don't require censorship and overt control...

So you're basically telling us that it's possible to keep the whackjobs at bay without actually doing anything to keep them at bay....

But eventually you're going to need some means of enforcement. No way around it. Overt control doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Or perhaps there are other ways of dealing with the potential of these sources of noise that don't require censorship and overt control...

Many are under consideration. That's what makes the net fun.

IMHO your problem is centered in the conceit that people have to listen when you talk. We don't and, if your publication is boring, we won't.
The issue isn't your right to talk, or mine--it is the prudent exercise of the right to publish.
Basically, the market for schlock is filled by commercial journalism. If you want an audience you have to say things which give perspective, help to cut through the noise. IOW, you need conservatism. If you allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry to contribute as much as they like to your forum, people who may like Tom but can't stand Dick and Harry probably can't enough Tom in your site for all the noise from Dick and Harry, and won't bother reading the site.
Of course if you like Dick and Harry and can tolerate Tom, you will like the result even as you bemoan the lack of readership on your site. Trouble is, you will probably lose Tom to a moderated site with a character and audience which is more congenial to Tom's writing.
Quite simply I see no censorship in the moderation of a web site; the cost of entry into the field of web sites is just too low for that characterization to make any sense. The message is, "find the site best suited to the audience which appreciates you--or make it." The web as a whole is essentially uncensored; assaying to make a single site perform the function of the whole web is a grandiose conceit.