The other point to make is just how a critic posts a comment. At times, they do look for punishment. The critics who survive are those who debate in polite and respectful posts. Now I know that the lds posters can cross the line too but I tend to make allowances for them because it is not easy to be always defending the church.
Yes, you make allowances for them, as does almost every other LDS poster, as well as the moderators, who seem to adhere to this as their guideline.
But the problem is that your evaluation of this situation - ie, that believers only engage in bad behavior due to being provoked by the situation - is completely subjective and biased in itself. An argument can be made that people who CHOOSE to participate on a board where they KNOW their cherished belief systems are going to be criticized ought to be in control of themselves enough not to react with personal attacks and extraordinary offense. In other words, if you can't take the heat, why the heck do you keep going into the kitchen?
That was always my problem with FAIR - I believed that the participants were adults cognizant of the fact that their beliefs were going to be criticized, and yet they wanted to participate in a "fair" analysis of those criticisms. I naïvely didn't realize that what LDS seem to primarily want is a board with a lot of support and believer cheerleading, with a controlled input from critics - controlled in order to minimize the threat.
I made the point here, and sput started a brouhaha about it on MAD, that I believe the reasons believers prefer a board that is run by a moderating team openly biased to believers is due to the fact that they really do have a harder job than the critics. You seem to concede the same point. (of course when I made the point, it caused hysteria on the part of quite a few MADdites) No, it's not easy to be always defending the church, as I say over and over, which is the easier job? Criticizing Joseph Smith' polyandry or justifying it? It's a harder job for a reason. If what critics were saying was silly nonsense based on demonstrable lies, then apologists would have an easy job, be relaxed and happy, and have no problem with a board run by neutral moderators. But it's not - critics are usually making statements that are true, and the debate is only over the interpretation of events that all knowledgeable participants - including believers - concede occurred - such as the polyandry, or the lack of supporting archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon (hence the encouragement to find mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon, rather than vice versa).
The only difficult job for critics is to try and find a way to make these criticisms while at the same time massaging the believers' wounded feelings and egos in order to avoid being personally attacked and banned. Some critics have the energy to invest in that effort, others of us do not and are either banned or voluntarily leave the site out of disgust. It seems to me that believers almost WANT to be patronized, and I won't patronize adults in possession of their full faculties.