i think yall mighta missed it a bit. how to put this-
the theory was advanced that the forum administration was abusing their power. no evidence was provided, and the accusations escalated. technically, since smack was unmodded and ruleless, nothing 'wrong' had occurred. but it was a given that the forum could be closed at any time for any reason.
frankly, if i were the forum admins i would have done the same thing. lets look at any other game forum (like what everyone is saying we should do). go into 'random' game forum (make sure its the official forum, on the games home site)and trash the game and the forum mods/admins. provide no evidence but make accusations of dishonesty and underhanded behavior. stretch it to the game itself, say that the people who run the games are cheating, and see how long you are on said forum. try that on wow or tribal wars or travian. you get permabanned. way before things go where they did. all that happened here is that section of the forum is gone! for a dictatorship its surely benevolent...
personal attacks happen in any smack talk- basically smack is a personal attack. 'im better than you at this game because you suck, heres why'. saying that the game itself and the people running it are cheating is wholly different... and if smack comes back i expect some rules.