One other aspect we haven't discussed here is gaining reputation and starting to influence the public.
I don't think it is merely the linear process of more members - more of those rude ones (minority, but loud). I think it progresses faster because by growing in numbers, sticking to ruthless rigor with info and testing, not giving into leniency and laziness, you gain influence over people's choices. THIS then launches you straight onto the radars of people in the business. And this is where, whether we like it or not, snake oil prevails.
People whose business models get undermined by facts and measurements will be more and more motivated to come here and try to dispute and challenge this forum. This is to be expected. If I see people don't buy my stuff because they trust some Amir guy, I'm bound to come here with the usual weapon of something like "Hey, Amir, why do you belittle subjective, personal consumer's choice of hi-end speaker cable with your lab condition, artificial, non-real world tests" - or any other iteration of this like Harmon curve is dull and boring.
I remember in AH, after many threads, debates and tests, it was finally the right time to put an end to "cables-difference" debate and the final judgement was (as expected from a respectable site): when used according to the purpose and when adequate, no difference can be detected or was ever proven.
Some space was left for some personal choice of types of termination, pretty dressing, shielding and build quality. Still sticking to the general opinion that all of those don't really make up for the 10:1 ratio in pricing. As soon as this little wiggle room was left, we had a guy joining in with pics of monoprice cables breaking the banana tips and leaving them in binding posts. All of this happened in one of his cable-changing sessions and it happened on three banana plugs - that's 3 plugs to the same guy in one day after years and years of not having one single report of such case. Well, to me, it stunk to high heaven.
Same witht he debate on SQ 2ch-amp vs. AVR's. When Gene said he ads an extra amp to his system for power up, as underpowered speakers underperform, we had a guy with like 50 posts in AudioBS on FB citing that exact Gene's statement as a proof 2ch-stereo amps outperform AVR's.
We had a guy here saying he went for AudioQuest (I give it's possible it was some other BS company) because of build quality and another (or was it the same) citing the fact that Gene has overpriced cables. And so on.
The reason for the previous paragraph: even end consumers, and not only vendors, will, over time, get more and more motivated to recognize ASR as THEE battlefront where their opinions will be ultimately fought over and defended. Some will come to defend their businesses and some will come to defend their decisions and choices. More conflicts (and not less) will ensue.
You WILL have more and more of them. Me saying somewhere on fb that AudioQuest is utter BS and only an idiot would buy such an overpriced product, makes no difference. If all of a sudden some measurements might indicate there could be some truth to that and a lot of consumers will take advice from such measurements, it becomes a problem and one might expect some "Waldrep" scenario. One may also expect a lot of trolling or efforts at trolling. The model of moderation will also evolve along the side.
Civility shouldn't be regarded as a constant, nor is it all up to moderators. There will be new challenges.
It's the price of going against the mighty dollar.