HerdNation has never been well-moderated. You had people on the smack board who went overboard, and that lead to the closure, but to me the real issue started on the main board.
Some MU guy would start a WVU dis thread and the mods would let it roll. Inevitably it would draw WVU fans out to defend their team, and you had smack board stuff happening on the main board, but the then-mods wouldn't move it. This was terrible for two reasons:
1) Main board people generally lack the thick skin (read: sense of humor/reality) to have fun with smack talk, and things would get awful, which would then...
2) Drive away the substantial number of Marshall fans who didn't see the WVU/MU beef as the primary underpinning of their MU fandom.
All you were left with were nerd assholes riding at the front of the coaster; superfans that made the discourse intolerable, and it bled over to the smack board.
I'm not free of guilt of having taken all this too seriously at points in my life, but I will always credit you guys with helping me bend myself toward reason. I developed an almost accidental affinity for my antagonists, and it helped me realize just how ridiculous it all is.
People took Archie way too serious. He was foolish for doxxing himself, which kinda started all the madness. He's a good dude though, and I used him as litmus - if somebody hated him, I knew they had no sense of humor.