I hang my hat there. Jim Starkweather started the site in Dec 2001 by basically posting messages at other modeling sites like Missing Links, Kithobbyist, Track-Link, rec.models.scale and others. He basically started with a blank slate and asked for in put from the first visitors. I am registered user #9. I had been looking for a place to upload photos of my equipment at work and he provided a gallery.
The site is free although some of us donate money to help run things. Several advertisers help defray costs. While this site is rather "corporate" ours is run by modelers, not because they get paid to do it, but because they enjoy it. Plus, no pop up on the home page.
All of the moderators, reviewers, editors are volunteers. Armorama has a multi-language community not found here. Everyone and anyone is free to submit reviews, quick looks, articles and photos for submission. Members get 3MB of gallery storage and an additional amount if you also register at the Armorama MSN chat site.
As far as community goes, I think the Armorama community goes much deeper than this one, perhaps more so than any other online forum. We had field trips for the New England based members, European based members and California members.
Members buy T-shirts and embroidered shirts and wear them when they go to model shows. One member is a truck dirver that has visited numerous members while in transit. One member runs an online hobby shop and goes out of his way to get stuff for other members. When's the last time someone here gave any of you a ride in a tank?
We've got the rivet counters, but so do all the serious modeling sites. I tend to take them with a grain of salt.