I think the forum was created for everyone, regardless of nationality and religion, people have the right to express their opinions. But there should be rules of the forum as not to post political or religious articles, non-forum related posts, private ads

How difficult would it be to apply a voting system for posts using the current forum software? Actually, always have to be careful about its policy.

As long as it's not goatse, Alex Beckenham has a major point.

Also, some of the 'useless' threads are actually quite entertaining, if not educational (e.g. the Rawdawg and Bitcoin snail graph/meme ones).

I agree with the referral code one, though even that was interesting to see, some people are quite creative

"zero-value" "entertaining" "pointless" "uninteresting" 
All these words are opinion based. they do for the forum what the term "terrorist" did for america. I agree, honest is best, remove "free speech" from the list. maybe you would want to consider adding "no slandering of individuals reputation" considering posts like this one:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20340.20

It's just not right for people to talk about things like this is public.

EDIT:
looks like i really put my foot in my mouth this time, maybe we shouldn't lock threads based on peoples accusations of other people:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20440.0

I have a concern regarding the Altcoin bounty thread. For some company(not all) it seems like 100 threads for one bounty/airdrop campaign. Sometimes it hard to track. there should be a one stop support for all bounties in one thread for one company. Sometimes I found the members are submitting their weekly task by adding reply instead of editing first reply of thread. It makes the thread more complicated and hard for bounty manager to track.

My apology if i made any mistake.

  Listen I'm not much of a social media (or forums) guy, but I've been involved with crypto for around a year now and its not necessarily this website but most definitely reddit that makes my stomach churn. This arrogant sentiment is on bitcointalk as well. How about the fact that i cant even message anything on the crypto reddit threads because I don't have enough Karma and so-forth. Even if one does get a post or comment past the totalitarian moderators with their despotic inclinations and impulses that could rival even current North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the next step will be confronting the conceited rhetoric espoused by some lowlife in the comment section who has no time for someone who understands less than he does. This is nothing more that a catch 22. I don't have i certain level of respect within the community because i am not of a certain level, but i cannot get that respect and post because i don't meet their standards. What a joke. I cant even get airdrops because i am not deemed worthy enough.

A reliable moderation policy is necessary for successful community engagement. A good moderation policy should be accessible, light-touch, and trustworthy.

Moderators are stone hearted. when they needed pubicity they used people to get invloved more in posting and now they are excavating them

That's the moderation policy and is only a tiny subset of the rules.

https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/703657.0

Have a read of them and I'm sure you'll find which rule you broke (rules 1, 4 and 33 are the most common). That would be the only reason you were banned.

Also, this rule should be interesting to you.

25. Ban evasion (using or creating accounts while one of your accounts is banned) is not allowed.

That's why your current account is likely to get banned as well.

What is considered referral code spam? One of those full on advertising posts with referral codes all over it like were posted when tradehill opened? What if it's a little more subtle? What about low content posts with the code in the signature?

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, is there any reason to not just fully ban referral codes? They're mostly just spam and don't really benefit the forum any. And then it'd be a clear enforceable line.

Just a thought.