[Talex]

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I don't agree that we should have any community members be moderators or monitors of any kind. A great many of the old hands here are just as guilty, if not more, of posting foolishness as anyone else. That would just lead to an increase in the cliquishness this board can sometimes descend into, lots of posts deleted punitively or for smart-aleck reasons, etc. I'd rather have things hardly moderated at all than handed over to someone with "good intentions" who winds up turning the boards into a private preserve for people like himself, which is generally what happens on moderated forums.

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The above is sort of why I suggested moderating without the code support that moderators generally get. A moderator that was chosen by the collective would just make a post, and it'd be social contract to not continue posting in the thread if the moderator (or thread owner) said it was closed.

That means that if they've misread things and there is still stuff to be said on the thread at hand it doesn't kill discussion if it's valid, but it does let us cut down on the threads that get 15 "wrong forum, or, off topic" replies. I think a lot of those get copious replies because there aren't a couple of people designated as a soft authority.

I don't think hard moderating is a good thing in general for the reasons you outline in your post. I think that having some soft moderating though is useful in keeping topics on target, and doesn't necesarily breed cliques anymore than the normal process that occurs on these sort of fora.

-Tim