Clitheroekid wrote:I would add my congratulations on an excellent job. The only downside is that I'm now `wasting' as much time here as I did at TMF!
But I would also agree with the poster who advocated a very light touch from the moderators. In general the tone of discussion here is very civilised, even on the boards where the topics are inherently contentious (though to be honest I rarely visit them, so that's only a fairly superficial impression).
I did suggest early on that a lighter touch than TMF be used here, and wasn't the only one. So far it seems to be the case and TLF is better for it.
I don't visit the "highly contentious" boards either, which I assume are mostly about politics and religion. I suspect a good part of the civility that we both perceive has to do with the relative maturity of the audience - I've no idea of the average age here but I'd guess it's over 50.
Clitheroekid wrote:Of course this may to some extent be because posters know that a mod is ready to pounce, but I'd prefer to think it's because the overall ethos of LF is better than TMF, possibly because it's not a commercial site.
Exactly. I often attempted to fathom the commercial imperative behind TMF's sometimes quirky and idiosyncratic moderation policies and never quite figured it out. They obviously felt that a more puritanical approach would attract the kind of eyeballs that would buy the (mostly dreadful) products and services that TMF sold. But I could never see it.
Clitheroekid wrote:I personally don't think it does any harm if a discussion drifts off topic. It's not as though there are so many posts there that it causes any problems. The discussion thread will soon wither and die anyway, and I really can't see any need for it to be forcibly terminated.
Agreed, and of course TLF has the ability to split a thread into two, which obviates the rather insulting tactic of removing a comment one has put a fair amount of effort into writing, just because it's a little tangential.