imported post
I reguarly participate on three message boards, including this one. Another one is a gun forum, and the other is a pilot forum. When I say "participate" this means I visit the forum generally several times a day. No, I don't have a gazillion posts because I can refrian from posting the same thing that everyone else has.
Anyway... i've seen this discussion come up on all three boards, and the dialogue is the same.
As a general rule, I think moderators are a bad thing. I present case studies:
The pilot forum:
This is a relatively small forum, with a fair amount of activity. It's hosted by the owner of a pilot supply shop, and he used to have 5 or so moderators. Only 2-3 were "active," meaning they were reguarly moderating, and eventually it got out of hand. Now mind you, there were no illegal acts or instances of total mayhem. But if you said "damn" or "hell" even in the biblical sense, a moderator would swiftly come by and change "Damn! that was a fun flight!" to "[edit] that was a fun flight!" followed by a stern warning not to use any foul language. However, if you wrote "$*@& that was a fun flight!" that would get edited too. Eventually, things just got out of hand, and the owner made himself the sole moderator. And guess what - with the exception of someone that came on and tried to peddle his pilot supplies, I haven't seen anyone get edited, kicked, suspended, banned, etc. The guy that got kicked was basically trying to hawk his gear on this guy's forum - remember it's run by a guy who sells pilot supplies himself, so that's respectable in my opinion. The guy that runs it is very inactive, posting once every few months, if that. It's been running without moderators for about 2+ years now without an issue, really.
The gun forum:
This board already had it's fair share of "moderated" everything else/off topic forums, with no cussing, flame wars, etc allowed. Sometime before the 2004 presidential elections, I guess these forums were pretty much busting at the seams, so they created the "minefield" a completely unmoderated board where the only rule was no biching - enter and post at your own risk. This worked well for about a year, until people would post porn (nothing illegal) more often than not, and there were some threats or other such nonsense. Of course, the administrators heard about this and since the whole purpose of the board was to eliminate complaints, they password protected it to avoid the troll problems and posted a strict no nudity rule since the board sponsors complained about the porn. Now everyone minds their own business and I haven't seen a flame war in several years. It's mostly posts about interesting stuff, the ocasional post about a work/family whatever issue, and some gun related stuff. Really, it's the best board to participate in.
The point i'm trying to make is not about moderators, it's about the fact that people are people and like to communicate. You won't find antisocial people on a forum - it's the complete opposite. As such, you have to expect that people are going to talk about other things, because humans are social creatures. Honestly, if you work for a company that makes and sells "widgets," do you only talk about widgets from the time you walk in the door from the time you leave? No discussions about anything else? I didn't think so.
It's the whole "birds of a feather" thing. Obviously, we all have an interest in guns and carrying - that's why we're here. However, we all do more than carry guns - I'm involved in aviation as both a career and a hobby, I'm a huge boater, I'm into aviculture (meaning that I keep birds, particuarly parrots) and I'm just getting started in amateur radio and I've been trying to learn to play the guitar. As an example - If i see someone with a blue and gold macaw in their avatar, I'd like to have a bird discussion. Sure, I could take it to PM, but then nobody else gets the chance to chime in. It's the simple purpose of a forum, and I think that trying to keep it all "on topic" really goes against human nature and you'll see the number of active posters decline. Nobody likes to be "hearded."
Just my .308.
edited: bcuz uf my gud grammer n englesh scillz