Overall I am very impressed by the way TFP is moderated. I have been active on message boards for years, and have (and still do) helped run message boards for several years. I've been a SuperMod on two boards much larger than this one, and Admin a board that is quite active. In general I think the level of discussion that takes place here is very admirable. It is amazing that a place with this many members is full of threads that, even when disagreements arise, show a general level of respect for fellow members.
My main, or probably even SINGLE beef though, is the locking of threads when a staff member cites the reasoning that a thread on that topic has been posted in the past. Not all of us get a chance to be online enough to read EVERY thread ever posted. Not all of us can find a thread buried 18 months ago about a topic that is suddenly relevant again. Sometimes we search and miss a key word or two, and don't find previous threads on our topic. If the previous threads were active in the last week or two, shame on us! But I've seen threads locked for "reposting" where the threads about that subject were buried for months and months. If a thread is 10 months buried, is there any true harm in allowing a new thread about the same topic? If there is, can we at least have the mods merge them instead of locking them?
Just thoughts......I have a lot of respect for what happens here. Even though this isn't my "main" message board online, it is one I frequently visit. I Supermod a forum that is currently within the top couple dozen message boards EVER on the internet. I own a message board that is rapidly becoming big enough to be listed on bigboards.com's list of top online message boards. So I feel I understand what is needed to be successful, and TFP has it, as it's proven for years now. But it is never bad to find a tweak or two that improves something already very good.
