Well, you're the administrator so at the end of the day what you say goes.
Only to a point - I always welcome a reasoned questioning of moderation practices. It makes us (me!) think about what we are doing and considering whether there is a more effective way to do things.
Splitting threads to me seems somehow out-of-sync with the spirit of having a forum in the first place. I'm all for some moderation but when you start rearranging posts it gets a bit too much "big brother" for my liking. Maybe I don't understand your thinking behind this.
No - it's more about letting a topic run but not letting it get out of control.
Think of it like driving sheep - we have a herd of sheep (that's not a metaphorical description of our members - it's just an example
) ... and we want them to go to a paddock down the road.
It's best to keep them all in one group (not let 6 other sheep drives to the same location take place at the same time) ... and we don't want sheep heading off down a side-road or getting mixed up with someone else's sheep - we want them to stay on the path.
If somehow, someone else's sheep do get mixed up with ours, we need to split them out and send them off in another direction.
Is that a good analogy ?
It seems to me that in general you're being more pedantic about threads lately. Any particular reasons for this? ... I still favor a more laissez-faire approach.
Generally I do agree - 99% of threads never get any attention (I certainly don't read them all - I rely on other people to notify the moderators if they think something needs attention).
The extra attention some things are getting of late I think mostly only falls into a couple of areas:
1) multiple threads started up on the same topic (same thing happened with announcements about 1% interest rate drop, and about the deposit guarantee, and about the FHOG announcement, etc)
2) threads that are posted in an incorrect part of the forum
3) threads about that other forum which shall not be named
Unfortunately we do also have some members who tend to get overly emotional about certain subjects which builds up to the equivalent of standing there yelling at each other to the point where nobody else can reasonably talk about a topic or even wants to be in the same room as them. There's not a lot we can do beyond closing the thread and encouraging them to agree to disagree. That's nothing new - we've always had members and debates like this.
Sometimes they have more serious problems (eg members posting drunk = problem posts) ... and sometimes people just get downright abusive because that's the type of person they are. Again, that's nothing new - we've always had members like this (although ironically, in many cases it is the same member over and over again using different nicks!).
