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[Jay]

Sure, it's great and all, but letting anybody have a redirection topic when they move their topic, it's going to get spammy pretty quick.
I suggest, if it's even possible under this version of SMF, to remove the redirection topic ability from Move Topic for non-moderators.

On that note, with over 440,000 posts and 7,000 members, I'm considering it safe to say we could do with non-Toady moderators.
No matter how godly Toady may be (or not?), there's no way he can moderate 7,000 members and still keep on developing DF at the same pace.
The moderation-free system we used to have can no longer exist, unfortunately.

[Footkerchief]

Where's the spam, again?

Also, what powers would you want new moderators to have?

[Duke 2.0]

Where's the spam, again?

Also, what powers would you want new moderators to have?

Mobile Battle Fortress, - and basically all of VN.

 Just to name a few.

 But keep in mind a good 5000 of those members do nothing other than look around. Or post a single question. I would not doubt if there is no more than 100 active members here. Even then, no more than half tread on the wild side of the law. And even then, most is reserved for the forum where silliness is allowed.

 Despite this, I can see the need for moderators. Although if Toady has issues with them(As moderators are a touchy subject to deal with) we should edge away from this topic unless there is a real glaring problem. So far, many of our problems would be solved by a harsh announcement from the toadster himself.

[Jay]

But keep in mind a good 5000 of those members do nothing other than look around. Or post a single question. I would not doubt if there is no more than 100 active members here. Even then, no more than half tread on the wild side of the law. And even then, most is reserved for the forum where silliness is allowed.

That's a good point.  But even so, I have been noticing an increase in the amount of moderation required from Toady.  We can stop the issue before it truly begins (catsplosion reference) with possibly even a single moderator or two (having two allows one to keep the other in check and hence we wouldn't have to rely on Toady to fix any problems they could cause - granted, this'd mean we'd have to pick from two separate forum groups. (That's right, we have distinct groups of users now!  We're all grown up!) We don't want Yanlin and WorkerDrone being our only two non-Toady moderators, for example.  No offense meant to either of you, but..  yeah.

Despite this, I can see the need for moderators. Although if Toady has issues with them(As moderators are a touchy subject to deal with) we should edge away from this topic unless there is a real glaring problem. So far, many of our problems would be solved by a harsh announcement from the toadster himself.

Right, but as I've touched on, a harsh announcement from the Toadster himself is going to take away time for the Toadster himself to be harshly announcing DF stuff.

Spoiler: Harshly announcing?  Eh? (click to show/hide)

02/19/2009: Updated another 40 or so announcements

Plus, having two moderators, one of whom I suppose could be a VNer, one who's a truly active and helpful person (not unlike myself, I suppose, what with the sticky in DF Modding and the link repository and all, but..) would keep a generally beneficial balance of power.
So, yeah.  Two mods - One helpful, one to prevent the helpful one from getting too high on power.  On the other side of that, one who's not helpful, one to keep the not-helpful one helpful (lolwut?)
Yay.  Rants.  We don't really need moderators yet, but it is a subject that we need to keep in mind for the future.

On another note, has Toady ever expressed any issues with having moderators?
They're mentioned in passing on the Forum Guidelines (reminds me: I need to add that to my repo) but being that we don't have any..
Except for this Kurtulmak person, moderator of the original Armok forum.  No idea what that's about.
And Jonathan S. Fox, apparently moderator of the Curses board.
I've never heard/seen anything from either of them, but...
My instincts tell me that, being that we do apparently actually have moderators somewhere on the Bay12 boards already, Toady has no inherent issues with having moderators at all.
Not to say that he doesn't have any issues with having moderators for his DF boards, though.

We still digress from the topic at hand. (Although I mentioned it in the OP, so not really, but..)
Regular users shouldn't be allowed to have redirection topics for stuff they move.  It'll just equal spam later.

[Duke 2.0]

 I got the impression he was avoiding it as long as possible, as moderators can cause a lot of issues. And drama, depending on the members.

 I do see your point on Toady taking more times on the forums as opposed to working on DF. Indeed, Toady needs less distractions from our childish issues. But one harsh announcement should bump us back a bit. Not to mention moderators would require about the same amount of effort if not more(Searching for somebody to do it, weighing the pros and cons of various members, etc). so how about this: If things get out of hand, Toady gives us a harsh announcement. If problems continue, moderators.

 Still, moderators could be helpful before that point.

 Gah, I'm not sure what to think here. Let me just raise the comical idea that was once put forward that I would make a good moderator. Bah.

[Squeegy]

I disagree with removing Move Topic. If we get new mods, what's the point? It's useful if you post in the wrong forum.

[Jay]

I disagree with removing Move Topic. If we get new mods, what's the point? It's useful if you post in the wrong forum.

What?
Nobody's said anything about removing the entire functionality.
Just the "Post a redirection topic" thing.

[Neonivek]

with over 440,000 posts and 7,000 members, I'm considering it safe to say we could do with non-Toady moderators

How many of these guys are "Active members"?

[Jay]

with over 440,000 posts and 7,000 members, I'm considering it safe to say we could do with non-Toady moderators

How many of these guys are "Active members"?

Discussed; and I'm not going to go through 240-odd pages of members to weed out ones without X number of posts to come up with an accurate number in that regard.
I was putting emphasis on that 440,000 posts thing for a reason.

[penguinofhonor]

I would say no more than 1000 of those members are active, including lurkers, but that's not important.

I don't want mods yet. I hate mods. They cause problems. If we need mods, make me one because I'd never use my powers. Unless people are regularly screaming (non-joking) insults at each other's parentage, I'll almost never do anything. The only mod power I would use regularly would be moving topics to the correct forum if they're in the wrong one.

[Faces of Mu]

Toady mods pretty well and quite maturely. I'm honestly not that upset with the boards to call for this.

On another note, I'm beginning to wonder if all this frustration about the boards is coming from boredom, and maybe even not having a new version to play? I'm not blaming Toady, I'm trying to point out that this emphasis on post etiquette and demanding only original suggestions might be coming from people's impatience and a need to be distracted by something more important.

If my own behaviour is anything to go by, then other players are probably running DF in the background in windowed mode and checking various boards for something to fill the time between events in the game (for me, waiting for dwarves to either make enough blocks or finish that section of wall/floor I've ordered at 15fps).

Another impact on our group impatience might be the fact that there's more players who have been around long enough to see a lot of redundancy. A few years ago there weren't as many posters and responses were still of the "please try searching" quality. Now we've got more players saying it more often and it appears like we're getting more upset but maybe there are just more of us saying the same valid comment with some of us not liking the way others do it.

[Tormy]

I got the impression he was avoiding it as long as possible, as moderators can cause a lot of issues. And drama, depending on the members.
 

Yeah, I agree....while we are talking about this, what about Toady's brother - ThreeToe? He could be an excellent moderator. 
Also jay, you are overreacting this "moderator question". This forum is very peaceful and decent compared to most of the gaming forums.

[Duke 2.0]

 I'm sure he means it more of a concern for the future, if this trend continues. I could see us using some moderators if things get out of hand, which the VN Mobile Battle Fortress could be a sign of. Still, I would prefer moderators later rather than sooner.

[Granite26]

I dislike authority m'self, plus the fact that, to the best of my knowlege, none of the (suggestions board) fixes that have been discussed would require or even be assisted by moderators.

The whole point in setting up a wiki is to enable everybody to work on the arrangement, and sub threads have been effectively nixed because of the searching issues.

[Neonivek]

Another issue with Moderators is that Toady for the most part left the rules vague

Pretty much anything gone in this forum as long as you weren't being a jerk (or doing anything illegal)

Moderators means that he very well may have to solidify the rules and beat out specific codes of conduct.