Tony,
Rolf does not moderate this specific board ..

There is a difference between tossing offensive points of view and boorish or disagreeable points of view.

The F16's got their panties in a bunch and decided to moderate their forum to stop what they saw as boorish and disagreeable behavior that they felt injured their class image .... end result... very short sighted...the chilling effect was noticeable. nobody pays much attention any longer. Moreover, if they tossed a handful of posts since then ... I would be stunned.
Not much good comes from trying to regulate speech that is on the topic.

However, moderating offensive speech and deleting or sending it to the political thread is more in the lines of housekeeping.... I think of it as pulling weeds.

moderating the personal attacks of one participant on the other is a grey area... (Sam vs Wouter) (Wouter vs WF) (Wouter vs Bill Roberts) (Macca vs the F16 crowd)

When the attacks just become personal... eg... the classic "JANE... YOU IGNORANT SLUT" not much positive happens. I don't believe any of those posts were tossed... The participants basically quit.

Not much good comes about when people quit or when the moderator has to step in and stop the crap!

Self regulation is the best solution. Props again to Bacho for deleting his tag line.