One thing I think may not be being done right: moderation in cases where the moderators reckon a thread (*) is going too far off-topic. (Note I'm
not saying all cases of going off-topic - most cases only involve a minor detour for a post or two and are generally being tolerated. That's a sensible approach and is pretty much what happened on TMF as well - though probably with some exceptions for particular ways of going off-topic that experience told the TMF moderators were likely to 'blow up' if not stopped early.)
What's generally happening is that the moderators are inserting moderator notes saying something along the lines of "This is going off-topic - take it elsewhere". That is little different from an approach the TMF moderators took from time to time - they didn't have moderator notes available, so they would post something similar, sometimes just as a reminder, sometimes as a conditional 'thread stopper' saying to treat the thread as closed unless one had something on-topic to say, sometimes as an unconditional 'thread stopper' saying that the thread was closed. (The TLF equivalent of that last one is locking the thread as well as posting the moderator note.)
What actually happened on TMF was that such moderator posts almost invariably killed the off-topic discussion - which was extremely frustrating when an interesting discussion arose about an off-topic side issue, but understandable because the existing part of the off-topic discussion was stuck on the original board/thread, quite a bit of work to reproduce in a new thread and even if that work was done, the reproduction couldn't really be very good. And the moderator notes on TLF are generally having the same effect as far as I can see, for pretty much the same reasons.
What I think would be better is that
as soon as the moderators identify a thread as going too far off-topic, they move some off-topic posts from it into a new thread on whatever the off-topic discussion is about (depending on what it's about, that new thread might or might not be in the same forum as the original one). At least the most recent off-topic post should be moved, and preferably further ones going back as long as they're clearly off-topic, and ideally moderator notes are added to the original thread saying that some posts have been moved out and where they have been moved to, and to the new thread saying where it has come from.
I do realise that this won't be practical in cases where the off-topic material is mixed up with original-discussion material in the same posts - it does depend on there being posts that are entirely or very largely off-topic to move. So there would still be cases that need to either be tolerated or dealt with by a moderator note calling people to order.
I do also realise that it may be impractical because it's too much moderator work - that's why I said "may not be being done right" above rather than "is not being done right". But I think it gives the best hope of allowing both the original discussion and the off-topic discussion to proceed smoothly, so it should be worth it as long as it doesn't involve too much extra work (how much extra work it involves is not something I have a feel for). And I emphasise "as soon as" above because the sooner it's done, the less work it is and the lower the chance of the original discussion being swamped and killed off by the off-topic one.
Of course, ideally posters would stick the off-topic material in new threads to start with, reducing extra moderator work to a minimum. Facilities to make it easier to do so would be useful - e.g. I can imagine a "reply with quote in new topic" facility that started the quote with "<XXX> wrote in <link>" and stuck an "<author> has replied in <link>" note in the original thread. Though it would probably be quite a bit of work, and it would need some careful design to ensure that one didn't get a dozen new threads on the same off-topic diversion!
Finally, I should emphasise that
none of this is intended as criticism, just as constructive suggestions that may (or may not) be feasible. TLF is already a very good replacement for TMF, and better than it in a number of ways - thanks!
(*) Using 'thread' to mean a phpBB topic - the wording is liable to become somewhat confusing when 'topic' sometimes means all the posts in a thread and sometimes means what they're supposed to be about! E.g. IMHO phrases like "the thread goes off-topic" and "the thread's topic" read much more easily than "the topic goes off-topic" and "the topic's topic"!
Gengulphus
