It's really getting a bit out of control.
Granted, the Users who abuse the forums and derail threads for their own masturbatory purposes are just as to blame as the moderators.
Still, it's getting to be REALLY obnoxious how frequently I've gone to Submit a reply to a thread/topic, only to discover that the discussion has been locked or deleted during the time I was writing a response.
If you've been around these forums for the past year, you know I'm the *last* person you'd probably expect to say that we could use a little less moderation around here.
If the majority of threads in the Politics and Religion section of the forums are just to be deleted or locked, I understand why. But in that case, do we even really need a Politics and Religion section?
Wouldn't it be a better solution to just topic-ban the offensive and/or de-railing morons that "contribute" to these threads just to see how many pages long the thread can be?
If topic-bans and/or User bans are either ineffective at changing User behavior, or too time-consuming for the moderators (i.e. if Lock/deletions are being used "because it's easier"), then I re-propose my old idea of implementing the "adult table" and "kiddie table" forums' permissions levels.
And if none of those suggestions are palatable, for whatever reasons, just scrap the Politics and Religion section entirely.