[After a brisk nap]

To respond to what Fum posted, I'm not sure I believe that there's a "town cop syndrome" on these forums. Mods are always going to make some decisions you disagree with, and some mods may even follow a systematic policy you don't agree with. That doesn't mean they're just making up reasons to exercise their authority.

My theory is that mods and regular posters just have very different experiences of the forum. One part of this is that mods have to do a lot of work, while posters are just here recreationally. Another is that (like I mentioned in the post above) the mods see a lot more of the stuff that goes down behind the scenes. Yet another is that when mods make a call, they know why they are doing it, while regular posters can usually only guess. Another is that the mods (I assume) know each other to some extent, while most posters don't know many of the mods that well; what their personalities are, which things push their buttons, what their philosophies on the forums are, who they are when not on the job. Knowing people tends to make them less intimidating. Of course, the mods tend to have been around for a long time, and remember things most other posters never experienced. And finally, the mods have the power, and regular posters don't.

That last point is pretty crucial. Closing a thread doesn't seem like a big deal when you can do it at the flick of a finger, and the thread had run its course anyway. You know if there's something else that needs to be said, you can always reopen it. It just takes flipping a bit, really. But when you have a thread closed on you, there's nothing you can do. That response you had been composing in your head? Throw it away. You can't start a new thread without risking the ire of the mods. The chance of getting anybody to change their mind is vanishingly small. It's not a simple task of flipping a bit to you, it's an irrevocable change in the world.

Once you hang around for a while you realize that it's not such a big deal after all, since most discussions worth having eventually come around again. You start to see the pattern in moderator action. The close of a thread comes to seem less like an unappealable "End of discussion!" than a chance to start fresh. Splitting, joining and moving threads starts to seem like tidying up more than any kind of censorship. (The recent move of all KQIX discussion into one thread being a case in point. I was positively grateful for my posts being moved.)

The one thing I doubt I'll ever get over is having posts deleted. I don't remember the last time it happened on this forum, but it always leaves me seething. Something like "I deleted all the posts that were off-topic to the thread" strikes me as a clear example of mods abusing their authority. If there's one thing I expect from moderators, it's respect for the writings we've chosen to publish on this forum, even if they may seem frivolous. I don't think anything should be deleted unless it's against the forum rules and also deeply offensive or hurtful. Even if it's just two forum members having a fight, I don't think it should be deleted. Move it to its own thread, lock it and tell them to carry it on over PM if they must; just please don't erase posts they've put energy into writing.

But I digress. I think the mods here do a generally good job. Maybe there's some unnecessary locking of threads that don't really seem to be harming anybody, but I doubt that the reason for this is that mods feel a need to exercise their authority.