[tgreer]

I'm not picking the topics, Lottis... you can see the topic by looking at the title of the thread. This one is "...discussion of staying on topic". The "mentor" discussion is a different thread. If you, I, or anyone else wants to talk about something else, we start another thread. I'm not being dogmatic, that's just how forums work.

Ok, I'm really very curious. Try, if you can, to forget any impression you may have formed about me... respond to what I'm saying, not that it's me saying it:

Does anyone see the difference between an official, corporate, technical resource site, and a general-purpose (or even niche) site that primarily exists as a self-contained community? If not - then we'll never see eye-to-eye. If so, though:

Don't you think that this site, owned by a software vendor, and used by that vendor as their official site for product customization, needs to have perhaps a different standard, in terms of thread moderation, than, as an example, a gaming clan site? A car fan forum? A general-purpose discussion group?

I use the word "professional" a lot, and I use it mainly as an antonym to "amateur". Note, I'm placing no value judgments on either term. I'm an amateur at lots of things which I enjoy immensely: publishing haibun, writing for school textbooks, playing guitar. I'm not insulted when someone calls me an amateur at any of those things, and I'm not insulting anyone who runs an amateur forum.

I'm a professional, though, at programming, and at site administration/moderation, and have been for decades (I ran some very high-traffic Compuserve Forums, pre-internet). One of the tools I use in my profession is vBulletin. When I visit either of their sites, I expect professional-level help and support for the software I've purchased.

In my opinion, part of the problem with .org is that it is not professional-grade. It's run more like a gaming clan for vb hacks. I think that needs to change, and that part of the change from an amateur hacker club to a professional software support forum, is better thread moderation.

How you run your site really isn't relevant to how this site should be run, is it?