Hardly an increase, more of a change. The trend over the past maybe year or so have been toward increasing moderation, at times so much so that it seemed there was a style clash or whatever among the mods. Abge took over forum moderation on his own for a little while and it seemed that moderation became more organized, but I don't know that it necessarily decreased. Abge retired and Goldie shortly thereafter, and at that point a lot of crazy stuff happened, and to try to shore things up, we got together and wrote up some basic forum moderation policies:
• Do not make personal threats toward members or their families. This is a Diplomacy site and no members should have to worry about actions taken against them in real life.
• Do not post or make reference to personal information about another member without their specific consent.
• Do not make targeted threads that are abusive toward another member, group of members, or social group. This includes but is not limited to posts regarding sexuality, race, and religion.
• Creating an account for the sole purpose of advertising goods or services is not allowed, but a member can post an advertisement as long as he/she does not spam the forum by posting the same message repeatedly.
• Punishment for infractions may range from a warning, a temporary silence of 48 hours each time to a ban at the discretion of the site owner. The moderator staff retains sole discretion in taking punitive measures. Silences will prevent forum posts as well as private messages. Bans are an instrument of last resort and the moderator staff will seek to avoid issuing them where reasonably possible.
These are all mostly common sense in my opinion, but there became a need to put this in writing as opposed to moderate based on the common sense rule, and I think that helped everyone on the forum see a little bit more of a clear threshold as to what can and can't be said. That's not an increase in moderation to me but a more organized and balanced way that the forum is taken care of and kept as family-friendly as this group of crazies can be.
Otherwise, as new rules come in place, inevitably a few people push the envelope, and some people got silenced and others banned for taking their antics too far. Their absence from the forum is the change I see more than anything else. Otherwise, it's those five new rules.
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