I resort to sarcasm partly out of habit and partly because I don't expect to win this issue, and sarcasm consoles me somehow.

You say that moderating history shows that abuse is rare. I don't agree. Threads have been ended prematurely, with moderators giving themselves the last word on the issue at hand. That's an abuse. Moderators have threatened action when threats weren't justified or affected participants who were doing nothing wrong. Conflicts with users who had the "wrong" opinions were escalated when they could have been well, moderated.

Entire threads that were not off-topic have been moved to Off-Topic. The titles of threads have been changed, having the effect of encouraging Off-topic discussions.

Bad behavior on the part of those pro-Nokia has been tolerated while bad behavior on the part of those anti-Nokia has been punished.

My one and only official complaint about the action of a moderator (who I actually think was mostly a good moderator, by the way) was completely ignored -- at least, I never received a response to my complaint. This was an abuse.

I'm glad that people like Texrat and others try to moderate moderately. But they are not perfect, and the atmosphere on this site has been affected by the style of moderation, I think. It alarms me when other people on this site want stronger action and less freedom. Don't tell anyone, but I think that the movement of off-topic topics off the list of active topics has resulted in an improvement.

I don't think that stronger action is needed.