I'm not going to vote on this, but as brighthand was mentioned in a couple of posts above I want to just add that the moderators on brighthand are doing an excellent jobs. There's absolutely no dictatorship tendencies there whatsoever.

What the brighthand moderators do (in addition to killing spam) is mostly to merge threads where appropriate, and move postings to the correct forum (e.g. when people post about a Nokia phone in the Palm forum - there's a Nokia forum there too), and occasionally split threads when they veer off. In the years when I've frequented there (on and off) I've yet to see a problem with their moderation system. Doesn't mean that it's needed here though, it's all up to Reggie of course.

Sometimes the "something wrong" is just sheer size.

Some threads like N95 versus N800 get contineously started while they can be discussed in competitors thread too, and the arguments get rehashed and rehashed. Instead, some centralisation might be preferable.

Heck, it wouldn't take too complicated a script to automate most of the N8x0 vs. threads.

What makes you think that hasn't been done?

What's a moderator?
What would a mod do here?

One of the greatest complaints here seemed to be that people did not adequately search before they asked questions
With the feature that pops up similar threads and the Google search button that has declined.

Have I missed a spate of flame wars?
Has the forum been hit by a deluge of peeps selling apples?
Did someone try and sell an 810 in the Apps thread?

I'm presently laid up with a back injury and I spend an inordinate amount of time on this and three other forums. This forum is one of the calmest going. One fix that I could see to improve the forums would be to move the thread rating button to the bottom. Virtually nobody rates threads.

Due to the nature of the beast there seems to be little difference in where a LOT of N8?0 info is pertinent and even N770. Only occasionally do I see a post which is flagrantly in the wrong place.

If Reggie thinks he needs moderators he should ask and appoint.

Right now we should continue to tell peeps to search, reflash, and the problem will be fixed with the next build.

I don't rate tags because I find ratings 1) lame 2) useless. Tags are much better, and I use them. Ratings don't say much, if anything, about the quality of a thread because such is very subjective and there are tends to be only positive ratings therefore threads are either good, or unrated/good/bad. Individually thanked posts bear more meaning IMO. In the end, there is choice for preference

On about any active forum I know there are active forum moderators. Mind you, I'm not saying they're all good moderators. A solution is that you can have moderators assign simple tasks without them becoming authoritive or power mongers by having anonymous ones. Admins can still see in logs who did what just in case its required.

Now, you can have moderators:
1) Merging same threads, or closing new threads while topic already existant.
2) Closing a thread because TS didn't prove he adequately searched enough, or because question is already asked elsewhere (similar problem as #1).
3) Update FP to reflect current status of project.
4) Yes, there are a few obvious trolls/flamebaits, but that is the least problem. I like it when people learn to cope with such behaviour. You have to learn to ignore a person, or an argument.

Frankly, I don't even believe Reggie has to ask and appoint. He can do that silently withouting having anyone to know this. Basically nothing will change as it appears for the user except the forum is more clean, while a (potential) moderator cannot get some kind of ego boost by becoming a celebrity (some dramatic people just love being the center of attention) because he/she works behind the screen. Instead, the good feeling is gotten from seeing a clean forum, and that is worth a lot as well.

You can have public moderators too, but then they also have responsibilities to the public, and be able to take criticism.

EDIT: regarding search, is it possible for the search engine to search into the wiki as well?

That was meant as Reggie would have to ask someone to be a mod and give them the controls and capability.

Maybe he is powerful enough to just order people to be mods.

But I'm pretty sure he would have to communicate with them.