Before I forget, a panel is no better than an individual mod for making decisions and it would be expected that mods would chat together anyhow and present a united front. This isn't a court and we are not playing for sheep stations so why agonise over it?

That must be another 1c worth, sorry.

It's not possible to 'derail' conversations. Each poster has the choice whether or not to respond to another poster. The presence of irrelevant banter and off topic posts is easily eradicated by a wonderful invention called the scroll wheel.

Even without the use of this invention, the more compulsive posters also have the ability to select which aspects of a post to respond to (or not) and also the ability to converse with other posters on any level they choose.

Those that wish to police the forum and often accuse Graham of bias have I think been put in their place here quite nicely by Graham. The quickest way to silence the dissenters and accusers of bias is to invite them to have a go themselves. In essence, people love to have a whine, but ask them to contribute and they run a mile.

In short, the posting limits are more than adequate to protect the forum. The current moderation is working well, despite the protestations of those with a perplexity for attempting to control everything, and who are conditioned to assert quaint table manners as a measure of superiority.

Foxy,

You often talk about 'expense of others'. Obviously the price is well worth it when, well, my customers for example, always come back for more.

I'm not in favour of the idea if it's going to bring too much regulation to the forum. We're all grown-ups and in my experience so far we generally keep the tone at an acceptable level. The content should be unafraid! We've come through decades of PC. Of course where we need moderation, on legal and privacy issues perhaps, that's another matter, though I doubt Graham needs assistance with that. It might be a good idea to have a court of appeal? so that if GY is perceived to have made a biased call, it can be challenged---but wouldn't he have the final say anyway?
If it is decided to go ahead with the idea, I nominate the inimitable Forrest Gump and TBC for eloquence and wit; Foxy and Examinator for the maudlin middle ground (they make a lovely couple--though the former seems to be avoiding me and the latter accused me (unjustly) of "strident verbosity" :-( ; and for the conservatives, who better than Peter Hume and "man the bilges" Stern?
With such a court presiding, I might even escape the noose!

Dear Houellie,

You're not likely to be in a position
to have something worth saying unless
you stop treating OLO as a urinal here
for your own amusement.

Thanks for demonstrating my point Foxy.

Dear Houellie,

I know you're not an ignorant
heavy-handed creep.
You just play one on the internet.

Anyway, please wait -
I'll ignore you next!