Kevin, your posting is, as ever, considered and thought provoking. I do challenge a couple of points though.

While I agree to a certain extent about your pub analogy dismissal I would like to point out that, in other ways, the analogy is sound. It is where people from all walks of life meet. Of those people some are your friends who you will gravitate towards, some are acquaintances who you will pass the time of day with and some are just not your kind; those you avoid if possible. If too many of these latter types take over, you will stop coming. Which is where the moderators come in. They are the management who will step in with friendly advice or, where required, break up a fight and lay down the law.

The second thing is that it is OK to use Mudcat as a sounding board but, as we see all too often, an idea is posted, only to

A) have it interpreted in ways that were never intended
B) offend someone who then takes the buff or
C) start a flame war amongst a handful of people who then take over the thread.

Not sure how these things can be addressed but maybe a limit on thread length or the number of postings one person can make to that thread would help. What do you think? Joe, is that something Max could do?