I agree. About fifteen years ago I was co-moderator of a group that was a mess. Flame wars, off-topic posts. It was a group devoted to one facet of industrial history in the Northeast, When a thread about the best route to Florida from Chicago (???) turned into a thread about where you used to be able to get the best hot dogs, the owner said ENOUGH!! He told me that we had to clean up the group or he was going to delete it.
Moderation works. And we didn't delete many messages. But when we did it was without any explanation. (That just sets off an argument.) We also discovered that some of the borderline abusive posts lost their edge if we just held them, maybe for 24 hours. Then release them and, no one reacted or cared. The discussion had moved on, the participants were no longer steamed up. The trolls gave up, one by one. We had a few left, one or two, but they were mostly ignored as a boring distraction.?
The group became so well-behaved and relevant, a historical society devoted to pretty much the same thing, asked would we be interested in affiliating with them. Become their OFFICIAL message board. Would we be interested? We would!
tommy0421
Tommy Meehan