@ Lisa - I agree about active moderation but on a fast moving current affairs forum this presents a problem, in the UK at least. If a site is actively moderated and something defamatory is missed then the complainant has a case for defamation against the site. Active moderation also generates a huge workload. It's therefore important here to only moderated based on reports from the community although, of course, the admins are part of the community so can report things themselves.

> Linearizing it just sucks. @Donal - it actually makes it much more readable. http://notthetalk.com is modelled on the old UK Guardian newspaper discussion forum. The folks there think it's pretty much the perfect forum format despite being something like 15 years old. Readability not chrome is the key.

Not all forums are horrible looking. My own forum - http://talk.notthetalk.com - is designed to be very clean and easy to read. Moreover, it was built with the help of the user community and is based on the late 90s design of the now defunct Guardian Unlimited. No gamification either.