The mods at THR have been actively discussing the overall "tone" of the place for some weeks now. We've taken certain steps, like issuing warnings to some of our more blatant offenders, and will probably be doing a large-scale prune of the worst of them in the not too distant future. It's difficult to strike a balance between encouraging free discussion, and reining in the trolls and those with quasi-trollish tendencies.
I think most of the problem is due to two factors:
1. The rapid expansion of THR. From a new forum just three years ago, we're up to well over 8,000 active members, which is going some. All the newbies haven't yet learned the "High Road" approach to discussion (which we try to teach by example), and some of them never will, I'm afraid. It makes for moderating headaches.
2. The refusal to "toe the line" by many individualists. They insist on saying what they want to say, when, where and how they want to say it. The fact that it may be inappropriate to do so on THR, or wrong to do so in a particular way, doesn't worry them - they just go ahead and do it. Since they won't listen, we have to administer a cluebat fairly repeatedly to get the message through.
It is a major load on moderators . . . some have "burned out" and taken either a sabbatical, or resigned permanently. Those of us still there have brought on new moderators from time to time, and will be doing so again in the near future, I'm sure. But then we have to choose moderators who will hold to the "High Road" standards we've already established, and make sure that all of us are on the same page, so that there's consistency in moderator actions.
It's quite a job . . .