I haven't been on the boards in awhile because I've been busy, but this thread caught my eye. I've been the administrator and a lead moderator for a couple of large message boards. Here's what I've learned over the years...

1. Moderators need to have a visual presence on the boards, whether through moderation or participation, and need to be able to act quickly.

2. When things start to get slightly out of a hand, gentle reminder posts by a moderator usually keep things from getting out of control.

3. Singular inappropriate posts should be edited and contain a clear reason within the edited post signed by the moderator.

4. If a bunch of posts get out of hand, go ahead and delete them, but be sure to have a moderator post explaining what was deleted and why in the spot where the posts had been removed.

5. Constant repeat offenders need suspensions.

6. Forum suspension lengths need to scale up as the number of bans increases.

PMs tend to help with newbies, but not with habitual offenders.

Moderation needs to be public, not secretive. When people get a slap on the wrist in public, they tend to learn their lesson.