I've only been a member for 3 or 4 years, but I love this site, and its friendliness. Rusty, Elle, Pigale, Jazzgirl...(sorry to offend everyone else but I can't mention you all !)...you're all like neighbours, actually friendlier than neighbours in many cases...
The site really does work well at the moment. Very well. Occasionally I've been involved in a stushie myself. And offline I've discussed the issue with Norah, and she's understood the issues. Which I think is pretty clever for someone who is just reading the written word from an e-mail. And I've remained able, despite a few quarrels, to contribute to the site. To my mind that is a very special kind of discrimination, one that is person-to-person, and there is a certain amount of belief and trust extended. I try to justify that.
Some years ago I was a member of a sports site with moderators. My experience was that the moderators were worse than most of the membership : the site became a clique. All sorts of comments were deleted, members sacked...
Delete permission is only to be considered as a last resort, and I've witnessed this permission misused on Answerbank, been subject of it, where a clique influences the people running the site.
So, I'm firmly in the camp of "if it works don't change it." And to be fair, what harm is the spam doing us ? I'm just frustrated that these Indian chappies won't give me good advice about curry houses, which seems a bit selfish if you ask me. After all they're taking something from the site, so really they should give something back...just don't have any ethics these Jaipur chappies...