Conversation

I'm seeing a disturbing trend toward automating or outsourcing moderation on even small communities and forums

They either try to find some kind of plugin (hello Akismet) or let some underpaid, overworked drones interpret what's acceptable behavior. Or even worse, they ignore it completely

I've been a forum admin for years and it's a lot of work. If you want it done right, you better pay attention to your community. There's no automated thing that's going to take the place of a human moderator