Even without moderation, this forum had been the most civil forum I had been on until politics and personal bickering came along.

I've been a moderator on a much larger forum for trucks for many years. I let the members have a lot of rope and don't like to intervene. Sometimes, when I get a complaint or see a thread going off the rails or it's getting personally offensive, I just contribute a post on the thread. My presence in the thread is usually enough to straighten things out. If not, I post a reminder of the rules. If it has gone too far already, the member gets the appropriate penalty which is detailed in the published forum rules.

Forums generally use long-time stable members for moderators. It's all volunteer work. Often it's a group of members that moderate, which makes it a voting type of disciplinary action system. I'm all for such a system here. The time for moderation is overdue IMO.