* Talk with and to users. Not about them, and not down to them.
    * A thread with controversial content is not to be forbidden because it contains controversial content and the potential for conflict. We had working threads on religion, politics, sexuality . . . It's not about topics---
    * It's about the users. They write the posts. If they post in an undesirable way in a certain topic, do not lock the topic to make it stop but talk to the users instead.
    * Do not delete posts. Unless a post is truly garbage, adds nothing worthwhile at all and has not already been included or replied to in the following posts... if it has already been replied to, it stays. Unless the replies are of the same quality and also add nothing themselves either. But usually they do. In those cases, do not clean and thereby break topics by dumping multiple posts.
    * Do not edit posts in order to say something. It's rude and might not even be noticed by the original poster.
    * The standard approach to any situation: post in places where trouble occurs to show everybpdy what kind of behavior is unwanted. If you can guess that the offending user will read your public post you might not have to do anything else. Otherwise, you can either wait and later write him a private message, or include a private message from the beginning. It doesn't even need to say anything witty, could be a link to your public post or a quote of it.
    * Step back. Slow down, and know when to stop. Trick 17: log out (I do that all the time).


So you're basically saying that we should try not to use any of our moderation powers, not to delete, edit and lock things?? Yeah that's exactly it. They're only secondary options, fallbacks.

You don't need any special board permissions a normal user doesn't have for the most important moderation work. That also means you don't even need to be Moderator in order to moderate.