Back when the G&M launched online, comment moderation was rare, and there was a healthy group of commenters in here, having some really good (and vigorous) debates. One could learn a lot, back then. Some of the commenters knew as much as the reporters, and then some.  There's still a few of the old guard left (Dr. Demento, Thomas D'arcy McGee) but most have moved on or left for extended periods and came back, like me, on occasion.

I left in 2009, because the moderation had gotten so bad that dozens of perfectly reasonable posts of mine would vanish in any given day. You'd re-submit the same comment five times, hoping to get the odd reasonable moderator. If you challenged the common dogma of the day, you were lucky to get 1 post in 3 approved, whether you were researched or not.

Civil Comments is slightly better, but any system that has a hard trigger for removal, ie 5 'uncivil' ratings, is still a popularity contest. Replacing 1 censor with 5 censors isn't progress, IMO.