I think this is why the HLP formula has done so well in the past few years. We've had our problems with this forum from time to time but I'm personally a fan of self moderation with as little intervention as required. Sometimes it is...if it weren't then this place would probably be a seething mass of flamewars. That stuff gets controlled but I think its been healthy to let some of the rest of it go. To a point of course.
I've found that more heavily-moderated forums [and i've been to a few
ultra-heavily moderated forums in my time] tend to have the exact opposite effect that what they intend. There's more flamewars, more assholes, and more ****tards per capita than i've seen on HLP since I first got here a year and a half ago. Stronger moderation begets stronger resistance from idiots, it's as simple as that.