Now that I've read them, those responses are great. But... a moderation policy that relies on all users having read all comments on all stories is unrealistic.

Now that I've read them, those responses are great. But... a moderation policy that relies on all users having read all comments on all stories is unrealistic. Just create a page somewhere and say "these are the moderators, they do this when necessary, but most of the time it's not necessary as the community is largely moderated by users, and these are roughly the switches that the users have to control things". I now know, as you've said. But I really wouldn't have guessed that people flag stories as much as they must do, nor that it carries such a penalty. And I'm a fairly heavy user and hadn't seen your comments and responses before.