Feedback is very very important. A feedback forum allows the users of a service to comment on the things they like and the things they don't like. It is reasonable to assume that the moderators of such a service would wish to provide the most suitable service to satisfy the most people, and this is what a feedback forum allows them to do!
Obviously not everyone can be pleased at all times. This is because everyone is different and everyone has equally different preferences and ideas as to how things should be run. If we were all the same, then forums would be a very boring place to chat in afterall!! What a feedback forum does, is allow moderators and developers to collate all of the positive and negative feedback from users and make a general judgement as to what would make the MOST people happy. Not everyone will get what they want that way, but hey that's life. The reason governments are voted for in a democratic society is for the simple reason that you can't please everyone!
The loss of a feedback forum is, in my opinion, a mistake. What we really need here is to send a strong message out to all the trolls, trouble makers and nay sayers - and that message is YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE. Unfortunately there is a very thin line between what is classed as trolling and what is classed as strong debate - the latter of which can sometimes be acceptable, the former of which is NEVER acceptable. The reality of this is that it has to be left to moderators to make a decision as to what is trolling for the sake of causing argument, and what is merely debate/discussion. The moderator's decision at all times should be final, and any problems with that should be taken up with them directly.
In hind sight, I think I would have posted my original moderation suggestions directly to all the moderators rather than in a feedback forum, because my intension was never to cause a flame war. Which leads me on to a possible solution to this crisis!!!
Create a feedback forum where originally posts are only readable by moderators. Once a moderator has read the post, if he/she decides that more feedback is required, then the post is released into the feedback forum for user comments. If the moderator feels the feedback issue can be dealt with directly (as in with the original poster), or if the feedback post is more an attempt to cause argument than leave constructive feedback comments, then the moderator leaves the post "only readable to moderators" and contacts the poster direct with an answer (if one is even required)
That, I feel, solves your feeback forum woes
Brian
