There are sites with full-time moderators that do the job pretty well, actually.

There have often (OFTEN) been times when I've wanted to ask someone if they truly thought their comment contributed to the discussion, and if not, why did they post it? At the very least, ask them to reflect.

I almost never do, because then I'm just cluttering the forum with more posts of my own that aren't contributing to the conversation.

And really, it's not my place to do so, regardless of whether I think it would help or not.

I do try to ask myself that question, and have edited or deleted comments as a result. I'm not perfect about it, but I'm better than I was, and the only reason I started making the attempt was because pg (the owner of the board) has indicated he'd like to see that.

But it would be interesting if there were some sort of feedback mechanism from active moderators that did the same thing, but only to the poster, not in the discussion.

I honestly think if you had respected mods who did that sort of thing you'd see a notable improvement in the quality of this forum.