Maybe there just needs to be some form of "crap" filter put on by the moderators.
The biggest problem I find is that the topics veer off topic within no time at all (hey, look at this topic as an example- I've managed to start moaning, someone else is talking about starting a topic about local authority's treatment of disabled children). The trouble is that there are parts of topics that start discussing things that I'm interested in. Even if they were started off as something completely different. So unless I read every single topic, and every single post, I tend to miss out on things that are genuinely interesting to me.
And that's where the problem lies- I'm really not interested in the rest of the "crap" (although I understand it's important to other people) but there's some things on here that are fantastic to me. But I cannot be bothered trawling through all the crap to get to it. And I've got a feeling that quite a few people think like that.
I will give Stu one big bit of credit- he was pretty harsh in keeping things "on topic" which meant it a lot easier to choose what to read in the forum. If there was a topic about cheese then everyone knew what that topic was about cheese. It may veer off a little bit, but it would get back on track pretty quickly. As a suggestion it would help a
lot if it was done here.
But hey, I hardly post (although I'd probably post more if I could find relevant topics) so my point of view probably doesn't count for much!!!