rogerd - 6:02 pm on Apr 24, 2006 (gmt 0)

What you really need are members like Webwork who can sustain an entire thread without anyone else posting! ;)

I really think you have hit the major points, Webwork. To bring out the best in people, the discussion needs to be civilized. So, setting and maintaining a high level of friendliness and courtesy is really important. Mods can do that both by ensuring compliance with the TOS (editing/nuking/cautioning, etc.) but also by participating in a positive manner.

Positive feedback to members who make particularly good contributions to the discussion will help. I guess you can think of forum behavior like any other type of behavior - if you reward what's good, and disincent what's bad, you'll end up with an overall improvement.