The split should have been done this way:
The chamber: heavily modded, even logical fallacies are grounds for dismissal.
The tavern: un-modded, only racist, sexually explicit, or threats should be grounds for warnings or bannings.
Eventually, the chamber would have, I think, a good hardcore membership or 20 - 100 people, who knew how to have a debate without logical fallacies. The moderation wouldn't even be necessary, because most trolls would already be banned from it.
The tavern would also require little moderation, because just about anything would go.
It would also be nice if the chamber required verification, meaning you have to wait a day for a moderator to verify that you have read the rules, and understand you can be banned for breaking them, before letting you post. I really don't appreciate it when debates are broken up by some noob walking in and spouting a bunch of crap, where it is obvious he didn't even read any of the previous posts before deciding to throw in his own worthless two cents.
I know it can be done, because I have seen it done elsewhere. I want it to be done here because I am a history major, and civ is a community of people more interested and aware of history than the general population. But trying to have college level discussions with a half-ass moderation system is a formula for failure.
And I know there are a lot of people that know me, that are thinking "OMG, NeOmega is one to talk!" Yeah, well, I really resent having every single debate that ever happens here being torn down to elementary level discourse. I really resent people who come to these forums and write uneducated opinions. But more than anything, I really hate it when people build strawmen then demand I defend "my words". So when I run across these miserable little fools, I just call them out on it, and get warned or banned for it. But the moderators are too clueless to know an insult when they see one.
And there are many here who also think generalizing insults are acceptable. "people who say that are..." when it is just internet speak for, "I am not allowed to attack you directly, so I will say 'people who think like you (insert insult here)' instead, so the moderators will not get me for attacking the arguer."
It's all the same, and I've brought it up before, only to have some people disagree that they aren't the same.
So now it's
Me: I am educated on the subject
them: people who say that are just full of themselves
Me: Go screw yourself.
Moderator: NeOmega - warned for trolling!
)
) to shifting a large majority of activity to the tavern; which in turn caused the main focus of OT to become even sillier threads than we saw before. 
