I can understand why the mods may have gotten bored with signing on just to deal with the spam. The site has changed a lot since sachiko and I first registered. There were, at that time, long conversations on varied topics with people agreeing and disagreeing. It seems to have become the custom now for an individual to toss up a post without responding to any other posts. And, of course that post is not responded to either. sachiko attempted to turn a post by OT into a joke thread, but no one added to it, preferring to just post a single joke separately.
The political forum does have two or three people who rant and rail at each other, but little light is generated. And the topics and responses seem to get repetitive, as do the putdowns.
I suspect being a mod must have been interesting at one time. But I can see why folks who are not being paid would be unwilling to sign on here just to police the spam.