I think that the moderation system will prove itself (or go down trying) when the next flamefest starts - probably something on the order of 'foo is not open source; therefore it sucks' or 'OSes other than linux suck'.

If reasonable discussion manages to poke its head out from one of those subjects, you'll know that the system works.

(I just hope that sufficiently many moderators are willing to poke their way through the morass of Anonymous Coward postings to highlight the ones worth reading.)