I appreciate your compliment. Thank you very much. I feel that any drama here would be representative of any new and popular community that forms. The minimal restrictions on content, however, is what drew me in at first.
Moderation is coming along. I guess my aversion to it stems from the fact that I do similar work outside of HIVE to a degree. I've seen the adverse extremes IRL with discovery AND moderation. Definitely take the fun out of things, but with community support and the development of standard operating guides perhaps the tribe as a whole can support versus a select few.
You have to tip your hat to the Ecency group. They made a stellar product and Leprechaun is doing fine work. Have you seen his test platform of POB-Ecency? The link is in his article entitled, "Ecency to POB: Come See the new POB Front End". It's exciting progress.
I definitely see your position on avoiding the platform and respect your decision in doing so. I've made mistakes on other tribes and wasted some effort. Another thing that drew me to the group was that it was new. I couldn't resist the challenges presented in Cal's WOTW contest and now here I am. Know that there are people here that welcome you and look forward to your engagement in POB, as well as, daddy HIVE.