before the average post degenerates into something unrelated to the original topic? This is the pattern I see, someone posts a topic and within the first three replies someone writes something that someone else doesn't like and the rest of the post turns into a name calling exercise. So, I think it usually about 3 replies before a thread gets sidelined. At that point, I simply scan the rest of the post for a few insightful posters or the mods.