That depends on perspective, and what you consider trolling. Yeah...the 5 dollars is a great filter for the vast majority of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory[1] posters, but that just narrowed posters and moderation down to a particular echo chamber (not unlike HN, fwiw). If you are down with the content/tone of the majority of MF posts, you prolly think it's great. But just like HN, there are posters with 'cred' who can say most anything (things I would definitely consider a troll), the 'little people' who can say things, including trolling, as long as they don't deviate to far from orthodoxy, and the unclean who get moderated away (hey...they paid 5 bucks so can't just punt them). They have done a remarkable job at maintaining the illusion that they're some moderation utopia for a long time.
Sounds like you have an axe to grind with some of the political or ideological positions of the people who run Metafilter. I never said it was run as a user-administered democracy, it's run by a core group of about five people who also own the servers. It's their pet project.
It's their pet project with their pet axe to grind. I said as much. If you disagree specifically with the points I made about moderation, which was all I commented on, then cite where I'm wrong. Otherwise, accept it's just as much an echo chamber as all the others and not some magical moderation utopia is made out to be by it's uncritical fanbois. But "you just don't agree with their politics", which mostly I do, is just sad, lame apologist crap.
