I was thinking about what David said before about people having their own forums that they moderate. Then, people were worried about there being competition between forums and wondered how things would be handled regarding topics. It hit me:

Have standard forums, arranged by topics and moderated by people according how things are being set up now. In addition, what about forums that are open to individuals, who set the tone, encourage discussion, and do the moderating (unless there's a problem with that person, then a Super Duper Moderator steps in)? It wouldn't be exactly like a blog, where someone writes a lot and people post comments. It would be more back-and-forth, free-ranging discussion steered by the forum leader. If people like the discussion, they could join it. If they don't, they won't. Sort of like wandering through a party and joining in conversations at various tables. If the moderator decided to move on to other things and not run the forum any longer, that person could simply lock the thread. If people who had been talking wanted to continue, a new "leader" would start up a different thread. The thread could be set to notify the person when someone posts, so it wouldn't be like a moderator situation where someone had to be on the forum regularly, which is one reason being a moderator doesn't appeal to me. I don't have the time and ability to commit to something like that.

While this could be done by anybody, it could appeal to people who don't have a lot of time or who are maybe visiting on a limited basis, such as "What's it like to work with David?" or "A discussion with someone David knows who wants to promote a project." But it could also follow people's interests, like if someone wanted to be a geek dating advice "columnist" or if someone wanted to discuss something they're doing creatively.

This could be taken care of by a general chat area of the forum, but I thought I'd share this idea and see what people think.