EDIT: I wonder if there's an analogy here for democracies and recent US legislation: the most important things to moderate are the things that are popular but subtly undermine the site's purpose.
(Oh noes! I've added politics to a meta-discussion! [dons asbestos long johns and ducks])
MetaFilter (one of the longest-running communities on the web) has a policy where all meta talk goes to a separate silo (MetaTalk) so that discussions on actual topics don't get derailed. StackOverflow does the same thing.
Why? Let's talk about this.
EDIT: I wonder if there's an analogy here for democracies and recent US legislation: the most important things to moderate are the things that are popular but subtly undermine the site's purpose.
(Oh noes! I've added politics to a meta-discussion! [dons asbestos long johns and ducks])