It seems things are hotting up on this thread now which is good as it is healthy to debate these things and hopefully something good can come out of it. This was the prime objective of the thread.

One one hand it is comforting that the moderators can be contacted over breaches of TOS but worrying if they have ignored pleas for help in the past. It is even more worrying if they have the power to delete a gallery without warning, I would have thought that a warning was an act of courtesy. I wouldn't expect that moderators on any site would restort to deleting a gallery, let alone this one.

However, I'm am sure that the moderators on here do a splendid job and I certainly have no problem with what they do at the moment. If pleas for help are ignored by moderators then this should be followed up by the user.

It's a bit difficult to summarise things so far as it all depends on how the user receiving bad comments reacts to them but basically it' seems to be as follows:
(1) If you can't ignore the comment then site mail the person who posted it and ask for an explanation. I would think that this should solve 99% of queries. This could also apply to the situation where people leave low ratings but say that the image is excellent.
(2) If no joy is obtained from contacting the culprit then get in touch with the site moderators who I am sure will do their best to mediate.

Long may this debate continue as it's certainly getting very interesting. I'd be interested to hear what the other moderators thoughts are on this matter.

Also, many thanks to those who have contributed so far ...