Keeping thread discipline is not much to ask for, is it?
Actually, it is, because it will only promote even more meta-discussion. At some point I'm going to have to decide for every comment whether it should be in the melting season thread, or perhaps the meaningless chatter thread is better, or wait, let's do it in the long-range forecast thread, or maybe I should just create yet another thread to fit that particular comment. Snip, snip, snip, please take it elsewhere, you're banned, and you're banned as well.
And then of course, some people will get upset that I put that comment there, and others will be angry that I didn't put this comment here. And then I set up rules, and people will start waving them at me, so I need to add more clarification, a couple of paragraphs, exclusions, exceptions. I will never be able to do it right, and the concern trolls will whine and wail, like the Philistines in the temple, until Judgment Day. And that's when things really fall apart.
So, what we're going to do, is continue as is, as flawed as things may be. If people are genuinely interested, they will be willing to work for it. Everybody needs to work for it, not just me.
And if someone doesn't like it, they can do something else, which is a very healthy thing to do, considering how noxious all this Internet stuff is.