Congratulations to BRF for completing 25 years.
Mentioning moderators seems an incomplete list without Suraj and JE Menon, disha as mainsite crew, Sachin as webmaster (there may be others, these are the only handles I see with some regularity).
As for Haridas' point regarding utility, I can only give a personal reckoning, first visited brf around late 2014, was still in college then and stayed on for spite on the benis and pest threads initially, its not a happy story but it is a truthful one. Once I had finished with them, i tentatively branched out, read all the archives of the thread, understanding indian thought or something akin to it, read brihaspati's, atri's works and some ultra cool theories on krishna wrecking the eastern power of india and shifting it to the north-west axis, but this axis being incomplete or unstable; i registered shortly after that, got a job around the same time. I would say that my interest in geopolitics was strengthened and deeply influenced by the discussions on here. But it is a deeper drink that many care to endeavour, I led many thoughtful lads to these shores, in varied technical professions, none seem to have stuck around.
With regards to the quality of discussion, many of the things under serious discussion here occur only in isolated corners, sm has utility, but the masses are sheep, they only react to a dopamine hit of outrage, grief, unbounded elation and snide commentary with no thought or observation on the pattern of their posting, something like plato's cave.
Our own discussion can be more improved rather than this being a place of twitter feed aggregation, but then the number of posters participating is on an all-time low.
Finally, I would be remiss to not mention those who made this forum enjoyable for me during my initial years but who no longer post:
Singha, shiv, Peregrine, falijee, Raja Bose, KJo, LokeshC, A_Gupta, pankajs, jamwal.
Also lalmohan and ulaanbaatori
There may be many more from whom I have learned much, sorry gents if i do not remember your handles.
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Fellow was instrumental in writing the rule. Good to see shivering knees of writers of three letter Shitty Bitty regiemes that were designed specifically for Bharat.