A split is a split, regardless of who did it. The person doing it changes very little on the result. Indeed, it would have been ever better if a mod had done it, because it *did* originate in another thread where it was slightly off-topic and now if we reply here we can't see what was said in the other thread.
Back with the d-list, we didn't need mods to do thread splits. I don't see why mods would suddenly be an essential part in what the definition of a thread split is.
Its a simple matter of semantics on a forum. Anyone can start a new topic to discuss something that has diverged from the original topic but is worth talking about. Only a mod can "split" a topic, that is remove the posts out of the original thread and split them off into a new one. I would have split the original thread myself, but I'm not a mod for that sub forum.
