I think it depends on what the content of the thread is. A company should be able to clean up its own threads when required (ie Spondoolies deleting some racist stuff) and its not as if someone can't start a mirrored non moderated thread alongside it. Editorialised threads with an agenda however, shouldn't.
I can agree with that, but we are far enough along the timeline of bitcoin, that a company specifically in the business of producing mining hardware should ask a mod to 'promote' the thread to that level. Or better yet, mods should have the ability to remove the self moderation for obvious scam attempts. We are past the time when bitcoin hardware manufacturers are starting in garages with similar resources. We prepare the ground as too fertile for scammers. Case in point which has me posting this: Cloudthink.io's obvious scam they are pulling in the hardware forum. Yes anyone with a little bit of research will see these guys are full of it, but we shouldn't allow them a platform they can use to sucker newbies and censor their whistleblowers.
This subject has been debated to death. If you think some one is scamming, make a post about it in the scam accusation area, or leave them a trust rating. Self moderated threads are unfortunately needed here because trading here is like trying to do business on 4chan, and the mods rarely give a shit about people trolling marketplace ops.
I can see other subforums the ability to self moderate would come in handy. I think the hardware subforum itself should be held to a higher standard. I think it is moderated quite well with mods there, for good reason, it needs it.