Ok, here is another perspective, and then I will just step back and not monopolize the conversation. The mods often move a post to a different place, because it doesn’t belong. I don’t believe anyone complains about it, because voices aren’t being silenced. Posts are just being re-categorized. If someone was regularly posting their dinners in a breakfast thread, or someone was always posting their drinks in a cookware thread, we would gently point that out, wouldn’t we? I saw something like that just today. If WFD is part of a cooking category, then what you ate in a restaurant is in the wrong spot. Yes, I know, I can surely skip over those descriptions and photos and sometimes do. But I am in a rules profession. So maybe it’s second nature to me to bring it home. This belongs here, that belongs there. I may be more type A than average.
There is not a single HO header that WFD could sit under to include everyone who currently participates.
For a long time, the NJ What’s Cooking thread (Regional) was much more active than WFD. Several folks from that lively board brought their energy to WFD over time.
There are people who post their drinks in WFD. There are international people who post lunch when it’s their main meal, whereas for Americans it’s dinner. Then there are people who post nothing, just comment.
So while there are many lines that occasionally get blurred, to @Miss_belle’s point, if only some of them are bothersome, perhaps that’s worth a pause.
At the end of the day this is just a friendly conversation we are all having with each other from afar. I’d rather have a pleasant chat with folks who show up for it than draw (not-arbitrary) lines that create specific exclusions.
It’s no fun to be talking into silence - why would we make people go do that on some thread with no conversation?
(As an aside, we’ve had unpleasantness on WFD before, to @MrGuyGuyGuy’s point - related to people digressing from dinner and into their days and lives. We lost some people from the discussion after that. I hope we do not follow that pattern here.)
Nobody is excluded from anything by saying “Restaurant meals go in the restaurant section”. Asking someone to post material where it belongs is something that already happens every day.
I post my restaurant reviews to the relevent regional board. At present, that’s exclusively the UK one. With, I think, one thread excepted, I seem to be the only person to have started a thread there in the last 12 months. It’s a lonely place to be - but not as lonely a place as Tripadvisor, where I also post the reviews and where there is no chance of feedback or discussion.
I used to be an avid, daily contributor to WFD. But my reference to dinner on restaurant days would be along the lines of “we’re going out for dinner”.
Over time, I lost interest in posting. No major issues about it, just little things that caused the loss of interest. I rarely visit WFD now - and usually mark a new monthly thread as “don’t show up again”. But this is no biggie for me - as others have said, I also rarely read threads in regional boards, as I am probably never going to visit those areas.
I remember the earlier discussion on WFD which, I think really related to just one person. My recollection of that discussion was that most of the regular contributors did not have a problem with it. And, I suspect, that would probably still be the same. WFD depends on a reasonably small group of folk contributing very regularly. It is “their” thread and, to my mind, I have no interest in telling them how, or how not, to run their club.
An alternative to moving restaurant meals from the WFD thread is to move the WFD thread from the Cooking section, somewhere in Culture, Media, General.
I’d vote for keeping the wfd thread as home cooked or close to it (@Rooster - I also like the various chatter!) There are plenty of regional or restaurant specific boards.
Maybe the topic heading should be called WHAT DID YOU COOK FOR DINNER?
If that’s the basic point being raised, the current heading is too vague.
Having slept on it, I agree with @Saregama, a community inclusive is better than not. It’s very easy to skim over or move on from comments that don’t interest you. The software gives us options as well to set the thread. And, if any of us wants to discuss a recipe at length there’s PM, DM and creating a new thread linked if you prefer.
Unless moderation is required due to unpleasantness, I don’t feel this change will help or be adhered to over time.
WDYCFD…kinda wordy. 
Where’s your sense of history, mon ami?
It’s been WFD since this site began and, before that, back to around 2004 when we played on Chowhound.
If memory serves correctly, back in the day, folk worded their posts as to what was intended to be for dinner, rather than what actually had been dinner. I think the sense of it changed in line with the majority of folk wanting to post photos of their food. The change, particularly the photos, was one of the factors which caused me to lose interest in the thread.
I guess I am the main culprit of this topic. I will post anything interesting that Mrs. P cooks during the week, but we also like to dine out on the weekends & I like to share my photos of the meals (which I thought were well received, but I guess not). I also cross post my restaurant meals to the regional boards, which are only viewed by a handful of people. I just wanted to share it with a larger audience. However if you want to specifically restrict this board for home cooked meals then I will not post here any more. Just let me know. I will abide by whatever rules the majority of the people want.
Never participated in Chowhound. Point taken on history.
Exactly the opposite. Your contributions and other generous HO arent responsible for how anyone enjoys a thread. The silent majority havent weighed in.
I don’t want you to leave. 
This is not a democracy, Eli. The moderators set the rules, monitoring and enforceing them as appropriate. We play here at their discretion.
Moderators Hat On
With all due respect, we do NOT set any rules, we just enforce the rules as created by the sites owner. We generally try to take a “hand off” approach to most things, like this, allowing the community to “self police” (for lack of a better term) and only step in when required. But we do NOT make any rules.
Just wanted to clarify. Thank you.
Mea culpa. Although my main point about this not being a democracy stands, of course
Very true. Back in the day before everyone had a camera in their phone and the immediate ability to upload photos to a website, there was a lot more discussion of what people were planning to make for dinner, intended cooking techniques and ingredients, etc.
Worthy discussion! In the web development world, this would fit the category of user research. In other words, why do people visit WFD? I’ll offer a hypothesis that this answer changes over time. And wow, are we ever in strange times.
Keeping things as they are—for the time being, anyway—would be my vote. I’d hope to keep the regular posters showing up.
I’m a sometimes poster to WFD and a regular reader. I too look to the thread for meal inspiration. Yet the moment it’s more than that for me.
During these strange days, I also need connection more. I have appreciated seeing the ways people are making their meals happen, however that may be. As a result, I have forgiven myself for doing takeout and prepared food. Absolved. 
ETA: While I was writing this, some of you knowledgeable posters have pointed out that the direction of the WFD thread has changed over time. So there’s that to consider: Is the thread useful to the current participants and how?
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I’ve been on this board for about three years but I’m still a relative newcomer. I was never a part of Chowhound or some of the other forums, but I have read enough of people’s reminisces to get an idea of what they were like. That being said, if I didn’t feel welcome, I would not be here this long. The same goes for the many other newcomers we get who become regular posters. The quality of this community is an excellent one as are the majority of contributions.
In regards to this topic, I am for leaving things as they are. The title itself is What’s For Dinner? not What are You Cooking? You can argue that it is in the cooking board and should therefore be only about cooking, but that would deny us a chance to see a large portion of restaurant-related posts, which would then be relegated to regional boards which admittedly I am probably not going to seek out. Such an amalgamation or centralization is why I enjoy WFD: because I get to see a little bit of everything. The reason why I slowed down posting in the very regionalized “What’s Cooking New Jersey” (a thread I created, by the way) is because I wanted to interact with people all over the world. Cross-posting, for special meals, exists for this very reason.
Some people eat out every night. Some get takeout. Some cook every night. Some do all of the above.
Some have fine china, some use paper plates,
Some have a fancy camera, some rely on their smartphones, some take no pictures at all.
Some dine at expensive restaurants or use the finest of ingredients. Some are on a budget.
Thus is life. I want to see that $100 seafood tower and $200 bottle of wine right after a Shake-and-Bake pork chop and beer that probably cost $10 to assemble. What the entire forum is, if anything, is a microcosm of the world of food.
We come here for inspiration. We come here to be tantalized. Pictures add to that but are not required. However, I guarantee if the prevalence of cameras via phones or whatnot was around at the beginning of the “old” forums, there would be thousands of pictures on those too. I like seeing people share pictures from their kitchen-- it is insight into their life and very intimate at that. No one would do that if they did not feel comfortable within this community. I also enjoy the “life discussions” that accompany some of the food pictures since it adds to the experience and perhaps what went into someone’s dinner choice.
The bottom line is this: as a historian, I would deem this forum “worthy of preservation due to cultural significance” if it was an actual object. I think sometimes we lose sight when we nitpick, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way.
I could say more, but you get the idea.
A little long for a mission statement, but a perfect distillation of why we come here and stay here.
IMHO, we are all time challenged to some extent. I can pretty easily parse which are restaurant dishes and which are home-brew. Skimming through one dinner thread allows me to see the best of both our experiences. In order to keep the regional forums vibrant, a separate nod or even double post is not out of line. But prohibiting restaurant comments/photos from the WFD thread will definitely limit my exposure to them. I doubt I would additionally read a specific restaurant what-we-ate thread.
