As with anything, contemptible people eventually get themselves into positions of power, and once they’re there, it’s nigh impossible to get rid of them without starting over completely.
Everyone in an organization backs up their peers. Be it government, business, to mod teams or site wide admins. They all cover for each other naturally.
Which is why we need clear rules, and appeals all the way to jury trials of members online.
It’s impossible to be sure. There are usually some red flags when mods end up out of touch or alignment with a community, but a sufficiently crafty mod team have the power to hide many of their transgressions where regular posters don’t. Quick edit: In the Fediverse, this is slightly harder to hide because the mod logs are public. But someone would still have to comb through them.
Whether the problem ultimately turns out to be the mod or the community (or a subset thereof) is a difficult question.
Sometimes it’s clearly one or the other. Sometimes it’s possible for both mod team and community to be out of order in completely different ways, and there are no winners in the court of morality. But the mods will win through sheer power.
Ever watched shows about nightmare landlords and nightmare tenants? Same kind of deal.
As with anything, contemptible people eventually get themselves into positions of power, and once they’re there, it’s nigh impossible to get rid of them without starting over completely.
Everyone in an organization backs up their peers. Be it government, business, to mod teams or site wide admins. They all cover for each other naturally.
Which is why we need clear rules, and appeals all the way to jury trials of members online.
So we have the good mods here and not ones like that LSF nutjob?
It’s impossible to be sure. There are usually some red flags when mods end up out of touch or alignment with a community, but a sufficiently crafty mod team have the power to hide many of their transgressions where regular posters don’t. Quick edit: In the Fediverse, this is slightly harder to hide because the mod logs are public. But someone would still have to comb through them.
Whether the problem ultimately turns out to be the mod or the community (or a subset thereof) is a difficult question.
Sometimes it’s clearly one or the other. Sometimes it’s possible for both mod team and community to be out of order in completely different ways, and there are no winners in the court of morality. But the mods will win through sheer power.
Ever watched shows about nightmare landlords and nightmare tenants? Same kind of deal.