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.
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.