For example, do you need a degree in philosophy to be a moderator of the philosophy community?
If so, how do we test for that?
If not, why do we treat them as authority?
For example, do you need a degree in philosophy to be a moderator of the philosophy community?
If so, how do we test for that?
If not, why do we treat them as authority?
No.
They have authority and if you don’t like it you can create your own community or even instance and moderate that yourself.
No. Only power.
That depends on the definition of authority you want to use. The first one duckduckgo shows me is
Which I’d say is true for mods as related to the community.
But in any case it adds nothing to the discussion.
To simply define authority as identical to power is quite useless.
If they boot dissenters it becomes the other kind of authority too.