>Makes sense. Reddit moderators are even more deluded about where the site's value is than they portray its owners to be. It is certainly not in the moderation work, which many do to satisfy their need for power over others
Context for others: There are powermods who "moderate" hundreds of subreddits. This is not an exaggeration. Hundreds. At least one has/had thousands.
When questioned, they invariably say that they "just watch the incoming queue" or something, and the other mods "do all the work". While likely true in the literal sense (again, hundreds), such answers of course completely evade the question.
Remember, "Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People" https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_...>. This also applies to powermods, assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology.
Basically, losers who crave ruling a petty fiefdom because it's the only thing they can exercise agency over in their lives. And/or are mentally ill.
>and for each moderator there are 100 sycophants and narcissists lined up to take their place
Correct.
Most mods know this, which is why so many surrendered and reopened their subreddits the moment admins told them that otherwise they would be replaced. /r/formula1's mods forthrightly said as much; those of /r/nba claimed that negotiations had progressed far enough to justify reopening, which the thousands of replies show that the userbase 100% disbelieves.
>Closing subs to protest takes that choice out of the hands of the user. Make organic posts to the site to raise awareness of any particular issue or cause you like, and let those get viewed and voted as they will.
Even worse, a) /r/nba's top mod made more than 150 comments to six other NBA teams' subreddits during the blackout. b) /r/nba mods posted secret threads—including the Game 5 discussion that they denied from their own users—and made comments during the blackout. When users discovered the threads the mods of course scrubbed the comments, but there is no way for mods to actually delete (as opposed to hiding) posts, so evidence of their hypocritical behavior will live on forever.
>I wouldn't be too upset to see a few get their comeuppance for it.
We may yet see more than a few indeed get what they deserve, given the number of still-closed subreddits. I hope that when it happens it will be a ban on both accounts and IPs, so that as mods desperately log into alts each one get flagged and banned too.
Bonus: Speaking of getting what they deserve, the classic post in which a mod thinks what he does is worth $175K a year https://np.reddit.com/r/35orquit/comments/qw1v3e/what_do_peo...>. Be sure to read to the end, where he explains how he "saves lives".