Jon Pretty

How would you know, have you recruited for moderators in enough capacity to handle situations like the above in competent manner? Where are the calls for applications? Where is your documented moderator process? It's easy to sit in an armchair and repeat "too hard, can't be done"

it's especially easy to blame nebulous difficulties and human failings when it's a convenient excuse for the continued dysfunction of an organisation which is given considerable power in the community. Which I am saying you are doing right now, just to be clear.

Which organisation are you talking about here? I think the only organisation involved was Reddit...

Anyway, I tried to say this before, but I'm not defending the actions of the moderators. I'm explaining why we shouldn't be surprised that things like this happen. I don't know how Reddit choose moderators.

your rationalization isn't true. I've been running online communities for a couple decades, and every time something like this happens, someone who has no experience in this pops up and starts throwing around exactly the arguments you have been using. They're red herrings.

The truth of the matter is that most people who run into this sort of problem haven't put the least amount of effort into researching how to run an online community - a problem that's been looked into for the last 40 years. All the issues you bring up can be prevented or undone.

So what is left is shoving blame on generic issues that apply to any problem in life: "no time" applies to being a mod as much as to doing laundry. If you have dirty boxers piling up then "no time" is a cop out. It's not a better argument when applied to mods misbehaving.

"not enough people" is a particularly insidious one because it displays a pretty egoistic POV: only I can do a good job, no one else can, unless I can personally trust them 100%. Creates the blind spot of personal bias and grows homogenous oligarchy. To fix: fix your trust issues