| This is an extremely popular narrative that seems to pop up every time a Stack Exchange post geta onto the HN or proggit front page. The problem with this narrative is that it is almost never substantiated. So instead, let me posit an alternative hypothesis, as someone who has gotten his hands dirty on the various Meta sites: The reason most people feel that SE has a moderation problem is because the moderation process on SE is significantly more transparent than almost any sites out there. And because of this transparency, people find it easier to point blame at these users. The transparency part I hope is obvious - when a post get moderated on other sites, the full edit history and name of the moderators involved are almost never revealed. The close reasons are in general decided upon by the users themselves. Individual moderation decisions can be contested and debated on the Meta sites, and there are checks on almost every level. In other words, the moderation process is already fairer than most other sites, where the moderation process is essentially a black box with no means of appeal. But people don't like it because the content which elsewhere would have been swept quietly under the rug is still visible and indexable. |