[jlericson]

That's . . . not a bad analogy. Only instead of 100 homes (like the condo I lived in with an HOA) imagine thousands of people complaining about their neighbors each day. Sometimes it's the ticky tack lawn nonsense and sometimes it's a leaky water heater flooding the neighbor. (The second happened to my neighbor. Unfortunately, it was my water heater.) Until you understand the scale of what the SO moderators were doing, it's easy to call them "entitled".

But I know it's hard to drum up sympathy for mods (or HOA boards).

[arp242]

I feel everyone complaining about Stack Overflow should become a Stack Overflow moderator for a month. I am 100% convinced almost all of them will severely nuance their opinions after that, if not radically change them.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Admins routinely interfere in elections to make sure they get the "right kind of moderator". This has happened personally do me, on one of the other SEs.

[arp242]

Every single time I've seen this happen it's been for a good reason, but of course I can't comment on your specific case.

[gs17]

Then why bother with elections? Be transparent and just appoint them.

[arp242]

Because they were clearly unsuitable and this avoids drama. It's not a binary on/off thing.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Clearly how? My score was in the tens of thousands, I asked good questions Gave good answers. Strove to avoid downvoting/vtc-ing good questions/answers worded poorly. Tried to participate in the way that leads to the ideal outcomes.

How is that "clearly"?

What evidence do you have that lets you assert that I was "clearly unsuitable"?

If anything, someone like yourself who makes up bullshit and believes it as if it were established fact is the sort they should be trying to avoid allowing to moderate. Which is why I'm guessing you're actually a mod.