[dataengineer56]

All that the mods seem to do is stir up meta drama and they treat the paid SO employees horribly. You're right that community moderation is great on SO - users with certain amounts of karma can close questions, and downvotes are a powerful tool. I don't really see the purpose of the volunteer diamond mods.

[klez]

> I don't really see the purpose of the volunteer diamond mods.

They do a different kind of moderation. For example we community moderators can't delete posts unless certain conditions are met (a certain number of downvotes). And we can't send warnings to user when such a warning is warranted.

Also I think they have access to some somewhat sensitive information that you may not want the whole community of high-score users to see without making everyone sign some sort of nda first.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Those should be paid workers, though. Impartial adjudicators with no connection to the given forum/site.

[dataengineer56]

I don't want diamond users having access to any of my information that a public user wouldn't. I haven't voted for them and I generally don't trust anyone who wants that kind of power online for no compensation.

[klez]

> I haven't voted for them

Other users did vote for them. There are actual elections for diamond mods. The fact that you didn't vote for them doesn't mean they don't have legitimacy.

> I generally don't trust anyone who wants that kind of power online for no compensation.

As a community moderator I have a lot of power over certain things (I can unilaterally close Java questions as duplicate, I can edit questions, vote to close, vote to delete...) and I do it because I like the website to stay clean. Why would you doubt their motives just because they can do a bit more than what I can do? Do you distrust forum/subreddit/discord moderators as well?

[dataengineer56]

These are good thoughts to chew on.

> Other users did vote for them. There are actual elections for diamond mods.

I don't like the idea that I have to be on board with a website's unvetted volunteer moderators in order to use it.

I agree with SO but I don't agree with its power mods. The power mods are constantly at odds with SO's policies. Therefore it's a power mod issue and not mine.

> Do you distrust forum/subreddit/discord moderators as well?

Absolutely! Why should I trust these people? Some subreddit moderators for specific smaller niche subs can be ok, but a lot of questions should be asked of large subreddit moderators.

Who are these people who spend hours a day working for free for a billion dollar company? Why do they do it? Why are they moderating 100+ subreddits? Why do all of their posts automatically go to the top of the Reddit front page even if they get relatively few comments?

Reddit seems extremely easy to astroturf and it's very clear to see during US election periods like we're in at the moment.