From my anecdotal source, I've been banned a few times, and only once was it justified. The other times, the mods not only could not tell me what rule I violated, but resorted to insults just for my asking. There's entire subreddits dedicated to this type of piss-poor and outright abusive behavior from the mods. I'd wager that, from the perspective of the average user, the mods are the "bunch of children and adults acting like children". To me, they're like the DMV or TSA - small people who "volunteer" just for a small amount of power to make themselves feel like big people by abusing that power. Unfortunately, thus far, I have very little evidence to the contrary.

> I doubt many of you would actually want the responsibilities it requires to do at minimum a decent job of it.

You'd be wrong. I'm sure there's no shortage of people willing to help moderate, so pretending there's a small pool of people available or brushing them off under your own arbitrary definitions of "less qualified" definitely comes off as condescending.

> a bunch of children and adults acting like children.

Which is exactly what these mods are doing now by banning that user from all the subs, so your point doesn't hold water and further highlights a superiority complex.

I mean, having lots of big subs under your control definitely does give you a little feeling of power, which some people like. Personally it doesn't outweigh the responsibilities, which is why my subs are <10k.

>I'm sure there's no shortage of people willing to help moderate

Probably true. But with every new mod you run the risk of getting one who goes rogue or otherwise _seriously_ abuses power. This is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy:

1. conspiracy that a small network of mods have censorship power*

2. mods censor posts because it inevitably leads to a witchhunt

3. goto 1

*mods do have basically unchecked power in subreddits, so it's not really a conspiracy. For a very long time, /r/xkcd was squatted on by white nationalists and admins refused to step in for months.

I've been a forum admin and forum moderator in the past and yes there's always a risk of people going rogue or power-tripping, but that can happen with literally anyone. If it happens, it also tends to end very rapidly as the other moderators clean-up the actions of the rogue quickly. That's why you vet people based off their history and hope it works out. In my experience it's better to have a larger group of trusted moderators to maintain a balance of power then for a small group to act in an authoritarian manner; the latter of which seems to be the case here.

If there's a perception of a witch hunt then the moderator action of ultimate banishment only fuels that fire, seems counter-intuitive for people supposedly acting in good faith.

EDIT: Clarified statement on paid mods

As far as what happened here the moderator for /r/interestingasfuck has been talking about it. He seems pretty open to answer questions. Maybe he could be asked if he gets paid to moderate?

>I really don't know every sub he was banned from and if/what he did, but from looking at his post history he seemed to have just posted his QQ in a bunch of subs which then got him banned because he broke rules there, then he harassed mods and posted misleading comments like the ones I had to remove in IAF.

It's worth noting that /u/ibleeedorange is a high-profile user, but does not moderate the same subreddits as those mentioned in the OP.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/gjedc1/uroo...

I haven't even started referencing the pretty inarguable range of referenced personal accounts of behaviour of these mods.

There's a point at which the idea of this being emergent and unproblematic is still plausible. We appear to be beyond that point.

In fact, 4chan officially refers to their analogous role as "janitors." "Moderators" on 4chan would be closer to Reddit admins.

How many hours people spend, as they also have jobs which actually pays them?

bold assumption ;) other options include being retired or having a partner provide for them

>how many hours people spend

I'm not one of them, but I'd probably guess it's anywhere from 2-6 hours a day. Depending on job, one could easily can work that in before/during/after work. /u/GallowBoob, the user with the most karma on reddit, actually managed to turn it into his job. He was originally a landscape architect whose reddit habits got him a job at those awful viral licensing companies, although now he does social media directing at an eSports company.