Fixing the unfriendly perception is why stack overflow is dead. Signal to noise for professionals is now close to zero. Maybe it's friendlier, but it's also no longer worth visiting other than the historical record.

From my last 5 stack overflow questions, 3 were some mod closing the question with a rationale that’s ridiculous.

Most questions are now answered in the comments instead of being written as an answer below the question and I assume this is because people have had bad experiences with gate keeper mods when writing answers.

I have reasonably high karma.

I don’t think quality deteriorated due to some attempts to make the site more friendly. It’s the spirit of a county rabbit breeders association that drives people away

Saying "mod on stack overflow" is much like saying "editor on Wikipedia".

Where these other community members who had the close vote privilege? Or an elected moderator that had a diamond in their name to designate that?

I (used to) answer questions in comments. It became too discouraging to post an answer that took 20 minutes to write and get immediately downvoted because someone disagrees with any single part of it (or they're trying to promote their own answer by suppressing everyone else's).

Comments can't be downvoted. MetaFilter had the right of it.

In the rare occasion I'm desperate enough to ask a question, I dread seeing the red inbox notification. I think I've abandoned the last three questions I asked because I couldn't stomach facing the drama I expected.

The cultural norms of internet forums should never have been allowed to take root on a Q&A site. There is nothing "professional" (or even helpful) about answering questions with out-of-scope proscriptions.

Your plumber doesn't show up asking why you want your toilet fixed, nor does he tell you your house is messy, give you dietary advice and passive-aggressively insinuate you need to fix your roof. SO responders are mini-spouse syndrome incarnate.