Yes, but moderation comes in many flavors. SO’s moderation culture famously deterred newcomers from becoming part of the community and that long-term trend was worrisome even before the LLM scrapers showed up.

Seems to me that the SO moderation level was a design decision. The pros and cons were consciously weighed. As for me, SO found a nice balance, since I dislike the common failure modes of so many other fora.

I don’t hate it, but I was also experienced when it launched and never had the bad experiences many younger people have reported. The number of dormant profiles and lack of growth was getting a fair amount of discussion even before LLMs entered the picture so even if the old moderation culture was intentional it wasn’t working out well for the future.

Just weighing in, I always appreciated SO’s moderation style