We have very few moderators. Despite a large number of users wanting to become one, the majority never make it past a few months (one failed after her first day). The reasons for this vary but you could blame the usual culprits: power trips, banning users for past grudges, conflicts of interest, etc. It's something like only 5 out of 100 mod candidates that are interviewed and trained go on to pass and stay for a full year. Due to this, I value the moderators I have because they've managed to make it through the strict requirements to become one. I trust the ones that have been here a long time and I give them a lot of freedom to make their own decisions.

Our current crop of moderators are some of the best we've had. Unfortunately, since there are so few of them, I've heard that users have started to single them out to gang up on them either on or off AFF. I just want to clarify my stance in that if push comes to shove, I will always listen to my most trusted moderators. I'm really much too involved with other work to be diving into user affairs on AFF so I have faith in their decisions. I consider blanket bans of problematic users to be used as an absolute last resort but I would much prefer that to losing a trusted moderator. So please don't put me in that position and just treat them nicely regardless of whether or not you agree with their decisions.

There are alternatives to having moderators but none of you will like any of them.