"In what way did he alter comments?" really deflates the charge in my opinion. He played a bad joke by swapping out his name for mods. Pretty tame stuff really

"In what way did he alter comments?" really deflates the charge in my opinion. He played a bad joke by swapping out his name for mods. Pretty tame stuff really. A stupid little regexp substituion prank of the kind programmers play all the time. But yes, he did violate a trust. A sysadmin has a sacred duty and he violated it, but in a very mild way that is understandable and not a cause for future concern since he clearly realizes he made a big mistake.