> When one side calls you Hitler and the other side calls you Stalin, and each side complains bitterly how you ban everyone they agree with and moderate in the

> When one side calls you Hitler and the other side calls you Stalin, and each side complains bitterly how you ban everyone they agree with and moderate in the other's favor, the only sane response is to become curious about how the exact same thing can result in such an extreme variance in perception. As another commentator has said, being a moderator means you only see a certain side of the equation. Users don't see the amount of abuse or nonsense that gets thrown at moderators because a lot of that is invisible or removed, that's just the unfortunate nature of running a forum. Even worse when it devolves into threats or actions against moderators. But it also blinds you to the smaller shifts in the userbase because the larger conflicting voices are the main thing you hear. It becomes harder to notice when women feel less comfortable posting here because other posters chase them off. Or when minorities have trouble sharing their experiences because any mention of their race triggers a flamewar. That ends up cultivating a certain level of bias on the forum where only individuals who either silently agree with or add fuel to the fire rotate in and other users rotate out. I mean I've fought with you before because you had to remove the word 'Black' from a story because it caused some users to lash out at the fact that black people were sharing their story. You did so in order to stop a flamewar, but why did you need to do so in the first place? If a small subset of users can poison a discussion as a result, then you have a problem with the overall bias of the forum.