"he's the mod and I'm not" certainly brings a lot of civility to a space. Most speculation of "why are people assholes on the internet" tends to center around a

"he's the mod and I'm not" certainly brings a lot of civility to a space. Most speculation of "why are people assholes on the internet" tends to center around anonymity, or not seeing each other face to face, but I think the toxicity can also be explained as "who's going to stop me", like 8 year olds seeing what they can get away with. Anywhere comments are simply reported to a faceless beauracracy is rife for abuse.