Modding is hard work; reddit barely provides the tools we really need. Note that _bionoid_ mentioned bots - you effectively need to use third-party tools to effectively moderate even a moderate sized sub.
I'm not sure what you mean by "just shut down", but the best subs tend to be the ones where rules are enforced strongly and consistently.
'Just shut down' might mean "the sub", not "conversation". I don't think mods need weaker tools, but there's definitely a fiefdom problem where mods can't be dislodged by any means. A pair of examples:
For years, the /xkcd subreddit was run by a group of Holocaust deniers, simply because they got there first when an old mod left. They censored content, linked to bizarre white supremacist garbage, and generally did the reddit equivalent of domain squatting. Experienced users went over to /realxkcd or something, while new users just wandered into the garbage fire. I don't think that's a free speech or mod tools issue, I think that's an 'unhelpful labelling' issue.
Another sub, I believe /frission, had a head moderator who had a drug trip or religious experience or psychotic break or something. He kicked out all the other mods, announced that the sub had "served its purpose" by guiding him to this moment, and declared that he would delete all posts and then take the sub private in 24 hours time. There was a massive archiving effort and pleading with the site administration, but ultimately the only thing that helped is somebody talked the guy into restoring one other mod who could avert the meltdown.
Broadly, I'd like to see reddit massively expand the bot api and in-house moderator tools, because it's a thankless job to do right. But I'd also like to see some form of administrative or community review for the cases where moderators go utterly off the rails and destroy subs - even something extreme like >95% agreement would have handled these cases.
> there's definitely a fiefdom problem where mods can't be dislodged by any means
That's true. I do wish there was a way to wrest control away from absentee mods - or something like your example - but I'm not sure how such a system would work in a fair, hard-to-abuse way.
And I completely agree with your last paragraph, with that caveat of needing to think very hard about how to make it abuse-proof.
Modding is hard work; reddit barely provides the tools we really need. Note that _bionoid_ mentioned bots - you effectively need to use third-party tools to effectively moderate even a moderate sized sub.
I'm not sure what you mean by "just shut down", but the best subs tend to be the ones where rules are enforced strongly and consistently.