I have to disagree with that bottom critter: every decision gets made by one person. Maybe a ban can be reversed… later, by someone else. Maybe a post can be undeleted… later, by someone else. If the whole community votes for option B and the one mod chooses option A, option A is chosen. Any system built atop the in-code hierarchy is just a coat of paint, some lines on the road. The lines on the road don’t stop cars from hitting each other, if you get my meaning.

Now, obviously I’d prefer a “lines on the road” system where someone’s formally in charge but expected to do as the community wills, but I find myself excited about systems that build on other forms. Maybe collective ownership through voting, maybe a web of trust that can dynamically exclude people found to be harmful and maybe display a rating for whether someone’s a bullshitter or a pillar of the community. Kinda hard to keep that from just being karma but maybe it can be done! Maybe something super cool that I haven’t even seen yet. … Okay I’m kinda weird, honestly. This stuff’s neat to me 😅

tl;dr: Code is law and defines the forms authority over a shared resource can take. We should always try to make our systems (social and otherwise) better, not settle for assumptions (that mods/admins will cooperate) and just shrugging when things go wrong. Also there are neat things we can try <.<