Remember when the person behind GamingOnLinux decided to leave Lemmy after someone pointed out their community manipulation tactics in the modlog? Something that you have to assume they had been able to get away with as a Reddit mod. They then took to Mastodon or something to complain about how a modlog being public is “bad design”.
From what I have seen, removed comments definitely are still visible in the modlog. But if the mod just bans the user instead of removing the comment, all the user’s comments are automatically removed as a result and are not visible in the modlog. All that said, you are correct, this can be abused by moderators who understand the distinction and take advantage of it.
Public mod log is a big accountability improvement over the absence of information Reddit has
Remember when the person behind GamingOnLinux decided to leave Lemmy after someone pointed out their community manipulation tactics in the modlog? Something that you have to assume they had been able to get away with as a Reddit mod. They then took to Mastodon or something to complain about how a modlog being public is “bad design”.
What kind of agenda would a GamingOnLinux powermod push?
IMO the biggest flaw is that the mod log doesn’t append a copy of the content that was deleted. It allows mods to just straight up lie.
From what I have seen, removed comments definitely are still visible in the modlog. But if the mod just bans the user instead of removing the comment, all the user’s comments are automatically removed as a result and are not visible in the modlog. All that said, you are correct, this can be abused by moderators who understand the distinction and take advantage of it.
But really it’s a human problem. As long as humans get power, they will misuse it. Perhaps not all, but some will.
The key is to prevent any one human (or associated group) from gaining too much power. With limited exceptions, it ends poorly.