I've seen that pisstake about inmates and an asylum a few times and besides it being a joke, I'd be a party pooper and still say it's wrong. The owner and the moderation are always in charge. If you have any issues with the way a forum is going it's always a reflection of them first. But that is the great divide for Resetera, half the forum thinks there aren't enough bans and there are still lots of secret evil people, the other half is constantly moaning that moderation is unreasonable and too quick to act. So who does the owner try and placate in order to keep making money?
This is true that moderation is largely what drives culture, but that doesn't mean it represents a majority or even a plurality of the userbases' feelings on the subject.
With Era, there's reason to believe the hyper progressive voices that give zero room for nuance in anything are an extreme minority, representing maybe 500-1000 posters if not a lot less. You can see it in the way specific polls go, or how many contentious topics have the same people arguing. And yet, this small fraction of the userbase at large is what the moderation caters to. That isn't how a healthy forum should evolve, which isn't to say the marginalized voices of the minority shouldn't be protected, but protected and given special treatment are two very different things. It lets bitterness among the majority set in and WILL lead to issues down the line. It already has with several industry people seeing the place for the den of aggressive lunatics that it is, including many legit influencers as well as the ones Era likes including Giant Bomb.
And sure, the "inmates running the asylum" thing is offensive, but it kind of shows us a much more sinister side of the whole thing; people with mental health issues stuck in an echo chamber. It's not a safe space to vent, it's a place to reinforce an incredibly hostile worldview that will prevent any kind of reasonable progress in the real world. I have no doubt that a lot of these people that have therapists have been outright told to get off forums, but they don't listen.
