Rather the opposite, I think. I wonder why they did it.
Removing Curt as mod?
He was one of the most contested. With good reason, IMO. You have to work pretty hard to be more disagreeable than a guy like MacLennan and he succeeded.
The calls were erratic but worse than that, he was the least receptive to Trouble Tickets discussions.
Finally, he was himself out of line as a poster more often than not. That's not even taking his abyssmal record before becoming a mod.
The moderation environment at TBP is such because that's the way they like it.
Depends what you mean.
I think you have a low opinion of the moderation over there but frankly, I think he was a really bad apple in the lot. Kind of an embarassment from the first day he was named to the last.
As for the user base? Well, I know there are people who are more vocal than others (yourself being one) but it's pretty clear to me that he was contested.
That describes the majority of the moderation staff over there. You take a good poster, make him a mod, and within days he's using his mod voice to sarcastically put down people as he closes threads, etc.. If you call them on it, they tell you how hard moderation is and excuse their behavior by saying they're just volunteers.
I haven't really noticed. People like Curt and Darren were assholes before being moderators and still are. People like Levi and Davenport were awesome people and I think they did a great moderation job.
I suppose it's the same for pretty much every moderator but like I said, I didn't really notice.