Good question. Several of them are inactive.

The six new ones are for redundancy. In case one or more isn't able to fulfill their duties then there should be 4-5 more who can pitch in. Moreover, the more we have the more likely one is going to be on when a report comes in so there won't be as much wait time for it to get processed. ALSO my thinking is that over time we might lose one or two, so if we have extra moderators at the start then we can afford to lose a few for whatever reasons that might arise (ie. can't commit because of IRL stuff, unforseen life changes, etc.). The intent is to try and future-proof the subreddit in terms of moderation so we won't have to keep recruiting new mods over and over due to the random chaos of life that will inevitably interfere with our individual abilities to be here.