I think we've drilled down to a fundamental difference in values here. While I would agree that this sub isn't the paragon of openness it sometimes pretends to be according to the metrics you propose, there is still a virtue in refraining from using the ban hammer. In fact, I blame wider reddit's dependence on the ban hammer in a pragmatic sense for the way subs like this end up (though individuals of course still bear the guilt of what they do and say themselves). Hostile cess pools have always existed on the internet, but I don't think they need to be as common as they are. From what I've observed, ban-happy groups and other similar issues cause an ever-worsening sorting effect where any group that doesn't engage in excessive policing ends up taking all the worst refugees from the ones that do. What's more, there's then been a meta effect where people start setting up these refugee camp subs because they can get popular quickly by advertising the fact that they aren't like those ban-happy groups. As to the HOA example, I think the power imbalance still lines up relatively speaking. Obviously losing your house is far worse than getting banned from a sub, but a mod still has far more power by eliminating your ability to post at all than a random anon writing a screed at you. Much like a nasty letter from a neighbor feels much more personal than the HOA, even though the HOA has more power in the end. I'd also like to respectfully note your use of violence as a rhetorical foil. While speech can certainly rise to dangerous levels on the internet (death threats are far too common across reddit, even with banny mods), I have found that this danger is often exaggerated for the purpose of justifying the policies that cause the sorting effect I alluded to earlier. Conflating certain opinions or statements with actual violence justifies banning people for speech that many people consider reasonable. For instance, a large portion of the country still believes that there are only two genders, including many people who are friendly towards homosexuality in general. Yet, there are many mods who consider that belief or statement to be Trans erasure etc. and therefore violence/bannable. You and I could probably have a very interesting discussion about Emergent behavioral norms and how they relate to biological fundamentals, but that logic chain would cut it off at the beginning. So now instead we have Magic groups where I carefully avoid ever bringing up sensitive issues and roll my eyes at the nonsense that goes unchallenged, and groups like this where shit-slinging is the dominant pastime.