I feel like this seems kind of convoluted. I like the idea of accountability for mods, but I think it can be simpler. I don’t know if you saw the interaction on Gower’s thread, but there are notes that moderators can/should add to users’ accounts, when an action is taken. If this becomes a required thing, at least there’s some level of accountability for appeals process and for moderators to be less likely to take hasty action, such as deleting comments in a thread, giving warnings to one person rather than another, etc. It doesn’t seem like it’s done every time, for now, but that seems like a reasonable request for them to start doing so. Every note is tagged with the moderator’s name, so there isn’t the chance for avoidance, and this could be used for warnings, suspensions, bans, etc.
I think this, in combination with a more publicized way to report moderators - without fear of retribution - would go a long way towards rebuilding trust between moderators and the community, at large. It still won’t resolve the issue of “what can and can’t we question/talk about” and “should we be able to talk in broad strokes, not specifics, publicly”, etc., but I think it might be a good start.
We, the community, would have no real way of knowing it was happening, sure, but I know I’d feel better, knowing it was a way to defend myself, later, especially in cases of deleted messages. Plus, it would act as a way to audit specific moderators’ behavior - are they notating the actions they’ve taken to discipline users? Are they being honest and tactful in their notes? Do they have a habit of doing x action a lot, but y action rarely? Seems like the notes on the accounts could really help. Idk, I could just be talking out of my rear end, right now.