It's a volunteer position for which they get shit on endlessly. And let's be honest, this site would tank without them. Being a mod is often just shitloads of work. Franky, if offered the chance to be a mod, I'd turn it down.
I've seen an endless number of forums, left and non left, go to utter shit because the mods have an ego. One of the things that drew me into r/CTH was that the leadership team didn't take themselves too seriously.
Furthermore, the mods in the following pages can please go gargle my unshaved balls:
r/unpopularopinion
r/AITA
r/worldnews
r/politics
Does hexbear use any important features that are still not in upstream lemmy? I wonder how much effort it would be to migrate the DB and emojis and just start over.