This is a voting bloc manipulating the perception.
FTFY, because it's fucking
working.
It's working because the same 12-15 people are showing up in these threads, and effectively flipping vote numbers. People don't want to be caught in the middle, so they side with whoever is most popular. Or hell, they don't even comment at all, because they just piled with downvotes and abuse.
Look at comments in this thread; people are getting downvoted for the most benign shit possible. I got downvoted for telling someone what information they should put in a mod application.
People shit all over us, calling us "cucks" and "SJWs", and tell us that we're nothing more than "janitors" meant to sweep up spam, but get hypocritically upset when we say anything that makes us "unprofessional".
Anyone that supports us gets accused of "sucking mod cock" or being a mod sockpuppet.
It's depressing as fuck.