> especially on the small sites, it’s acceptable for moderators to be inactive for long periods of time

Interesting!

I can see that being a case against the original point then: if moderators really are free to work or not work however they'd like, then that seems to suggest that they don't match this test, and they're nothing like employees at all.

Do you have to turn up enough to keep up with the moderation queue on those small sites though? If there were a whole bunch of flags waiting on a small site for a while, and as a moderator you weren't helping out, would you lose your moderator status there?