When one person is your linchpin, you have one major, and guaranteed source of failures unless you take steps to mitigate. So it would be interesting to know what kind of succession plan there is, I guess.
Semi-related fun side note: In my former workplace a coworker coined the term "Single point of success" after management said he was being negative by calling things a single point of failure. Such bottlenecks can't be solved by one person. It takes a village.
That's why I suggest everyone here could take notes and at least try to do the same things on their own sites. We can't change the big platforms but those here that tinker offering up their own time and discipline to host small communities could try to make the internet a slightly better place. I've tried my hand at this and burnt out after a decade. That's why I appreciate this site as I can just be a participant.
[Edit] Based on dang's comment there are other moderators and that makes sense given he would have to sleep at some point, otherwise people would be saying "Mods are asleep" and the chaos would ensue.
The issue with the "study this person who does it well, take notes, it takes a village!" approach is that that quicky ossifies into a bureaucratic morass of petty tyrants who don't actually understand (or care about) the principles behind whatever that person did. They instead engage in endless rules lawyering about technical minutiae. Some do it simply to feel powerful; others genuinely feel that rules lawyering is helpful.
This becomes self-amplifying as those who actually care about the underlying principles and themes, as opposed to petty legalism, tend to leave the project permanently and go elsewhere. Meanwhile, those who care about and prioritize bureaucratic bickering are attracted to the project, eventually attain a larger share of the powerful positions, and build more of the same.
See the evolution of Wikipedia for a great example of this process in action.
Agreed, I see that happen all the time, especially with chat platforms for some reason. That's why I also said discipline. Having run large forums the temptation to make rules and power-trip is human nature. The biggest battle is with ones self and not letting others help moderate unless they share the same discipline. Finding people that share the same values and are not at risk of power-tripping is hard. Assistant mods would have to know up front they would be booted as soon as they exhibit such behavior.
I would suggest people first start up some little just-for-fun thing and learn the hard way what the biggest struggles are before creating something they truly are passionate about.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis
Dang is good at a lot of moderator things, but his best attribute is that he seems to be capable of disentangling his own personal views on a topic from enforcement of objective norms of decency and respect. Less than 1% of people can do that; they prefer to bludgeon people with technicalities in order to enforce their own views -- and most believe that they are doing good when they do it.
I could not have said it better myself. That is a perfect description of what makes this a unique site.
If this isn't already in the works, it should be as a key-man insurance policy.
I'm sure the other moderators would be fine, but they couldn't ever carry that dang weight.