What happened here is that people who have "extreme" opinions have found a platform to express them, and people tend to remember or focus on the outliers instead of the nuance (hence skewed perception). Whereas some or most within inside the community learned to listen to each other and respect having different opinions on controversial matters, outsiders did not respect this, and actively harassed a leader of the community (moderator) in a campaign for change (getting rid of the community).
Having been a moderator in multiple communities, I know a sure way to burn out is to be one. It is also a perfect way to get rid of your opponent: suggest they become a moderator. I've been burned by that multiple times. I still moderate communities, and I'm good at it (also because of my background, e.g. technical; other people have other qualities), but only small ones. Even if it has exactly the same signal-to-noise ratio as a large community, you end up with less noise and therefore it takes less time. People know each other better.
A very good (but specific) analogy comes to my mind: World of Warcraft. Nowadays, you can swap your character to another server (called "realm") and faction (red being Horde, blue being Alliance), etc. Back in the days of early WoW (Vanilla and TBC) you invested in your character and were therefore bound to realm & faction. These were relatively small worlds where different guilds (akin to "clans" or "teams") existed. People knew each other because of the size; akin to a small town with communities. Fast forward post TBC and you had the later expansions where with the click of a button people were in a group of random players of the same faction (regardless of realm). Playing together with 4 or 24 strangers whom you will likely never meet again. This decreased the relevance of reputation among peers and allowed for so-called toxic behaviour.
WoW is just one simulation of that phenomenon (for which I don't know the name). I'd say the problem, summed up, is that people get away with harassment on the Internet because of the sheer anonymity/pseudonymity and physical distance.
Having been a moderator in multiple communities, I know a sure way to burn out is to be one. It is also a perfect way to get rid of your opponent: suggest they become a moderator. I've been burned by that multiple times. I still moderate communities, and I'm good at it (also because of my background, e.g. technical; other people have other qualities), but only small ones. Even if it has exactly the same signal-to-noise ratio as a large community, you end up with less noise and therefore it takes less time. People know each other better.
A very good (but specific) analogy comes to my mind: World of Warcraft. Nowadays, you can swap your character to another server (called "realm") and faction (red being Horde, blue being Alliance), etc. Back in the days of early WoW (Vanilla and TBC) you invested in your character and were therefore bound to realm & faction. These were relatively small worlds where different guilds (akin to "clans" or "teams") existed. People knew each other because of the size; akin to a small town with communities. Fast forward post TBC and you had the later expansions where with the click of a button people were in a group of random players of the same faction (regardless of realm). Playing together with 4 or 24 strangers whom you will likely never meet again. This decreased the relevance of reputation among peers and allowed for so-called toxic behaviour.
WoW is just one simulation of that phenomenon (for which I don't know the name). I'd say the problem, summed up, is that people get away with harassment on the Internet because of the sheer anonymity/pseudonymity and physical distance.