So, “we’ll still do some work for free, but not as much”? I can’t see Reddit caring about this ho hum response, and if they do notice it has a negative impact on the sub they’ll just replace them.
Scorched earth is the only way that moderators can exercise any real power at this point. Anything else is just impotent.
The “search, don’t ask” gate keeping is one thing that really annoys me about a lot of forums. Part of the value is not only the answer, but different users opinion and the discussion around it.
Example: when I’m looking for honest opinions on a product. I’ll find multiple discussion threads and usually find value in each thread.