I think you're blowing this mod thing out of proportion, I could see a lot of people wanting to be mods and signing an NDA if they were asked to simply thinking it applied to the information they see and the standard user doesn't. Ban reasons comes to mind.
I agree that an NDA for a public forum is questionable but on the other hand I can understand people wanting to be mods and not thinking twice about signing it before the last couple of weeks. Lots of them probably saw being a mod as an honor (for lack of a better word) at some point, it doesn't mean that they aren't entitled to change their mind or think constructively.
This.
When i was offered a mod position, HashTalk was still Hash Trader. It wasn't GAW's personal stomping ground. It wasn't this censored cesspool it is today.
It was supposed to be new, it was supposed to be a place for anyone and everyone to go and not feel attacked as other communities at the time did.
This changed drastically over the passing months. When we noticed what was going on, we left. It was exciting to be offered the role, but as i've stated, none of us had any inside information, none of us knew what the plans were or are. We knew what you knew.
The most we'd get on an announcement was as simple as 'Announcement tonight, will need you in full force' And we were there just to keep things on track.