To my knowledge, mods do not have any rules to follow and, as far as I know, are not accountable for their actions.
To increase your Knowledge mods do have rules to follow, any actions mods take are logged, and they are accountable to us. Any complaints we are emailed about are looked into. I can only remember one time where a complaint showed a moderator acting incorrectly, and that was simply that he did not follow our rules of always warning before a mute.
You seem to believe moderators are on power trips, we try to pick people who are the non outspoken , level headed players. If some request to be a mod typically we don't let that person to be one.
There is also an automatic system mutes base on certain words. It is always preferred by the warning box.
There have been times when a .reports have been abused and we take appropriate actions to correct the issue.
Reputation will also have an effect on both .report and mutes. Someone who is continually abusing the system , both players and mods tend to take action more quickly simply because history shows the person does not play well with others.
SYSTEM:
Continued profanity (like %s) will result in the loss of radio usage.
HiTech