We should introduce democracy to lemmy and the fediverse more generally. We should be able to vote about who moderates the communities we participate in and contribute to. We should be able to vote on what the rules are and how they are implemented. And those votes should be weighted by those who contribute substantially to those communities. Its utterly doable. Its something we could fix.

I think this is gold, nail on head. So many of the problems in these social environments boil down to bad moderation. The current system of dictatorship of the first is pretty damn awful, right up there with some bird in a lake handing off a sword. The technology allows for the exploration of many other forms of rulership. While we could use a representative democracy system electing dictators, I suggest a step further to direct democracy.

Think of community rules as a constitution, voted on and then those rules enforced by the community in general. Even just replying to a suss comment that it breaks rule X and counting up/down votes and removing the comment at a certain threshold. Takes mod burnout out of the equation for a start. Perhaps vulnerable to brigading, but so is the current system. Perhaps there is a system of rules that could mitigate that, needs thought.

I'm not sure about weighted votes, lurkers are community members too, generally the vast majority. Put the mechanisms in place to try both weighted and equal votes (and perhaps membership age gating or other systems), give people the choice and see which creates better results.

Portability of users across instances is another sore point, as you say, and tagging could be a great enhancement, but I would argue those lesser than tyranny of the first moderation.

If you chose to polish this up (and perhaps split it into multiple) and post it somewhere, please let me know. It bears thought and development.