Moderator of a large sub here. I hate removing content that violates our rules because of the pitch forks coming out. But it's like baseball and you're the ump. These are the rules, you broke the posted rules (and it's not wishy washy rules like /r/politics or /r/videos), and here's the rule you broke. Most of the time you don't have to eject anyone, but sometimes you do.
Clearly pointing to rules violations also helps other users understand what to avoid doing. It hurts when people are trying to toe the line and get away with violating the spirit of the rules, but the large-scale impact of just consistently going 'deleted because of rule 3 violation: xxx' works pretty well and has been proven on ancient forums like Something Awful where bans and suspensions and post deletions all have clear, publicly listed rationales.
Yeah, most forums I use to be active in were very transparent about why stuff was deleted while e.g. most sub-Reddits are not. I vastly preferred the transparency of forum moderators.
You shouldn't be in that position. You are a user, Reddit shouldn't out you in a position to have to do their job for them.
At the very least, you should get a cut of the ad revenue your sub brings in. No technical reason they couldn't do that, and it would incentivize you to behave, as well.
Because I put in the time to make the sub what it is. Weed out the bad actors, update the theme, etc etc. I donate my work for the better of community. Who watches the watchmen? If not me then someone else could do it sure.
