Online moderation should be logged for transparency

There's no transparency in online moderation. On discussion sites like Reddit and Hacker News, in online discussion forums, and things like Facebook groups, moderators can delete comments and remove users without any transparency. There's no way to see who/what was removed, or why that action was taken.

No transparency means no accountability for the moderators. Moderators are just ordinary people, with all the usual biases, pettiness, ideological zeal, and other flaws. There's no accountability that stops them from removing content and users for reasons other than them violating the group's rules. E.g. because it disagrees with their political views.

This is not good. I think moderation should be logged. The logging should record the specific comments that led to the content/user being removed, and perhaps an indication of which rule(s) were violated. It should be possible for anyone to view the record of moderation. That record should probably be read-only -- as in, users shouldn't be able to comment on the logs, as that would probably (I think) lead to endless cycles of disputes. 

I think this is more important than it seems. I suspect that more and more of our social and civil lives will end up being conducted online through things like these forums. If that happens, a lack of moderation transparency will become a larger problem, and could have serious consequences for people's lives.