Hmm. I don't know if weak moderation tools are intrinsic to federation. You can certainly ban users from other instances, and if that doesn't already hide their comments on other instances, it could.

People have talked about going back to disconnected forums recently, notably Kurzgesagt, but it is annoying, to the point where it can kill some spaces which are too niche or frivolous to survive alone. I don't think r/WTFaucet on Reddit could be a standalone forum, for example. I guess if it saves our civilisation like they were saying the I could make that sacrifice.