MetaFilter's moderators are some of the most considerate and caring people I've seen on the internet. Sure, if you're approaching the site in bad faith they are going to tell you to take a hike, but they also put a huge amount of effort into working one-on-one with people through private messages. This is especially important when people are posting about difficult and sensitive personal issues on AskMe.

Programmer to moderator ratio is a pretty meaningless metric. I'd far rather see a great community with limited programming support to a fancy site with tons of new features and a toxic community.