I was considering moving to mbin, but their decision to make downvoting private makes that a very unpleasant idea for me. Public voting was one of the initial selling points for kbin for me. If I move, then it's probably to another kbin instance like kbin.earth for now.
I appreciate that earnest made a post yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, saying that he is not dead and hasn't given up on kbin. It's not on this magazine, so I'm not sure where it was since this seems to be the most appropriate one, but in any case.
Definitely. I've applied to a handful of magazines weeks ago and have read about others having done so too. I really think magazine ownership requests should be accepted automatically on kbin.social. There's already requirements in place to whether you can make one, that should be good enough for abuse safety measures.
Instance moderators would be better, but I don't know if there's people lining up for that role whom he also can trust with it.
and contributors.
The issue here is that all contributors have moved on to mbin. You don't just look for contributors, the contributors choose to contribute. So unless he's willing to pay them, I don't think this is a problem he can solve, and I doubt he makes enough money to hire people.