Think this case in particular is pretty interesting. Former default subreddit and one of the largest on the site (Top 20 at least).
I think /r/videos is where we’ll see how things actually play out with the reddit admins. I’m guessing at some point the admins will step in and replace the mods.
Can mods on a subreddit go through and delete all posts before privateing? I know they might want to preserve some posts just in case things get better. But I think a scorched earth approach would send a much stronger message
Mods can’t delete anything. They can only remove it. When anything is removed it’s there. The only ones who can permanently ‘delete’ something are the admins. So even if a mod went through and nuked the whole sub, the admins could just restore it.