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I'll second phailyoor here: the standard I'd want is "the mod hat should be on or off, per post".
If you're going to make a post that's part of your position as moderator, it shouldn't be combined with actual engagement in the discussion: people have to pay attention to moderator posts as it might be "stop it or you're getting banned", so adding Amadan-the-user commentary with it unfairly privileges Amadan-the-user's viewpoint ahead of other users. People are free to read or not read wraelk-the-user posts, and it should be the same for Amadan-the-user.
I thought there was some kind of mod-hat formatting this site had, and I'd expect the original post (as well as the one I'm responding to) to be in that formatting, with the actual engagement in the discussion moved to its own non-mod-hat post. That way users can pay attention to mod-hat formatting as conveying important mod information, and regular formatting as just being the on-equal-footing user having a regular discussion.
I put a modhat on for "stop it or you're getting banned" posts. Those are the ones that have the red flag. Me saying "I see a lot of stupid shit in the mod queue" or "No, I am not modding this post" is not the same and does not obligate me to go into customer service bot mod.
I generally do not opine on the thread itself when I modhat a post. We especially avoid using a modhat in a thread where we have already been engaging (or arguing).
That is a general practice, not a hard and fast rule.
Note that the topic of modding (whether or not someone was being unnecessarily antagonistic) was orthogonal to the topic I expressed an opinion about (LLMs).
We will not be following the practice that "I may not refer to anything to do with moderating or what I see in the mod queue if I talk about the thread." Once again, we are not customer service bots, and while we're mindful of appearances and community trust in our diligence and best efforts at fairness, there is a limit to how much weight we're going to give someone sore at being disagreed with.
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