Mods are often asked for advice on various matters, most of them hobby related. 95% of the time, the reply a mod gives is to "let it go and do nothing". Often that advice is ignored.
Sometimes people need to vent and a veteran hobbyist in a trusted position is willing to lend an ear. The listener actually does very little but learns to keep his mouth shut. You know: that "discretion thing?"
And then there are the board matters. Fix my ad, remove my unpublished phone number from a review. Thanks for removing my drunken posts last night and cutting my access till I sobered up instead of banning me... (I did that a few times when a gal was hysterical and inebriated at 3am in the morning.)
And once in a while they do the fucked up white knight thing and go pick up a stranded lady, extract a lost sponge from their vagina, or direct them to someone who can help with non hobby related issues. Some of them are hard dicks with a big heart just like many of us.
If EH is good friends with a mod, so what? Mods are hobbyists too. Like many active veteran hobbyists, you occasionally have a social friendship with a gal. I don't have any reason to think that either of them crossed any boundaries that concerned anyone but a busybody drama queen.
No need to smear them or the people they are friends with.