I've been a mod on a game subReddit. Mostly because there was only one active mod before and they couldn't handle it all. Game wasn't particularly universally loved so general internet hate and Reddit hivemind hate often spilled over into it. Why I did it? Because I enjoyed talking about that game in a positive environment.
In all honesty: the negative vibes on Reddit towards moderators took a lot of the joy out of it. Imagine temp banning someone because they keep calling racist slurs towards other users, then perma banning them because they continue, and then they start making new accounts over and over to send hateful messages towards you. Then you browse some Reddit for your own leisure only to read the general consensus that all mods are powerhungry faggots.
End result was worth it though, I guess? Sub is in a good place now. Positive vibes, and little bullshit. No longer an active mod though, because without RIF I don't have to proper tools to keep moderating from phone. Can't even enjoy it the way I used though. Bitter? Slightly. But I have good hopes about my new online social environment here.
I've met power hungry asshole mods. I'm sure I've met plenty of great ones, but you don't realize they're mods because they don't behave like idiots and are just normal users that are nice enough to interact with. I guess the people who generalized mods are mainly the ones that get banned rightfully.
When people complain about certain roles like moderators and project managers they always focus on thee terrible ones because that is what humans tend to focus on. Those roles wouldn't exist if they weren't necessary to handle large numbers of people interacting, and 99% of the time the people in the roles are fine and everything goes smoothly and nobody really notices.
Unfortunately those roles are attractive to power hungry people and those few are who everyone remembers.
Unfortunately those roles are attractive to power hungry people and those few are who everyone remembers.
That's the sad part. I've met more incompetent or power hungry people in management positions than really good ones. They exist, but I've made my peace with those who at least don't keep me from working.
and everything goes smoothly and nobody really notices
Exactly this. In the sub I frequented the most, we had a huge problem with T-shirt scammers and Karma Farming repost bots, but the mods usually nuked those pretty fast. However, since we’re all busy adults with limited spare time, the mods can not be online and vigilant 24/7 and occasionally a bot or scammer slipped through the cracks.
I wasn’t a mod (didn’t want to, TBH) but always openly called these out in addition to reporting them, just to make sure noone clicked on the scam links until an actual mod was able to remove the post. In these situations it happened quite often that people started to argue with me, demanded to know why I thought that “totally harmless guy showing off a cool shirt” was a scammer and the like, simply because THEY had never ever seen a scam attempt in the sub before - as those posts were usually removed pretty quickly …
I was a mod on reddit for a few years. There was a very small sub for a cartoon/toy line I liked as a kid and the community was shuddered because there was no active mod. I didn’t think it would get much traffic and I was right. Once I got it back opened we’d have maybe 6-10 posts a years, mostly toy collections. It was super low effort to me, I had one t-shirt spam I had to remove and a few comments, so it was worth it to have it open again. It’ll close when I finally get around to deleting my account
I'm a light handed mod for a Facebook group of about 2,000 people. If I didn't do that it'd either have to go private or it would be overrun with spam. I care about my community and giving everyone a fair go, so that's why I do it.
I would imagine being a mod on a fediverse community would be much the same.
I guess it depends. For a lot, that’s probably true. For some, they may just care about the community. I personally don’t want to mod anything because I hate unnecessary responsibility.
That’s a good question. I think, kinda like politics in real life, the people that would make the best moderators are the ones that have very little desire to do it while often times the ones that do want it are the worst suited.
Someone once made me a moderator of a ~30,000 subscriber subreddit without me asking and I hated every second of it. All I ever tried to do make the place as good as possible and enforce the rules in place. I got praised for being a good mod, but just as often I got called a power tripping asshole by people who didn’t want to follow the rules. You really can’t win, and honestly I wouldn’t want to even try to moderate again. It takes up too much of your time, you get almost nothing from it and even when all you are doing is trying to do your best, you still end up being hated by some people. It’s just not worth the hassle.
ITT: almost noone admits they like they “power” and the replacement of a career which they lack irl. Barely anyone with a demanding career has time for this unpaid shit, especially with family.
I secured some subs to ensure I can powertrip against people on reddit. I dont have time to fully mod them so will get some janitor mods do the work while I can powertrip once in awhile (not main acc)
I haven’t been a mod, but I volunteered for Transcribers of Reddit. For me, it was about having something to do that’s not entirely a waste of time. So I’d call that egoistic altruism.
As a moderator, i find it satisfying to clean my little corner of the internet.
We all see spam an scams when we use social media, and there’s not much that you can do about it, maybe report it to admins if you have a minute. For the most part, you’re powerless.
But on my fenced area of the internet, i actually get to do something about it. If your bot reposts content on r/shittyfoodporn to farm karma, i will pluck it out like a snail from my salad and kill it. Removing bad content is as satisfying as popping a pimple, it gives me the same joy as a retired dad meticulously cleaning his garden.
The less enjoyable part is when i have to interfere with the users themselves. Mildly saucy fanart will get posted to r/zootopia and i have to decide if it’s over or under the line, and it feels bad to remove a post that somebody legitimately just wanted to share.
Most unpaid moderators across the entire Internet do so because they have a higher than average interest in the community and want to help keep it running well. You will find some who want to spin a narrative, and some who just want to see a number go up, and some that want to troll their community, and even a small amount who actually are paid shills - but all of these groups put together is but a tiny fraction of all moderators. They’re just usually the most noticeable and so color your perception the most. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, shitty mod gets the public’s attention.
Most of lemmy’s community mods thus far are just passionate pioneers who want to refound their favorite subreddits here and then invite people over and demote interested people to mod to make more entirely-new moderators, if the migrated subs are big ones, then odds are the actual mods for the originals are the powertripping, far-left and probable-chomo type who don’t wanna give up the powertrip they enjoy on reddit for a small refuge that nobody posts on in comparison.
@CaspianXI I've always been of the opinion that if something you want doesn't exist, go and do it yourself. That's why I've modded and continued to do so-- things don't just happen on their own.
I know there are some power trippers that just like to be the boss of things, but I'm assuming most are like me, who just want a happy and functional community to exist and thrive.
Beat me by fifteen minutes, lol. I was going to type something very similar.
Moderators should feel responsible for providing a safe space and enjoyable experience for the visitors and subscribers of their community. It’s ungrateful work, but someone has to do it. Power trippers who just want to be in charge of something are rarely good mods.
I do it in our (largish) discord server because, quite frankly, the trash won’t take itself out, and I like the community we have cultivated. Everyone wants a well moderated community, where people use the right channels for what theyre named, and don’t come into other channels and start spamming Nwords and other slurs. Everyone wants an unbiased moderation staff that follows a set of their own rules so people don’t get banned unfairly. And in my eyes that’s what we do. (I wont speak for other places on discord, just us) I like to be part of the group keeping chat clean for others to find people to play with. I enjoy talking to users and the conversations happening, so why not give a little time back to keep it that way?
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