it gives them personal satisfaction to help out with something that is meaningful to them.
What about the cases where “what is meaningful to them” conflicts with “what is meaningful to the others”?
I said on a sibling comment but it bears repeating: I am not talking about someone who enjoys a hobby and goes on to create/mod a community about it. I am thinking about the cases where someone finds themselves as part of a large community and realizes that the majority of the members keep pushing you to things you either don’t want to or disagree with.
Some people are willing to go against their own personal wants and desires if the majority of the community agrees. They may do it because they believe in democratic principles and whatever it is may be not what they want but doesn’t cross the their “line-in-the-sand” of what they are willing to do in service of their community.
And when it does finally cross that line, people will step down like Kevin has done. I may not agree with the democratically elected government of America right now but I am still an American. You don’t have to agree 100% with the community to still be a member
Then we are talking about two different things. The post that I responded to did not make that clear. You should be more careful about using generalizations.
It is a broader issue, namely: there is no such thing as doing a “thankless” job for purely altrustic reasons. This is not an issue on a small scale, but once it reaches it some critical mass we should wonder what motivates those who keep a position of authority.
(And before I get another barrage of people saying “I do it because I care about it/ I want to help / someone needs to do it”… yeah, sure, but if you are cultivating something because you happen to like the thing at hand , then you are doing for your own personal interest and it is not entirely altruistic. And that is totally fine.)
I moderated a 2mill person sub on the shithole site until I left over the API fiasco. I was never paid, I was never interviewed, I received nothing. I banned maybe 10 people over 3 years. Only a few friends know I even did it and it’s because it organically came up during the api shit.
I legitimately did it because I had been a member of the community for years and really felt passionate about keeping its standards and making sure it remained safe for the community. I am not amazing, I am not unusual. Most mods on some level do it because they want to see a community thrive. The terrible ones exist, there are even a lot of them. But as you can imagine, people don’t notice the quiet ones who just do their thing and tend to it the same way they tend to a garden.
Your idea of “thankless” is part of the issue as well as your parenthetical which arbitrarily decides “you can answer it but I don’t accept your answer.” The satisfying part was watching it grow and people just have a good time. Again, like seeing a nice garden. If you boil anything down enough nothing is ever truly altruistic, not even donating to your favorite charity, because you can say “well you did it so you would feel good.” It sounds to me that you just have an axe to grind with the concept of mods in general
I legitimately did it because I had been a member of the community for years and really felt passionate about keeping its standards and making sure it remained safe for the community.
Would you do it for a community you didn’t care about?
Do you think that doing something because you “really felt passionate about it” is “selfless”?
I’m not sure if you responded before I added my last paragraph. I did it quickly but there was probably a 90s gap. Have you read it?
I think you’re also projecting this idea that all mods claim this is some holy selfless totally altruistic and pure act. No one talks about it like that.
My “axe to grind” is not against mods. My “axe to grind” is against Small Fedi. I can elaborate more later if you want, but now I need to get back to work…
I think ultimately you’re arguing against something I’m not really arguing for. Again, any mod who thinks that this is some 100% purely altruistic endeavor is sniffing their own farts and is definitely an incredibly thin sliver of the modding population.
If you want to keep boiling things down then you can ultimately reduce any act of charity or good deed to some degree of selfishness and say that there is no truly altruistic action. So in the end your final conclusion is “mods are ultimately selfish and putting up altruistic window dressing,” which as long as you can say “it’s never 100% selfless” means you can’t ever be wrong rhetorically. That’s a philosophy discussion, not a practical discussion of what motivates people to become moderators.
I think there is a spectrum between what you did (you were mod until you no longer thought that the pain of dealing with Reddit was worth it or morally justified) and someone who sticks around as a mod of 50+ subreddits because they see as an instrument of control, or someone that keeps running a big Mastodon instance despite financial struggles; and my point is to understand where most people lie.
What about the cases where “what is meaningful to them” conflicts with “what is meaningful to the others”?
I said on a sibling comment but it bears repeating: I am not talking about someone who enjoys a hobby and goes on to create/mod a community about it. I am thinking about the cases where someone finds themselves as part of a large community and realizes that the majority of the members keep pushing you to things you either don’t want to or disagree with.
Some people are willing to go against their own personal wants and desires if the majority of the community agrees. They may do it because they believe in democratic principles and whatever it is may be not what they want but doesn’t cross the their “line-in-the-sand” of what they are willing to do in service of their community.
And when it does finally cross that line, people will step down like Kevin has done. I may not agree with the democratically elected government of America right now but I am still an American. You don’t have to agree 100% with the community to still be a member
Then we are talking about two different things. The post that I responded to did not make that clear. You should be more careful about using generalizations.
I’d say that they are the same thing, just in different contexts. But okay, if I wasn’t clear it’s on me to fix it.
You sound like you’re referencing something specific but you’re speaking as if this is some broader issue
It is a broader issue, namely: there is no such thing as doing a “thankless” job for purely altrustic reasons. This is not an issue on a small scale, but once it reaches it some critical mass we should wonder what motivates those who keep a position of authority.
(And before I get another barrage of people saying “I do it because I care about it/ I want to help / someone needs to do it”… yeah, sure, but if you are cultivating something because you happen to like the thing at hand , then you are doing for your own personal interest and it is not entirely altruistic. And that is totally fine.)
I moderated a 2mill person sub on the shithole site until I left over the API fiasco. I was never paid, I was never interviewed, I received nothing. I banned maybe 10 people over 3 years. Only a few friends know I even did it and it’s because it organically came up during the api shit.
I legitimately did it because I had been a member of the community for years and really felt passionate about keeping its standards and making sure it remained safe for the community. I am not amazing, I am not unusual. Most mods on some level do it because they want to see a community thrive. The terrible ones exist, there are even a lot of them. But as you can imagine, people don’t notice the quiet ones who just do their thing and tend to it the same way they tend to a garden.
Your idea of “thankless” is part of the issue as well as your parenthetical which arbitrarily decides “you can answer it but I don’t accept your answer.” The satisfying part was watching it grow and people just have a good time. Again, like seeing a nice garden. If you boil anything down enough nothing is ever truly altruistic, not even donating to your favorite charity, because you can say “well you did it so you would feel good.” It sounds to me that you just have an axe to grind with the concept of mods in general
Would you do it for a community you didn’t care about?
Do you think that doing something because you “really felt passionate about it” is “selfless”?
I’m not sure if you responded before I added my last paragraph. I did it quickly but there was probably a 90s gap. Have you read it?
I think you’re also projecting this idea that all mods claim this is some holy selfless totally altruistic and pure act. No one talks about it like that.
No, I missed it before.
My “axe to grind” is not against mods. My “axe to grind” is against Small Fedi. I can elaborate more later if you want, but now I need to get back to work…
I think ultimately you’re arguing against something I’m not really arguing for. Again, any mod who thinks that this is some 100% purely altruistic endeavor is sniffing their own farts and is definitely an incredibly thin sliver of the modding population.
If you want to keep boiling things down then you can ultimately reduce any act of charity or good deed to some degree of selfishness and say that there is no truly altruistic action. So in the end your final conclusion is “mods are ultimately selfish and putting up altruistic window dressing,” which as long as you can say “it’s never 100% selfless” means you can’t ever be wrong rhetorically. That’s a philosophy discussion, not a practical discussion of what motivates people to become moderators.
I think there is a spectrum between what you did (you were mod until you no longer thought that the pain of dealing with Reddit was worth it or morally justified) and someone who sticks around as a mod of 50+ subreddits because they see as an instrument of control, or someone that keeps running a big Mastodon instance despite financial struggles; and my point is to understand where most people lie.