Why would anyone want to be a moderator?
Why would anyone want to be a moderator?
Are moderators just purely altruistic? Or do they have an ulterior motive?
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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.
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 ...
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.