Ally, without them spaces like this here would be unusable and full of spam.
I think of them as people with a job to do. Some do it well, others do it less well. This is normal.
And even one person doesn't do it well or badly all the time.
Just like a Janitor, or a Security team. If they do their job well most people won't notice. If they do a terrible job everyone suffers. Kudos to anyone who does a passible job out of the goodness of their heart.
In most of the places I exist, I think of them like janitors. Doing appreciated, but not-very-fun work, to keep communities moving.
Honestly, if I was in a place with moderators that felt like adversaries, I might not stick around very long.
And, like janitors, they usually go unrecognized for the help they give and heavily criticized for anything that’s not perfect.
Allies.
This isn't the 90s anymore. Today, unmoderated/poorly moderated online spaces are breeding grounds for the usual toxic assholes who ruin everything.
None of these online communities would exist without them. They do a lot of work for free so that we can enjoy them.
It's easy as a user to say they are being heavy handed or whatever but without them it would be nothing but spam and ads. If they have to do things that seem unreasonable to make their jobs easier I don't have a problem with it.
That said they are obviously just humans and some of them suck. This usually sorts itself out by either a community dieing or them being kicked off.
I think they spend a lot of their time holding back a wall of crap from falling on all of us. Unmoderated forums are so bad.
They are an ally (that we sometimes dislike). The web would be too toxic for most without moderation.
They're necessary, but any power will always bring a chance that someone will abuse it. So I usually prefer moderators with a lighter touch, that talk to their users before taking more controversial actions.
Somebody has to do it. I'm just thankful that it is not me. I really don't understand how you can't appreciate the work of the mods.
I'm biased because I mod some large subs, but I'd say 95% of the time I see them as an ally.
Having seen behind the curtains, I'm glad they clean things up to keep the stage nice for me. You'd be shocked by the shit we see before it gets removed.
That said, that 5%-20% of mods that suck really suck.
Exactly. I'm a mod in a few subreddits, the biggest of which is /r/Showerthoughts. People don't notice our existence unless we interact with them directly, and you rarely interact with users unless to ban them or to remove their content. So it is expected to be hated.
They're just random people. Sometimes they take their power a little too seriously and overstep their bounds. It's all up to the individual mod.
No way of generalizing. Actions speak in this matter.
If you're clearly communicating about rules and applying reason in enforcing them, ally.
If you wield the BAN HAMMER with furious vengance and abuse your power, adversary.
They need to exist but I don't like them because I'm only reminded of their existence when they're removing or Banning stuff.
An ally when used to maintain clean spaces, but an adversary when they're only a mod for the power over other people and not out of any sense of community duty.
It is almost immediately obvious which ones are which.
I’ve never had any interaction good or bad with them in my 11 years on Reddit. I consider that a good thing. They’re in the background doing what needs to be done and I appreciate that.
It depends how vague or precise the rules are. If the rules are clearly defined, and the mods are applying those rules evenly then they're an ally as they keep the community to a sane level for everyone else.
It's when they start applying the rules unevenly or as if the rules don't apply to them that they become an adversary.
It's not always easy though, because they'll something encounter participants that are acting in bad faith but withing the rules. Those can be frustrating for a moderator, but then it's a good way to see if they're following the rules or their emotions.
That's a really broad question: Depends on the mod.
Some of them are decent human beings doing a shitty unpaid job because they care about the community, and some are power tripping assholes that shouldn't be mods.
They can be both. Unfortunately human beings tend to be very tribal and subjective. Therefore my opinion is that they can be some mixture of both depending on the subject matter and how impassioned the moderator chooses to be.
We need to differentiate between "online moderators" and "people with moderator permissions". The first group of people is a valuable addition to every community, keeping it safe and secure. The second group uses their permissions to support their own opinion and should be banned on their own.
It's a mixed bag. Many of them focus too much on policing the rules as strictly as possible and lose sight of the spirit of the community. They are a necessary evil in my opinion, but they shouldn't be appointed with zero accountability as they currently are. Elections and community votes to remove mods that abuse their power should be more common.
Communities are like countries. If a community has well defined rules (constitution) and the moderator (leader of the country) rules with justice and applies the rules evenly, then the community will be a bliss to be in.
It depends on how they behave. If they're actually helping to moderate the community then their absolutely allies. However, if they're on a power trip and moderating solely for the chance to be in charge of something they should be removed and replaced.
I think that many of them are so obsessed with civil language that they forget that advocacy for monstrous inhumanity can be done using only civil language, while civility in the face of monstrous inhumanity normalizes and encourages it.
I think that moderators who do this often find themselves to be the allies of monsters.
As an online moderator I'm biased, but I'd say usually allies with occasional hard adversaries. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like power, but ultimately even knowing that it's your responsibility as a moderator to enforce the community will, keep out the riff-raf, and ban toxic elements. I think most mods understand this, but there are a notable handful that turn toxic and turn the communities into a personal playground, and those types of people need to be kept as far away from any sort of power as possible.
I wanna put their toes in my mouth
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
