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this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration
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It’s beyond my understanding why someone would moderate a subreddit for free for a for-profit organization.
I thought moderators were paid or something. It’s literally working for free. I don’t get it.
Two reasons:
Replacing a lot of mods at once is going to result in a lot more of the latter and eliminate a lot of the former.
Third and most likely reason: you got involved in the early days with something that was really small, but mushroomed to become something really big.
I would classify that as a subset of my first bullet point, but it's not an unreasonable distinction.
It's volunteer work, which some people enjoy. Much like being a volunteer firefighter or member of a local club. I have modded across Discord, Twitch and also Reddit (for a short amount of time) and there is a certain joy it brings you. You get to care for a forum in which people like you discuss your favorite topics. You get to keep your own community clean and happy. And having that power and responsibility does give one a lot of joy. Think about it like it's parenting. Nobody is gonna pay you for having kids (in fact you're gonna lose a bunch of money), but when they succeed in life it makes you extremely happy.
I used to be a volunteer moderator for a non-reddit site. I did it because I liked the place and wanted to keep the asshattery down to a dull roar so the people who weren't shitposting would stick around.
They care about the topic; or they like the feeling of being in charge of thousands of people; or both.
I did it, albeit a very small community. I cared enough about the topic to give other people dealing with similar things some space to build a community. Mine was luckily mostly dead, since I don't care about building a base or keeping it going, but it served well for its time. Anyone who thinks modding is anything but a labor of love doesn't make for a very good mod.