That’s a recent quote from Reddit’s VP of community, Laura Nestler. Here’s more of it: This week, Reddit has been telling protesting moderators that if they keep their communities private, the company will take action against them. Any actions could happen as soon as this afternoon.
As soon as the threat was made all the mods should have quit. An unmoderated reddit would collapse in hours. It would have been glorious.
This is true. I suspect for many mods the power they have to push their ideas, ideals and beliefs and punish who they see fit more than makes up or the fact that they do it for free.
Mods like that probably exist. There are also many quiet mods, particularly in smaller communities, who try to govern even handedly. I never engaged in any protests or pushed any agendas until the recent API changes, and am trying to set up an alternate space to help ensure a space exists for the content/community.
Quite honestly, I don’t like moderating or leadership and sort of fell into the role. Now that I’m here though, there’s a sense of duty/obligation that makes it hard to leave.
You don’t even notice the quiet mods. If they’re doing their job right, it can seem like they’re not doing anything. If they ban your for misspelling Ganon on a Zelda sub or demand you write an apology essay for pointing out that Joe Biden has been creepy on a politics sub then they are doing doing it for power.
Definitely. The best mods stay out of the way unless there’s something harmful to the community. I’ve found it’s best to have clear, practical rules and to enforce them at face value with as much leniency as practical. “Remember the human” applies as much to moderators as it does to users.
I really doubt many mods see it like that.
Obviously their biases come out in their moderation, but I’d assume the majority think they’re doing a service and what users want.
Except the puppet mods on news/politics subs whose day job is pushing a narrative for someone. Those ones know what they’re doing.