I think we’re talking slightly to the left of each other, yeah. I think if it was intended as a casual joke, it didn’t come off that way to me, especially coming as it did in response to my remark that both groups had a near-identical reputation for acting shitty.
Banning someone is just banning them, we agree. The logic I took from that was that, though both admins and mods could be ass, only one side was paid not to be ass and that fact alone should be reason to separate them.
Which obviously I’m never not going to fight about, because it leads to stuff like
• Bezos: revolting person, paid to look after his employees but makes them piss in bottles because he’s hiding a piss kink.
• Political/religious group of your choice, every abusive parent, etc.: good people, being utterly shit to everything around them til they blessedly die is more of a hobby.
The saddest part is this is a completely believable position for an internet stranger to take, so I just went ahead and believed that.
The context also probably comes off WAY differently if you happen to have been a mod yourself, e.g. implied wartime flashbacks I hopefully never have to relate to.
Being a mod or an admin is not about “the social contract.” It’s about enforcing rules either as a paid employee of the site or as an unpaid community volunteer. Being a jerk is just being a jerk, regardless of what position you’re in as you act like a jerk. I just don’t see the relevance here.
I would argue that it is about that. Your ability to inspire confidence in and work with the people you’re supposed to be moderating hinges in part on your ability to act fairly and decently.
80% of us are here because the CEO of Whatever Platform couldn’t do that. Reddit still works. My old boss lost her entire workforce in a day sans one person because she couldn’t manage that, even though she was technically able to run a store without hitting bankruptcy. Perfectly kingly rulers have died because they were pieces of shit.
Not discounting that modding a large community seems a horrendous experience, that doing that unpaid is probably wrong, and that trolls don’t reproduce the way zombies do.
I am saying if you want power at all, it’s to everyone’s benefit that you know how to handle whoever’s at your mercy. It’s implied in the job
Your ability to inspire confidence in and work with the people you’re supposed to be moderating hinges in part on your ability to act fairly and decently.
Right but this isn’t the workplace or a regular social interaction. Most users do not know each other or keep track. Hell 99.99999% of my (former) community probably had no idea I was a mod. The relationship just isn’t there to even exercise a social contract “as a mod.” It’s all hyper individual moments and one bad mod interaction is usually enough to sour someone against all mods. It’s an impossible game to play. So I just tried to enforce the rules as best I could, as the community asked me to do, and stay out of flame wars in my own backyard. I explained my reasoning when asked, which usually led to me being called a slur or something similar. So this ideal you’re asking for - which I don’t even really disagree with - does not and will not take place, unfortunately.
This doesn’t even touch the issue of people who swear they were “banned for literally no reason” and then run around reinforcing the reputation of “mods are power tripping jannies who hate free speech.”
I think we’re talking slightly to the left of each other, yeah. I think if it was intended as a casual joke, it didn’t come off that way to me, especially coming as it did in response to my remark that both groups had a near-identical reputation for acting shitty.
Banning someone is just banning them, we agree. The logic I took from that was that, though both admins and mods could be ass, only one side was paid not to be ass and that fact alone should be reason to separate them.
Which obviously I’m never not going to fight about, because it leads to stuff like
• Bezos: revolting person, paid to look after his employees but makes them piss in bottles because he’s hiding a piss kink.
• Political/religious group of your choice, every abusive parent, etc.: good people, being utterly shit to everything around them til they blessedly die is more of a hobby.
The saddest part is this is a completely believable position for an internet stranger to take, so I just went ahead and believed that.
The context also probably comes off WAY differently if you happen to have been a mod yourself, e.g. implied wartime flashbacks I hopefully never have to relate to.
I would argue that it is about that. Your ability to inspire confidence in and work with the people you’re supposed to be moderating hinges in part on your ability to act fairly and decently.
80% of us are here because the CEO of Whatever Platform couldn’t do that. Reddit still works. My old boss lost her entire workforce in a day sans one person because she couldn’t manage that, even though she was technically able to run a store without hitting bankruptcy. Perfectly kingly rulers have died because they were pieces of shit.
Not discounting that modding a large community seems a horrendous experience, that doing that unpaid is probably wrong, and that trolls don’t reproduce the way zombies do.
I am saying if you want power at all, it’s to everyone’s benefit that you know how to handle whoever’s at your mercy. It’s implied in the job
Right but this isn’t the workplace or a regular social interaction. Most users do not know each other or keep track. Hell 99.99999% of my (former) community probably had no idea I was a mod. The relationship just isn’t there to even exercise a social contract “as a mod.” It’s all hyper individual moments and one bad mod interaction is usually enough to sour someone against all mods. It’s an impossible game to play. So I just tried to enforce the rules as best I could, as the community asked me to do, and stay out of flame wars in my own backyard. I explained my reasoning when asked, which usually led to me being called a slur or something similar. So this ideal you’re asking for - which I don’t even really disagree with - does not and will not take place, unfortunately.
This doesn’t even touch the issue of people who swear they were “banned for literally no reason” and then run around reinforcing the reputation of “mods are power tripping jannies who hate free speech.”