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That is a similar issue Wikipedia has. Being a mod is fine, when your role-profile is clearly defined. But sometimes mods evolve into bureaucrats. And at a cer
by maze-le 8y ago
That is a similar issue Wikipedia has. Being a mod is fine, when your role-profile is clearly defined. But sometimes mods evolve into bureaucrats. And at a certain point, they take over a platform, mostly in a cultural/role-model sense. Then active contributors [also mods, but not obsessed with rules and enforcement] are being sidelined and start to quit.
This is a hard-to-solve problem for any community. Having lax regulation leads to scammers gaming the system. Having strict rule enforcement leads to a culture of punishment and death-by-process.
There is a place for people like this in organizations (controlling, lower management) -- here they actually can provide value being a process-oriented control-freak. In communities these roles can become toxic if they start to dominate the culture.
SO is dead to me since the bureaucrats have taken over, Wikipedia too for that matter.
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[0]: people who value 'processes' more than outcome.
- peeters 8y agoYeah it's an observable phenomenon that I've seen on Stack Overflow et al, as well as every Wiki site I've been a part of. Content creators don't give a shit about process, so they don't participate in the moderation echo chamber, so moderators trick themselves into thinking that they are the ones creating value on the site. Stack Overflow's issue is fixable though IMO. I don't see the same level of aggressive moderation towards those who answer. So from a community attitude, it seems like answerers are recognized as the content creators who you shouldn't drive away. So the solution in my head is to do what you can to recognize the askers as content creators as well. Because they are a vital part of content creation!