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It seems inevitable that Reddit is going to need to start hiring professional moderators. But given the difficulties in making that work economically, it would

It seems inevitable that Reddit is going to need to start hiring professional moderators. But given the difficulties in making that work economically, it would only be for the very largest subreddits. And perhaps even then, it would just be a professional lead moderator, with some volunteer help. As it is, the only people who really want to be moderators, especially of a large subreddit, tend to be motivated by reasons other than "build a thriving community of diverse, good faith discussion." Every big subreddit needs a dang.

Eisenstein 3y ago
> As it is, the only people who really want to be moderators, especially of a large subreddit, tend to be motivated by reasons other than "build a thriving community of diverse, good faith discussion." People say this, but I find it completely untrue. Many people do a lot of things for good reasons, or else we wouldn't have charities. This cynical outlook is toxic and it is a reason why a lot of the people with 'good motives' get burned out. When no one gives you the benefit of consideration that you actually care about your community and want to see it thrive then you lose those motives. This is coming from someone who moderates many (>15) subreddits, with the largest one having 674,038 subscribers as of this posting.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  For an easy example -- how many of the largest [non-political] subreddits are openly political? By that I mean they either have participation rules or auto-moderators that explicitly tell you that you will be banned for non-conformance? You think only moderators are getting burned out? I'd suggest that Reddit is devolving into a place where the users and moderators willing to stick around completely deserve one another. On neither side do normal, sane people want to participate.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    > how many of the largest [non-political] subreddits are openly political? No idea. > I'd suggest that Reddit is devolving into a place where the users and moderators willing to stick around completely deserve one another. The specialist interest subs are mostly still worth it.

Eisenstein 3y ago

> As it is, the only people who really want to be moderators, especially of a large subreddit, tend to be motivated by reasons other than "build a thriving community of diverse, good faith discussion." People say this, but I find it completely untrue. Many people do a lot of things for good reasons, or else we wouldn't have charities. This cynical outlook is toxic and it is a reason why a lot of the people with 'good motives' get burned out. When no one gives you the benefit of consideration that you actually care about your community and want to see it thrive then you lose those motives. This is coming from someone who moderates many (>15) subreddits, with the largest one having 674,038 subscribers as of this posting.

rootusrootus 3y ago
For an easy example -- how many of the largest [non-political] subreddits are openly political? By that I mean they either have participation rules or auto-moderators that explicitly tell you that you will be banned for non-conformance? You think only moderators are getting burned out? I'd suggest that Reddit is devolving into a place where the users and moderators willing to stick around completely deserve one another. On neither side do normal, sane people want to participate.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > how many of the largest [non-political] subreddits are openly political? No idea. > I'd suggest that Reddit is devolving into a place where the users and moderators willing to stick around completely deserve one another. The specialist interest subs are mostly still worth it.