My "axe to grind" is not against mods. My "axe to grind" is against Small Fedi. I can elaborate more later if you want, but now I need to get back to work...

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I think ultimately you’re arguing against something I’m not really arguing for. Again, any mod who thinks that this is some 100% purely altruistic endeavor is sniffing their own farts and is definitely an incredibly thin sliver of the modding population.

If you want to keep boiling things down then you can ultimately reduce any act of charity or good deed to some degree of selfishness and say that there is no truly altruistic action. So in the end your final conclusion is “mods are ultimately selfish and putting up altruistic window dressing,” which as long as you can say “it’s never 100% selfless” means you can’t ever be wrong rhetorically. That’s a philosophy discussion, not a practical discussion of what motivates people to become moderators.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I think there is a spectrum between what you did (you were mod until you no longer thought that the pain of dealing with Reddit was worth it or morally justified) and someone who sticks around as a mod of 50+ subreddits because they see as an instrument of control, or someone that keeps running a big Mastodon instance despite financial struggles; and my point is to understand where most people lie.

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

I think you kinda answered your own question. Somewhere in between. You won’t get a better answer than that without some sort of rigorous study.

For instance, most of the mods I worked with or knew generally operated the way I did. But obviously there are all sorts of factors to consider about why I would see that potentially more than others would, so I can’t really assert with any confidence that my experience was representative