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by bogantech 1099 days ago
> (which has been done for free as a service to Reddit).

Most of them are doing it because they get off on having a tiny bit of power.

I couldn't care less about the API or the will of capricious mods - I hope Reddit will hand the subs over to other people

4 comments

I am a regular user on Reddit and not a mod. But I have managed a very low traffic mailing list before. I cannot imagine doing it for free no matter how much ego boost I get.

So my question is, if Reddit kicks off all the mods from a sub you frequent often, and ask you to be the new mod, would you do it? And, if it is a busy enough subreddit, would you spend the time those people have been spending, to moderation?

For me, that would be no.

And those new mods are suddenly not going to need better modding tools? They'll just be happy with whatever Reddit has? It's just the current mods who get off on their power, the new ones won't?

Stop for a second and consider: why do these problems exist, and why should they stop?

You can't change human nature but you can get mods that don't care about this particular issue and when the next ones cause problems you get rid of them too
> You can't change human nature but you can get mods that don't care about this particular issue

Okay, and how will that help you to not get "capricious mods"?

> and when the next ones cause problems you get rid of them too

And when those ones make problems you get rid of them again? And then again? And again? And again? And again? And again? And again? And again? And again? And again?

Are you starting to see the problem?

There is always going to be people that want to be mods
And you think for those people this doesn't hold true?

> Most of them are doing it because they get off on having a tiny bit of power.

Are you willfully ignoring this point, or do you really think that magically it will work out?

You can't do anything about that. Most of them will will be in it for themselves but when they start getting ideas that they own the place (like the current ones think) you cull them
If they would only moderate for feeling power, they wouldn’t risk their mod position by going against the only party who can kick them.

Honestly, I also think that public forums such as reddit shouldn’t build up a walled garden like this and the information should be free to anyone, regardless whether they use it commercially or for research.

> Most of them are doing it because they get off on having a tiny bit of power.

[citation needed]