They are an ally (that we sometimes dislike). The web would be too toxic for most without moderation.
None of these online communities would exist without them. They do a lot of work for free so that we can enjoy them.
It’s easy as a user to say they are being heavy handed or whatever but without them it would be nothing but spam and ads. If they have to do things that seem unreasonable to make their jobs easier I don’t have a problem with it.
That said they are obviously just humans and some of them suck. This usually sorts itself out by either a community dieing or them being kicked off.
Ally, without them spaces like this here would be unusable and full of spam.
I think of them as people with a job to do. Some do it well, others do it less well. This is normal.
Yeah, it’s like asking “what does everyone think about bosses?” There are good ones and bad ones.
And then there’s the antiwork philosophy.
The “anti-work” philosophy isn’t against bosses or hierarchical structure. It’s about empowering the worker through systemic reforms like creating unions or workplace democracy - literally voting for your boss. Nobody is so naive that they want to get rid of administrative work. Workers want their just due and they can’t be faulted for that with our current systems and relationship to work.
Really? Then that’s a rather confusing name. I don’t engage there, but what I got from them is rather an “against” movement, whereas unionists usually have an agenda to strive towards.
The name is confusing, kind of like “defund the police”. If you take it at face value, you can misunderstand.
Look at https://lemmy.ml/c/antiwork 's sidebar:
We’re trying to improving working conditions and pay.
We’re trying to reduce the numbers of hours a person has to work.
We talk about the end of paid work being mandatory for survival.
If a leftist movement doesn’t have a horribly misleading and unnecessarily inflammatory name, is it even a leftist movement?
I mean the creator of the movement back on reddit was literally anti-work. They went on to get interviewed on the news and made a complete fool of themselves and the people who had a much more well reasoned approach, causing a split into “work reform”/worker empowerment communities, which this one is more along the lines of.
Just like a Janitor, or a Security team. If they do their job well most people won’t notice. If they do a terrible job everyone suffers. Kudos to anyone who does a passible job out of the goodness of their heart.
Allies.
This isn’t the 90s anymore. Today, unmoderated/poorly moderated online spaces are breeding grounds for the usual toxic assholes who ruin everything.
In most of the places I exist, I think of them like janitors. Doing appreciated, but not-very-fun work, to keep communities moving.
Honestly, if I was in a place with moderators that felt like adversaries, I might not stick around very long.
And, like janitors, they usually go unrecognized for the help they give and heavily criticized for anything that’s not perfect.
They need to exist but I don’t like them because I’m only reminded of their existence when they’re removing or Banning stuff.
I think they spend a lot of their time holding back a wall of crap from falling on all of us. Unmoderated forums are so bad.
Somebody has to do it. I’m just thankful that it is not me. I really don’t understand how you can’t appreciate the work of the mods.
I’m biased because I mod some large subs, but I’d say 95% of the time I see them as an ally.
Having seen behind the curtains, I’m glad they clean things up to keep the stage nice for me. You’d be shocked by the shit we see before it gets removed.
That said, that 5%-20% of mods that suck really suck.
Exactly. I’m a mod in a few subreddits, the biggest of which is /r/Showerthoughts. People don’t notice our existence unless we interact with them directly, and you rarely interact with users unless to ban them or to remove their content. So it is expected to be hated.
I’ve never had any interaction good or bad with them in my 11 years on Reddit. I consider that a good thing. They’re in the background doing what needs to be done and I appreciate that.
An ally when used to maintain clean spaces, but an adversary when they’re only a mod for the power over other people and not out of any sense of community duty.
It is almost immediately obvious which ones are which.
They’re necessary, but any power will always bring a chance that someone will abuse it. So I usually prefer moderators with a lighter touch, that talk to their users before taking more controversial actions.
That’s a really broad question: Depends on the mod.
Some of them are decent human beings doing a shitty unpaid job because they care about the community, and some are power tripping assholes that shouldn’t be mods.
We need to differentiate between “online moderators” and “people with moderator permissions”. The first group of people is a valuable addition to every community, keeping it safe and secure. The second group uses their permissions to support their own opinion and should be banned on their own.