853 mods giffing for 2 years!
It's not easy being a moderator on reddit. Mods are often perceived as being on a power trip when really they're just protecting their community. Most of the time when people are complaining about their plight against the evil censorship of oppressive moderators it's because they blatantly broke a rule or were spamming. Modding is a difficult balance because almost no user appreciates the effort. The bad rap is very much overblown in most cases.
Modding can feel like it's literally a job, even though you don't get paid. It has a lot of responsibilities, like coding CSS, dealing with hatemail, and occasionally writing articles, for example. There's little in terms of payoff, only the satisfaction of a job well done. Basically what I am saying here is that if you like getting shit on then modding a subreddit is for you!
Those are just some of the burdens of modding a sub. So say you made a sub and it starts getting popular. You have a job, maybe school, and maybe even a life. You can't be on reddit all the time to run a community. So you have to recruit other mods, which is harder than trying to get people to give you free money.
Thankfully, /u/deimorz gave us AutoModerator in 2012. That is like a whole other century in reddit time. It was before I was a mod. Hell, back then I barely even knew what reddit was. I thought it was basically Digg. AutoModerator has been improved over the years, and it makes our jobs a lot easier. But to this day the very best thing about it is watching people argue with it. (Is /r/peoplearguingwithbots a thing?)
Of course, there are perks to being a moderator, like mod abuse and the awesome power of swinging that ban hammer. But seriously, the only real reward is a productive and healthy subreddit, and all of the discussion, connections, and content that it brings. Modding is really about community service more than anything.
Hug your mods next time you get a chance. They do a lot of work to keep this site running. I'll leave you with /u/GodOfAtheism's reaction when I asked if it'd be okay to feature /r/modgifs on /r/SubredditOfTheDay.
You've been reading my love letter to mods everywhere who do a thankless job well.
[–]TotesMessenger 0ポイント1ポイント2ポイント (0子コメント)
[–]Fonjask 0ポイント1ポイント2ポイント (0子コメント)