Funny how some people expose their own sad world views by projecting it onto others 😅
Some people chose to do the right things because they are right, not because they benefit from them.
Comment on My Thoughts on the Fosstodon Drama | Kev Quirk
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks agoI have to ask, then: what motivates people to do it?
If mods are not financially compensated for it, the only rational explanation is that they are either getting some form of benefit (soft power, access to privileged information) or they are getting some pleasure out of it, i.e, power tripping.
poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
Some people chose to do the right things because they are right
This is just another way of saying that people do things for moral validation - a.k.a, self-righteouness - and is no at all different from “power tripping”.
zenforyen@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
That is a rather toxic way of looking at the world. I get it, I kind of can rationally understand the idea that you can explain all selfless behavior as being selfish because the least you get out of it is dopamine, so you are wired to feel good doing what you think is right.
Now, can you tell me how this is just not a very shitty and cynical lens to view humans through? I’ve had my nihilistic phase in my 20’s. I hope you also find a way out of the hole of the “arbitrariness” of ethics.
Because each other is all we have, and ethics is ultimately what makes us human. The ability to reprogram our own pleasure circuit and maybe, just maybe, just use it to be not an asshole, just to start with. And then at some point just do something nice for others. Because if everybody did that, the world would not be the shithole it is.
I’m thankful to mods who volunteer their free time to tend to the garden of the communities they care about.
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
I am not at all talking about the cases of someone who is passionate about some topic and then goes on to cultivate a community around it, and I am not saying “every moderator is doing it for some ulterior motive”.
I am talking specifically about the types that put on themselves to become mods of dozens of subreddits. Or instance admins that go months in a row begging for money to be able to pay their own bills. I am talking about the cases where people act beyond what anyone would consider “healthy”.
3dmvr@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Nah I get no dopamine from doing the right thing its neutral, some ppl just help build the place they want to see, obviously no one does anything for no reason at all?
poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Yeah, right 🤦 Sorry but I must conclude you have some serious intellectual stunting if you truly believe that. Ayn Rand level of delusion.
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
Hey, any comparison to Ayn Rand or their fans should be an immediate ban. No need to go that low.
All I’ve been arguing with you could be summed up as “if we want the Fediverse to be universal, we will need to grow a lot faster and we need to accept the reality that not everyone values the same things as you do” and you responding “No, I don’t to make the Fediverse universal because most people are too morally weak to stand for the things I care about”.
(And if you think I am exagerating: don’t make me look for the conversation where you said that people should be okay using this crap because the other open source alternatives committed the grave sin of “raising money from investors”.)
JoeTheSane@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Let’s please not forget that some people donate time and money because it gives them personal satisfaction to help out with something that is meaningful to them.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Yes, which is exactly why it’s particularly devastating when they receive animosity and hate in exchange.
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
it gives them personal satisfaction to help out with something that is meaningful to them.
What about the cases where “what is meaningful to them” conflicts with “what is meaningful to the others”?
I said on a sibling comment but it bears repeating: I am not talking about someone who enjoys a hobby and goes on to create/mod a community about it. I am thinking about the cases where someone finds themselves as part of a large community and realizes that the majority of the members keep pushing you to things you either don’t want to or disagree with.
JoeTheSane@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Then we are talking about two different things. The post that I responded to did not make that clear. You should be more careful about using generalizations.
rglullis@communick.news 2 weeks ago
I’d say that they are the same thing, just in different contexts. But okay, if I wasn’t clear it’s on me to fix it.
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
[deleted]rglullis@communick.news 2 weeks ago
It is a broader issue, namely: there is no such thing as doing a “thankless” job for purely altrustic reasons. This is not an issue on a small scale, but once it reaches it some critical mass we should wonder what motivates those who keep a position of authority.
(And before I get another barrage of people saying “I do it because I care about it/ I want to help / someone needs to do it”… yeah, sure, but if you are cultivating something because you happen to like the thing at hand , then you are doing for your own personal interest and it is not entirely altruistic. And that is totally fine.)
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Some people are willing to go against their own personal wants and desires if the majority of the community agrees. They may do it because they believe in democratic principles and whatever it is may be not what they want but doesn’t cross the their “line-in-the-sand” of what they are willing to do in service of their community.
And when it does finally cross that line, people will step down like Kevin has done. I may not agree with the democratically elected government of America right now but I am still an American. You don’t have to agree 100% with the community to still be a member
meldrik@lemmy.wtf 3 weeks ago
You can do things because you want to make a difference. A good difference. Not everything has to have an ulterior motive.
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
What “difference” is someone doing by being a mod of 50-odd subreddits, like the case of the mod in question?
iopq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I moderate a privacy community because they were looking for mods. I just delete spam from time to time
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
When the stakes are small, sure.
But if you were to find yourself with a community with hundreds of thousands of people, and let’s say that 0.01% percent of any group is made of people who seem like they are out to just make everyone’s life miserable, so every week we will have to deal with a couple of dozen cases of obnoxnious behavior, petty disputes, etc… how long do you think you’d be able to endure it?
Speaking for myself: I was remembering the time when I found myself as the owner and main mod of the University’s group on Orkut. When it was mostly discussions among actual students and faculty, it was all nice. Even when discussions were heated, they were not out of control. But when Orkut exploded in Brazil and it became a place for soapbox politics, spam, shouting matches between the student factions, people wanting to share articles about city events, etc, etc… it became too much for me and the handful of co-owners that joined me in the period.
iopq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m just not invested enough to care. At the end of the day nobody forces me to check the reports
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Some people volunteer and contribute out of their own good will for the betterment of society. Especially people who believe in FOSS which is a reasonable expectation out of someone who admins FOSStodon
comfy@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I like high quality communities, which cannot maintain quality without staff, and which would probably struggle to maintain any funding.
One example of a community I became a moderator for was one which often had trolls occasionally show up and post obviously malicious content, and commercial ad spam. Due to timezone differences, these often took hours to be deleted.
So it wasn’t about morality, righteousness, money or power. It was about me wanting to develop a community I cared about.
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Well I only moderate 1 community and there is a compensation component to it.
But for others, I’m sure they just enjoy having a community. Some of them might also just not care what the naysayers say.
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
Well I only moderate 1 community and there is a compensation component to it.
So many questions… :)
- What community?
- From this account, or some other? You profile page doesn’t show you as moderator for anything.
- What form of compensation are you talking about?
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Don’t really want to get too deep into it but its a Facebook community and its relevant to my business and I use the community to promote my business. It’s become a large source of my business. It’s the only reason I can’t delete my Facebook profile.
rglullis@communick.news 3 weeks ago
Ah, I thought you were talking about something here on the Fediverse.
In any case, I wish people didn’t feel afraid to talk about business here. Maybe more people would realize that the behind the majority of “business” there are genuine people and not just the cartoon capitalist pigs.
deadsuperhero@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think a lot of people do it because they want to build communities and bring people together. It’s easy to underestimate the workload and what kind of problems come up. A big problem is that people start instances, and gradually realize that they’re basically stuck running things until they either hand it off to someone else, or shut down.