Amateur moderation is awful and often exploitative.
I moderated a sub for about a year. At the time I felt like I was furthering a worthy cause. In retrospect I now feel like a schmuck who basically gave free labor to a company, making the platform more attractive to advertisers. I don't expect the hours I spent combing through troll posts had any measurable impact on the "cause" that sub was nominally furthering.
In general I no longer contribute content to platforms that directly leverage my contributions to more effectively pull in advertising or subscription fees. After seeing first-hand how moderators I "worked" with operate, I also assume any moderated social media content is corrupted by the moderators' biases.
In order for moderations to be sustainable and high quality, you need a large number of people who are: (a) intelligent, (b) unbiased, (c) willing to volunteer their time without compensation, (d) happy if someone else makes a profit off their work, & (e) willing to do the job forever.
There aren't many people like that.
More typically, they don't understand (c) or (d) in the context of moderation, or (a) and/or (b) are lacking. And once they do understand (c) and (d), (e) evaporates.
Twitter and Facebook repeatedly show how very wrong "professional" moderators get it. Almost like caring about a topic makes you better suited to maintain a community around it.
The other side of the coin is that many communities wouldn't exist without Reddit, and many wouldn't be tolerated by Reddit without moderators. Many subs have been closed for inadequate moderation. So you see it as free work, I say you get what you give. You want a nice place to chat? Pony up. Cash or effort.
> Almost like caring about a topic makes you better suited to maintain a community around it.
I think not caring about the topic makes you better suited to moderate it. It's way easier to dispassionately and evenly enforce rules when there's no possibility of a bone to pick.
Having skin in the game, wanting your community to blossom makes for much better moderators and community governance. They're far more likely to get involved in big tasks to fix long-standing issues. If rules need to change knowing the moderator calling for change helps a lot with acceptance.
My experience with paid moderators is they work in systems where they are vastly overworked so their willingness to actually engage with issues is low. Poor decisions get made. I've reported child porn and drug sales on Facebook and had a mod say they're okay. I have a few dozen examples like that. A lack of passion isn't good.
reddit mods are paid by outside companies and interest groups to specifically get access to places so they can control narratives
non-associated mods get offers from companies and interest groups for them to be in their favor
other, more nefarious mods have their own botfarms that they use to control narratives in their own massively popular subreddit because the police don't arrest themselves
media corporations, companies with specific interests, and intelligence agencies have all learned to play this game, reddit should have put the spots up for auction
> In retrospect I now feel like a schmuck who basically gave free labor to a company
You mean, like you're doing right now? Comments on HN can't be deleted after an hour because they add value to HN forever. And by being here you're adding value to them. Basically free labor.
I moderated a sub for about a year. At the time I felt like I was furthering a worthy cause. In retrospect I now feel like a schmuck who basically gave free labor to a company, making the platform more attractive to advertisers. I don't expect the hours I spent combing through troll posts had any measurable impact on the "cause" that sub was nominally furthering.
In general I no longer contribute content to platforms that directly leverage my contributions to more effectively pull in advertising or subscription fees. After seeing first-hand how moderators I "worked" with operate, I also assume any moderated social media content is corrupted by the moderators' biases.