What is your opinion of online moderators? Do you think of them as an ally or an adversary?

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.

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.

Allies.

This isn't the 90s anymore. Today, unmoderated/poorly moderated online spaces are breeding grounds for the usual toxic assholes who ruin everything.

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.

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.

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.

They are an ally (that we sometimes dislike). The web would be too toxic for most without moderation.

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.

They're just random people. Sometimes they take their power a little too seriously and overstep their bounds. It's all up to the individual mod.

The best ones are the ones you never know about. If you know about them, it's probably because they're power-trippers.

There's no single uniform answer because they're people and unique. I've dealt with some powertripping gross mods who only use their positions to further the benefits to them and their friends. I've also had selfless, kind mods who take hits in order to further their communities. Most are somewhere in between. When I've been a mod, I've not been a saint, but I've also not tried to actively create harm.

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.

No way of generalizing. Actions speak in this matter.

If you're clearly communicating about rules and applying reason in enforcing them, ally.

If you wield the BAN HAMMER with furious vengance and abuse your power, adversary.

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.

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.

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.

It depends how vague or precise the rules are. If the rules are clearly defined, and the mods are applying those rules evenly then they're an ally as they keep the community to a sane level for everyone else.

It's when they start applying the rules unevenly or as if the rules don't apply to them that they become an adversary.

It's not always easy though, because they'll something encounter participants that are acting in bad faith but withing the rules. Those can be frustrating for a moderator, but then it's a good way to see if they're following the rules or their emotions.

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.

They can be both. Unfortunately human beings tend to be very tribal and subjective. Therefore my opinion is that they can be some mixture of both depending on the subject matter and how impassioned the moderator chooses to be.

I think that the whole world doesn't need to be divided up into little "with us or against us" wars like this; there's nuance to be had, like in every other situation.

Some mods are good and only want what's best for their community, and some mods are bad and are power hungry control freaks.

Mods are people, same as the rest of us. Often they're valued members of the community before they're given the position.

Do I think that the job needs to exist? Absolutely. Good, bad, or otherwise, they do a lot of work to protect us from the tidal wave of crap that comes in, whether it's bots, scammers, trolls, hate advocats, etc., and I'm thankful that it's not me who needs to deal with all of that.

TL;DR: Mods do important work, but they're also people, and not everything has to be an "us VS. them" situation.

Allies, particularly here on Beehaw. Maintaining a positive atmosphere isn’t easy, and they’ve made several posts about their philosophy. It’s something they put a LOT of thought into.

My default opinion of fediverse mods is that they’re allies, unless they prove otherwise.

I wouldn’t put up with adversarial mods. I’m just a casual user, and there are too many instances to choose from. I’m not gonna tolerate that crap. This isn’t reddit.

It depends on how they behave. If they're actually helping to moderate the community then their absolutely allies. However, if they're on a power trip and moderating solely for the chance to be in charge of something they should be removed and replaced.

I think that many of them are so obsessed with civil language that they forget that advocacy for monstrous inhumanity can be done using only civil language, while civility in the face of monstrous inhumanity normalizes and encourages it.

I think that moderators who do this often find themselves to be the allies of monsters.

It's a mixed bag. Many of them focus too much on policing the rules as strictly as possible and lose sight of the spirit of the community. They are a necessary evil in my opinion, but they shouldn't be appointed with zero accountability as they currently are. Elections and community votes to remove mods that abuse their power should be more common.

Communities are like countries. If a community has well defined rules (constitution) and the moderator (leader of the country) rules with justice and applies the rules evenly, then the community will be a bliss to be in.

As an online moderator I'm biased, but I'd say usually allies with occasional hard adversaries. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like power, but ultimately even knowing that it's your responsibility as a moderator to enforce the community will, keep out the riff-raf, and ban toxic elements. I think most mods understand this, but there are a notable handful that turn toxic and turn the communities into a personal playground, and those types of people need to be kept as far away from any sort of power as possible.

I wanna put their toes in my mouth

They're like customs officers. Just look innocent when they're around & you'll get by.