this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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The thing that bothers me is the number of people on the r/steam announcement commenting that the mods are doing this to hold on to power and have sold out to the admins. Speaking as someone who has previously run a community (though a much, much smaller one) there is a lot of hard work and effort that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that these kinds of internet spaces stay clean and healthy. It's easy to say "Look at the power-tripping mods", and yes those do exist, but to pretend that every mod is like that sells short the people who sacrifice of themselves for the betterment of the community. A lot of metaphorical and occasionally literal blood, sweat, and tears go into managing an online social space, which I can attest to. Does that excuse poor mod behavior? Never! However, we shouldn't cut off our own nose to spite our face. I just hope that we can stop fighting ourselves and direct our collective vitriol at the real perpetrators; spez and his cronies.
The point is more that the writing is on the wall for that website, and should just quit moderating them and go to one of the alternatives or come here. Saying oh well and giving in to this strong arming from the admins is just making it worse for them down the line.
It's time to jump ship. The longer these people keep denying that, the more power they give to the admins.
While I appreciate that point of view, and it absolutely feels that way, I can relate to the reluctance the r/Steam mods to torching everything. They have carefully cultivated the sub like a garden, and even though the local HOA (the admins) are threatening action, the mods aren't happy with the idea of immediately ripping out their prize-winning tulips and replacing them with cardboard cutouts just to be spiteful. I'm sure they want to try less extreme measures to salvage as much content as they can before making a riskier decision. Again, I get that things seem hopeless from the user side of things, but I know if I was in their shoes I'd be searching every avenue for a solution, even ones I wouldn't normally consider.