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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • I’ve been a social media moderator and it’s an awful, thankless, volunteer job. And I think objectively we kept our community very tightly focused on our narrow topic and civil. But we’d have never gotten to that point without a ton of help from the community itself. We outlined our vision and had clear, reasonable guidelines, so it was very easy to determine if something was against the rules to report.

    But this was a special interest subreddit, and it was a constant battle. I made sure that every ruling and interaction I made had thoughtful intent. I had to step down because it was making me legitimately depressed.

    I could never fault a moderator for being overwhelmed, especially for a community as chaotic as instagram. For these large, general purpose communities, it’s impossible to police directly. It truly takes the whole community to enforce and report bad behavior.

    So no, you shouldn’t blame the victims, but you have to understand it’s a massive systemic problem with no easy solution. The best advice you can give really is “Take care of yourself, and avoid problematic communities.”