I should begin by mentioning that I am (was) a moderator of three subreddits: one large subreddit, one NSFW subreddit and a medical-related subreddit. After u/spez's calamitous AMA, I joined Lemmy and haven't looked back. I am really enjoying the Lemmy/KBin vibe. It is very much an alpha (almost beta) product and the ad free, corporate free, decentralized nature of the fediverse has a thrill of its own.
Over the past couple of months, Reddit has done everything it can to show its moderators that they are low-value and easily replaceable. They've done this by removing technical tools, killing off third party applications, crippling API changes and jaw-droppingly bad public relations. Heavily used products like /r/toolbox are no longer being actively developed. When Reddit API implements a breaking, non-backwards compatible change, that tool will also die.
Yet the moderators of Reddit continue to moderate. They stay and help Reddit build Reddit. They continue to work for free; to allow Reddit to make money off of their work despite being abused. When I see things like the comment section on this post, I no longer feel sorry for the Reddit moderators still on the site. I see them as a sad, sorry group who cling to the false hope of a corporate turnaround. They could leave Reddit. They should leave Reddit.
These moderators are in an abusive relationship with Reddit, Inc. I might understand the argument, "we built this community, we can't just abandon it". But would you give the same advice to someone else in an abusive relationship? I get that the analogy between the mods and the corp is an imperfect one, yet it is similar enough to be valid, in my opinion.
Moderating is really hard. It is hard and thankless and never-ending. Finding good moderators who can handle the marathon nature of the gig is incredibly difficult. If Reddit moderators were to delete their moderating bots, downgrade their automod "code" and dial back their modding efforts to 5 min/week or less, it would materially hurt Reddit as a product.
The sunk-cost fallacy is a real thing. If the Reddit mods understood this, they'd take their talents elsewhere. But as long as they continue to help Reddit build Reddit, one shouldn't feel sorry for them.
They could leave. I did and I've never been happier.
It was, originally. It then mutated into a site on this newfangled World Wide Web thingamabob, which ultimately became a UBB driven forum. In what is now considered quite an oldschool style. Originally it was an archive of text files of questionable legality (and accuracy). Think along the lines of the old "Anarchist's Cookbook" that circulated the early internet, and that sort of thing. A large portion of the text file archive was still available even well after the forum was the only reason anyone went there.
It had a facelift circa I want to say 2008? My recollection is a bit hazy. Which tried to make it look more "professional" and "Web 2.0," but ultimately was the same old thing in a different skin that was less "l33t hack3r" but not much easier on the eyes. (Someone really, really liked the color blue.) That was kind of the beginning of the end, since after that the creator/admin "Jeff Hunter," had apparently lost interest after presumably pupating into a productive member of society, and now the whole thing is gone.
Towards the end, Totse also had an inner circle of moderators of dubious sanity for its major forums, who pretty much just used their power to squash dissent and turn their subforums into their own private echo chambers. Sounds kind of familiar, once you think back on it. I, uh, won't reveal which forums I was a moderator of. Such a thing might impact a person's reputation.