Some people perhaps find they enjoy being able to control large communities - there are definitely some “power mod” users forming here on Lemmy and I don’t know that it is clear why or what that will look like going forward.
I don’t think being a mod is always about having bad motives. I look after a community for a table top role playing game across Discord, Reddit, and here - the community isn’t huge but isn’t insignificant (expect here where there is no activity at all, the main hub is Discord). I recruited a team of mods to help with that, particularly Discord. Not to speak for them, but it’s people who enjoy being around the community and being a part of it. Nothing selfish or power-hungry about it - it is simply for the love of supporting a community you come to love and helping to make sure it continues to be a space the people using it want to be a part of. I set up the community because I enjoy the game, there wasn’t one already, and I didn’t want to clutter up other spaces talking about it. People joined and more importantly stayed because they enjoy the people and the space.
I think a test is when there are issues, or when you decide it is time to move on - are you happy to pass the community on to others who would like to look after it, or do you not do that and lock it down or get rid of it entirely. That feels incredibly selfish, and speaks to your reasons I think; whereas if you are happy to pass the torch because you care about the community which has formed in the space more than whatever you get out of doing the job, it is probably more likely you are doing the job altruistically and because you care.
I’m sure the above isn’t always the case and there are so many reasons and scenarios, just my thoughts at the moment :)
I think there are a lot of reasons.
Some people perhaps find they enjoy being able to control large communities - there are definitely some “power mod” users forming here on Lemmy and I don’t know that it is clear why or what that will look like going forward.
I don’t think being a mod is always about having bad motives. I look after a community for a table top role playing game across Discord, Reddit, and here - the community isn’t huge but isn’t insignificant (expect here where there is no activity at all, the main hub is Discord). I recruited a team of mods to help with that, particularly Discord. Not to speak for them, but it’s people who enjoy being around the community and being a part of it. Nothing selfish or power-hungry about it - it is simply for the love of supporting a community you come to love and helping to make sure it continues to be a space the people using it want to be a part of. I set up the community because I enjoy the game, there wasn’t one already, and I didn’t want to clutter up other spaces talking about it. People joined and more importantly stayed because they enjoy the people and the space.
I think a test is when there are issues, or when you decide it is time to move on - are you happy to pass the community on to others who would like to look after it, or do you not do that and lock it down or get rid of it entirely. That feels incredibly selfish, and speaks to your reasons I think; whereas if you are happy to pass the torch because you care about the community which has formed in the space more than whatever you get out of doing the job, it is probably more likely you are doing the job altruistically and because you care.
I’m sure the above isn’t always the case and there are so many reasons and scenarios, just my thoughts at the moment :)