The communities I’m interested in are already well-moderated. I’d probably also be super passionate for a few days then vanish until something sparks my interest again.

Done it before. I try not to be as online any more. Literally bad for your mental health. Honestly hated how online I’ve been with recovery from surgery

Users are selfish fuck heads

Good question.

26 years ago I was a volunteer community manager for a (at the time) huge fps for a big online gaming community. That involved effectively recruiting and managing a group of admins, developing a system of monitoring and anticheat reporting. In hindsight I put way too much time into that but I have difficulty limiting.

It was tiring. 4/5 hours every night after work. No social life. All my choice.

I don’t regret it. I did good, I think. With the team, we stopped a lot of really nasty racism and other abuse. Really helped inform and prevent aimbotting and similar cheating (went down a whole other rabbit hole and ended up writing several guides on the subject). Generally made the servers a nicer place to play. I was offered a job with the company, but I couldn’t take it - and they’ve since closed doors.

Downsides: Death threats, doxxing attempts, a long running issue with another admin who didn’t like me firing him. The charismatic cheaters who think they can charm their way around a ban with begging and promises. The entitled players who’ve never been told “No” before and get ridiculously angry. It can be a lot.

Now I try to help around the edges rather than be the main guy. I do manage a biggish facebook group, but it doesn’t need a lot of input.

Skill issue at communication and my plate is already overflowing when it comes to socializing.
I just don’t have the social energy left over to add in another social activity.

the shear fucking amount of child porn creepy white dicks post… then threaten to rape and kill you for removing their child porno rape films.

I’m the one who needs moderation.

For big ones it is a time commitment thing, but for small ones I have tried to do my part.

I have found I generally have the time to act as a caretaker for some small communities, and there are more than a couple communities out there which have lone creator accounts that have been deleted and are essentially unmoderated (outside of instance admins).

I found a couple of these, !canada@lemmy.ml and !firefox@lemmy.ml, and decided I could help watch them as a result.

If they are fairly small I would definitely recommend it to anyone else - for me, by far and large, I find that the users who engage with these communities are really very respectful and create good conversation about the topics, which makes my role very simple most of the time.

i have no comms