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Discord has the highest moderator burnout rate I’ve ever seen by a long shot lol. Experienced Reddit, Facebook Groups, and Twitch mods last a fraction of the time on Discord.
Imagine having to babysit interpersonal conflicts 24 hours a day, where 80% of the time the people who are treated poorly quietly leave. The bad actors then immediately decide the mods must be harassed for good measure. This usually happens at 1am within a span of 2 hours.
It’s kind of a consequence of having a space where there can be immediate, active, and ongoing social interaction all the time— something we need more and more with everybody existing remotely. We just don’t have a broadly held understanding or means to manage it healthily yet.
Discord and Facebook Groups have exploded in the past year, for obvious reasons, and people are leaning on these spaces socially and emotionally as a huge part of their lives now. Unsurprisingly, a million think pieces about burning out of moderating communities have come out.
Also in the past year, moderators have dealt with an explosion of suicide and self harm threats. They have to intervene for the safety and health of the community but then they’re thrown into the traumatizing position of having to talk people down without training or support.
So many of these moderators are in the position of emotionally holding up a community, people in crisis, and each other on a near constant basis, (and so many end up checking up on individuals in their community indefinitely!) and it’s totally heartbreaking people don’t see this.
Anyway in short appreciate your moderators and shower them with acknowledgment and love.
Having one’s labor seemingly sucked into a black hole is incomparably demoralizing, and nobody notices the work they’re doing when things are going well.
Having one’s labor seemingly sucked into a black hole is incomparably demoralizing, and nobody notices the work they’re doing when things are going well.
