Thanks for giving us a glimpse into the great work you do as a moderator.

Although we're on different instances, it's all the excellent work you and the many mods across the fediverse undertake, often for little or no financial reward, which makes this place wonderful.

I loved your point that as many people round the world experience hate and facism, we can come here, thanks to you and all the mods, for a safe space, to recuperate and recharge, ready to face the awful outside.

edited for typos

I know what horrifying images and the hate you must encounter in reports and I can imagine the toll it does on your mental health. I'm relieved to hear you have an outlet, support, because moderating all that <points in all directions> especially during these stressful times must be at the very least, emotionally exhausting, and likely depressing at times.

It was wonderful and reassuring to hear you were able to help someone in crisis, I've often wondered if mods would follow through on reports like the one you mentioned.

Although I'm not on your instance your work as a moderator affects me and everyone on Fedi--a ripple effect , so for that I sincerely thank you.

I dove into a few links in your article and learned more about you, and for that I also am sending thanks for sharing.

btw...I noticed although you tackle controversial topics, your writing style is overall positive and because of that it's 'comforting', reassuring, leaving me with a sense of hope for this world.

Thank you and all other moderators for making the part of the fediverse visible to me into a space that is full of nice and supportive people. Everyone working on their small corner, but still creating the space we enjoy collaboratively

I find it one of the big advantages that moderation does not have to be monolithic. It does not have to be either wrong or right for everyone. It allows judgements like wrong for our users, may that be based on the idea behind the server or smt else.

Thank you for writing and sharing despite the discomfort 🙏

I'm sure it will help other admins a great deal, and give members a better idea of what their admins do for them.

> "There are three moderators on our team and about 185,000 accounts. About 12,000 of those are active monthly."

3 mods?! That's so little for such a big instance 😦 #Fosstodon has about 10k active users and we have a team of 20 - and believe me, it's necessary at times. Would it maybe be possible to invite some of your users to the mod team, to help with the workload?

This is an important topic, and personally relatable, thank you for sharing 💚 #Fediverse #Moderation

First of, thank you for taking the harsh role of being a moderator.

I can first hand say that I do know some of the blind hate that this world has to offer.

I did report some very disturbing content back when I still used the public timeline.

But now I believe one better finds a good instance and never goes there.

I wish you all the best, enough willpower to keep going and a vegan cookie on the way (I probably bake just as bad, so thats another thing we have in common ).

Great article
Thank you for writing it and sharing.

This part says it all:
"First off, I believe in mutual aid. I don’t trust wealthy people or government systems to inherently take care of people. We need to take care of each other. Good, healthy mutual aid is a beautiful thing. This is the way."

This is why I'm here; because I trust here but I don't trust platforms that llat to and pay their shareholders at the expense of integrity, honesty and truth.

Keep doing your amazing work 🥰

I'm still new at moderating, so thank you for such a great writeup. It added nuances and perspectives to what I've seen so far, and what the others in the team have explained about the dark parts.

"Every once in a while I check on his account. He’s still there, posting cool stuff."

I see the Fediverse as part of building an alternative, something better than what is going on so wrong elsewhere in society.

It is building from us as caring and sharing humans.

The Open Source way 🥰

It's sad, but at the same time encouraging that volunteers like you are willing to deal with this madness. THANK YOU!

Some time ago, I discussed with a few moderators whether and to what extent the use of LLMs could be helpful. I know that opinions differ fundamentally on the use of LLMs, but even from a critical POV, I think it could be acceptable for this purpose. Not as a final judge, but as a filter or similar. What do you think?

First of all, thank you. For writing a good, informative article, but even more so for helping keep us all safe on this network.

Is mas.to recruiting for more moderators or have any other requests for how people can help? If so please let us know because the warm responses and boosts here make me think that people want to help.

Y’all. Wow. This blew up overnight.

I’ll settle in later when I have time and engage with everyone who was thoughtful enough to leave comments.

You’re the best. 🫶🏻

Thank you for sharing. Because of your end notes, I'm going to share this on other social media. I think it's a good article to show non-Fedi people.

You're doing good work. I've wanted to be a Fedi moderator, but PTSD combined with the worse reports makes that a very bad idea. I just hope I can support my instances by sending helpful reports.

welp, this answers my question, "Is moderating on Mastodon saner than on Reddit?"

Answer: nope

PS: I'm a Reddit mod of a sub that's 100k strong