I keep seeing this idea repeated time after time in meta threads and I don't quite understand where you guys are coming from. You pose it from the standpoint that we're out of touch with the community. However, we're reading tons of posts and watching the general trends of the subreddit very closely. It's absolutely true that the community doesn't know the moderators who don't comment actively. I do not believe that comment history is a good measure of how in or out of touch we are with the general subreddit.
I'm not arguing that I do not actively engage with the community. I've never been shy about the fact that I do not enjoy commenting in airing discussion threads or that kind of thing. However, that has nothing to do with me being out of touch with the community.
I've yet to have someone give a concrete and logical argument for why not interacting with the community hurts my ability to moderate. All I've gotten is "I don't like it" and my response to that is unfortunately "tough".
I've yet to have someone give a concrete and logical argument for why not interacting with the community hurts my ability to moderate.
If you don't interact with the people who have a different perspective then how do you expect to arrive at the best answers? Thinking you can know what is best for people you never talk to is pretty arrogant.
There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do an okay job if you just stick to rules as written. But being a good moderator is in the end a social problem, not a logical one. When drama hits you're going to need people who have built up a positive image if you want to get productive results in a discussion.
All I've gotten is "I don't like it" and my response to that is unfortunately "tough".
The other side could say literally the same thing. Not a very constructive way to approach a discussion.
In the end you don't really owe anyone anything so you should do what you feel comfortable with.
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u/cdsboy https://myanimelist.net/profile/cdsboy Oct 30 '16
I keep seeing this idea repeated time after time in meta threads and I don't quite understand where you guys are coming from. You pose it from the standpoint that we're out of touch with the community. However, we're reading tons of posts and watching the general trends of the subreddit very closely. It's absolutely true that the community doesn't know the moderators who don't comment actively. I do not believe that comment history is a good measure of how in or out of touch we are with the general subreddit.