OK but part of the job description (volunteer description?) is to deal with all of the trolls and bigots and KiwiFarms assholes who will inevitably slip through registration and try to shit up the site. Ugly low post count account suicides are going to be an issue no matter how well behaved us regular posters are and as a non-mod I truly do appreciate the amount of emotional labor that's required to clean up all that crap.If I were properly payrolled yes. But... I'm not. I'm a volunteer. If you want me to be payrolled, that is a different discussion for the long haul, and it's not a discussion I am above having. But right now you all are asking volunteers to be compensated.... Like...volunteer has a very specific definition.
The entire argument also underscores the fact that staff really aren't being listened to. What we want most is for our members to just treat us more kindly.
That's it.
That's all we want.
That ignores the larger problem, which is that the owner makes 700k a year + 4.5mil to make sure the site is up and running (with the paid tech team), while the people running the site are unpaid volunteers. I mean, if they don't think they deserved/wanted to get paid while the owner was making 700k a year + 4.5mil on their thankless unpaid work, then I'm glad that they're not feeling like victims in this situation, but I know I would be mad if I was a mod. It's not because there was an expectation of payment, but rather a lack of realization at just how much the owner was making while we who are running the day and day of the site get nothing.So why people are so mad? Capitalism won? Do we lose something? Is Era going to charge for something? Why are people so mad ? I really don't understand. It would be cool if mods and admins were paid. If people are so concerned with them why don't implement a "tip" button like twitter?
Apparently.
Posting for the discord...
Wait, now members are supposed to pay the mods and not the people who actually make money with this site?
You're not supposed to do anything (that's the point of this whole topic; fundamentally nothing has changed for members or staffers). The point was that you all felt it was extremely important that staff get paid for our labor. So I, being an intrepid little bean, set up a way for you all to directly contribute since you all seem to care a lot about our financial well-being. Like, I provided a solution to the problem.
Now you're hemming and hawwing.
Do you want us to have money or nah?
Oh I'll remember lol. I never leave a debt unpaid.When you cash out, remember I hooked you up with PAX tickets and gave you a donut.
I'd have been like "Oh neat," but then also asked a myriad of questions. Am I forced to be on every day? If so, how long? Will the code of conduct change? How much will I be allowed to participate in conversations? How will this affect the intersectional approach of staff? And on and on. I can tell you from prior experience that pay doesn't necessarily make things easier or more worth it in the long run.Okay, I can probably concede that if volunteers want to stay that way, let them have that pathway. But it left no path for those who think they should have a paid position.
Let me ask you this, if I may:
When the acquisition was announced to you by Cerium, if he had said "the new owners will implement that all staff positions will be paid now", how would you have responded? Specifically, in the 'definition' of your role changing, if it had come from the top down.
*boss gets a golden parachute*
onlookers: "that's awful, they deserve some of that for doing the work!"
moderators: "first of all how dare you."
First of all, you could at least copy and paste my name if you couldn't be fucked to spell it right.
I understand your feeling, this forum has been in a decline for a couple of years now. I think that forums are a reflection of the overall mood of people in real life. We live in shitty times and people tend to go with the flow. Forums less and less are a refuge for people and more a battleground for angry people who want to vent their mood to the world. Yes, there is a lot of hypocrisy, cynicism and contradiction with this negotiation but like I said capitalism always wins. You can't expect otherwise in a world so full of contradictions. forums are destined to disappear and most of the money is on sites that post crap that only promotes hatred and fighting. Because those types of behaviors are highly addictive. Large-scale anonymity is never good, this is why mods and admins get so much hate. So try to seek places that give you more solace. I'm not even mad with this change because I'm a pessimist and Murphy's law always win.I and many others feel like the site has been on a huge slide downwards for a while now. And those of us that came from GAF really hoped it would have gone a different way. Feels like this go around there was even LESS transparency about thing than the old place; and on top of the feeling of decline, the entirety of the forum gets up and sold to some rando corp for 4.5m?
This is a community that has meltdowns over people owning property and renting it out as a landlord. I have no idea how one could be confused about how many would take this. Its frustrating, and it definitely feels like the slow clap starting preceding the conclusion of a final scene of a play or something. In just the last year we have had major exodus in Sales-ERA, The Politics ERA threads and more. The mood is morose asf. I cannot imagine anyone jumping to applaud now that some company buys it wholesale and we find out mods still arent compensated while the buying company talks about its hopes of future monetization and 'changes'.
Bleh. Forums are pretty much dead, and I get that; but being able to tell myself that this place would hold on allowed me to kinda put off embracing that reality and it just sucks to get hit with it like this. Not that it wasn't somewhat forecasted, but still. If there were other left leaning (or at least anti hate and not totally right wing looney) forums/communities that I knew about I might not even care so much. But they are rare.
That ignores the larger problem, which is that the owner makes 700k a year + 4.5mil to make sure the site is up and running (with the paid tech team), while the people running the site are unpaid volunteers. I mean, if they don't think they deserved/wanted to get paid while the owner was making 700k a year + 4.5mil on their thankless unpaid work, then I'm glad that they're not feeling like victims in this situation, but I know I would be mad if I was a mod. It's not because there was an expectation of payment, but rather a lack of realization at just how much the owner was making while we who are running the day and day of the site get nothing.
I would like to say I'm a prominent member thus I am owed moreare lowly members allowed to ask for money it is just administrators?
I'm not sure I buy the idea that people are actually concerned about this now when it has been reality for four years. I'm not sure why any of this matters now.And the thing is, while I knew mods weren't being paid, I kind of got the impression that the revenue was enough for Cerium to keep the site running comfortably, because it's not like the site was his life or something (he's not even on here as often as your average era member). We were happy to have ads and even memberships in order to ensure the server costs get paid and maybe even a little extra money to make it worth his while. I couldn't have IMAGINED he was making upwards of $700,000 a year (minus the server and tech team payout costs which were very likely a fraction of that). And then when we saw that he was getting $4,500,000 to sell the site, and still nobody else was getting paid...man it just rubs me super the wrong way when we think about the founding of this website.
I like to think of it like a restaurant. We pay for our meals so the rent and lights stay on but then we slide $2 to the server for their work. This way owners don't have to. It is a better system.*boss gets a golden parachute*
onlookers: "that's awful, they deserve some of that for doing the work!"
moderators: "first of all how dare you."
First of all, you could at least copy and paste my name if you couldn't be fucked to spell it right.
Second of all, I just donated the money to a worthy cause. Y'all can continue being mad. Good night!
*boss gets a golden parachute*
onlookers: "that's awful, they deserve some of that for doing the work!"
moderators: "first of all how dare you."
This is so pathetic lol. "Rent and lights", yeah sure!I like to think of it like a restaurant. We pay for our meals so the rent and lights stay on but then we slide $2 to the server for their work. This way owners don't have to. It is a better system.
I know it shocked me to hear how much the owner was making. I would never have guessed that. Wouldn't be surprised if most other people here didn't expect that, either, judging by the response.I'm not sure I buy the idea that people are actually concerned about this now when it has been reality for four years. I'm not sure why any of this matters now.
I mean sure I'd love for this community to be non-profit and independent, but it doesn't always work out that way when a website like this costs a lot of money to maintain.
Jesus Christ my guy. Take it easy.I don't care enough about you to spell your "name" correctly, in fact, I didn't even know who you were until I saw off-site that you were trying to get the community to give you money and felt the need to tell you what a pathetic move that is.
Good night!
It's honestly stupefying*boss gets a golden parachute*
onlookers: "that's awful, they deserve some of that for doing the work!"
moderators: "first of all how dare you."
I know it shocked me to hear how much the owner was making. I would never have guessed that. Wouldn't be surprised if most other people here didn't expect that, either, judging by the response.
It's honestly stupefying
And that doesn't even include the part where the buyer is sus as hell
The new ceo is part of some online gambling joint. Our new sister forums now resembles neogaf political side after the exodus.
Not sure how I feel about this to be honest.
One of the nice things about ERA is that it was build from good will by former GAF members after the events most of us know. And what was nice about GAF before these events came out was that is was built and owned by people from the community.
So now having this place owned and ran by a company is...well let's just see how that goes. Congrats Cerium on the life changing amount of money you made from this, I'd lie if I'd say I wouldn't have done the same.
Why can't you people be normalI don't care enough about you to spell your "name" correctly, in fact, I didn't even know who you were until I saw off-site that you were trying to get the community to give you money and felt the need to tell you what a pathetic move that is.
Good night!
Yes it has been acquired by a company that can do all that. But do they want to? Do the current people running the forum want them to take a proactive management role on the forum? There are different types of ownership. Once an owner takes a hands on approach to an acquisition, it also means exercising their full right to change and the business to what best suits their needs. You can't have hands-off freedom to manage a forum after being acquired and continue things as they are, and also want the business owner to bring in a HR team and invest more in that. Like I said, I can totally imagine community managers being paid roles and that'll be a good thing, but that also comes with a different cost to the community, and that would be a totally different discussion.It's fortunate then that ResetEra was acquired by a public company that's already operating internationally and has the resources to do all the above.
Why did you feel bad about it ever? They never told us where the money was going.
I don't care enough about you to spell your "name" correctly, in fact, I didn't even know who you were until I saw off-site that you were trying to get the community to give you money and felt the need to tell you what a pathetic move that is.
Good night!
why you haff to be mad it only game forumI don't care enough about you to spell your "name" correctly, in fact, I didn't even know who you were until I saw off-site that you were trying to get the community to give you money and felt the need to tell you what a pathetic move that is.
Good night!
Never played MOBA. If I post here, does that mean I'm playing MOBA?We all know that it's awesome when a company aquires a community driven Website...
See you in the Moba closes Resetera Thread in Some Years :D
Disliking the current mods and thinking mods should be paid are not mutually exclusive stances.
In fact they are completely consistent in that one could argue that you could get a higher class of more professional mods if people could expect to be paid for doing the work. This exact argument is made every day in all of the "nobody wants to work anymore" and "nobody is applying for jobs" threads.
Please note that I don't have a problem with the mods here at all, just trying to explain how the two stances aren't necessarily contradictory.
Tons of people enjoy their jobs and are passionate about them and earnest in their effort and everything despite being paid. I don't see how money would necessarily be a corrupting influence here unless for some stupid reason mods were, like, getting paid by commission per ban or something lmaoAnd I really doubt it would attract the most genuine people to such positions when money is on the table. I'd rather see people with genuine interest and passion for the community to moderate.
Money doesn't have to trump passion. Also there have already been incidents with moderation even with these volunteers (issues with communities, moderation not being equal across the board or overly heavy handed). Saying money would affect the system we have now doesn't really have that much validity.I think the staff has done a stellar job throughout the years and in some ways I think they deserve compensation for their efforts, but I'm honestly skeptical that a paid staff would be as effective and trustworthy as the one we have and have had. Not only would people complain about moderators getting paid, I don't think they wouldn't be seen as fellow forum participants to the same extent. It would create a bigger gap between users and moderators when both their incentives and purposes are completely different.
And I really doubt it would attract the most genuine people to such positions when money is on the table. I'd rather see people with genuine interest and passion for the community to moderate.
*boss gets a golden parachute*
onlookers: "that's awful, they deserve some of that for doing the work!"
moderators: "first of all how dare you."