@aphyr I literally told Nathan "Your are running something huge, it is going to feel like a job for you and your admins sometimes, make sure to set aside some bonus money for when it feels like a terrible job or you're gonna have a 'this so isn't worth it' hissy fit"

He went on and on about how he preferred to treat it like a forum (where he got to be the popular kid in high school this time, was implied) and never had problems getting money... then pitched a massive hissy fit the next week.

@aphyr I told you and the other mods this when I joined as a refugee from Mastodon.lol

All you've done is assure me 'you're not like that' before revealing to the world exactly how to make you so mad you shut down this instance ("get a bunch of randos to call you a groomer", "get enough people to sass you over a user behaving badly when you weren't awake/paying-attention")

@aphyr Moderating an instance is not difficult or hard. It takes work, but it's not particularly daunting or terrible work so long as you don't let it pile up.

I don't seek to do it because I have really nasty social anxiety that I know would not let me have anything close to the equanimity required to be fair with Random Unwashed People from the Internet...

but "oh well, I guess sometimes people are just gonna get piled on cantbehelped" approaches ignorance bordering on malice.

@aphyr The main thing I want you to take away from this conversation is:

please stop acting like every small-to-midsize queer mastodon instance is One Bad Day away from the admin/owner having a huge hissy-fit/tantrum/meltdown and pulling the plug.

Yes, there have been a rash of queer instances shutting down, but those have more to do with the owners of said instances not being good at moderation and absolutely hating being called-out for it (which is a very necessary evil on Mastodon).

@aphyr I understand that Nathan and Tyr felt very much like a whole bunch of people going "WOW, YOU'RE REALLY GODDAMN BAD AT THIS!" feels like bullying... but, unfortunately, they were really goddamn bad at it.

Most admins eschew that by simply tapping the sign (the well published instance rules and how they're enforced) and say 'talk amongst yourselves to see which of these was done wrong or needs to change' and, most of the time the hubub dies down because nobody has time/interest anymore.

@aphyr From what I can tell, Tyr and (especially) Nathan did not have/do those basic 'here are the rules and how we enforce them' things. So they are now examples of Why You Need To Set Up Such Things.

And they aren't like, super expensive or difficult to set up or requiring some sort of corporate cash and lawyer-on-retainer. It's literally stitch-in-time-saves-nine basic server/instance wrangling

@EppyNWS I, uh, don't know if I can explain this to you in a way you'll find convincing, but I maintain that moderation work is harder than you think. While I work hard to make this a stable instance both through proactive planning & policymaking and reactive moderation--and I think I've got a fairly good track record so far, I am under no illusions that my (or any admin's!) equanimity is infinite.

This may be the sort of thing that only personal experience can properly convey.