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Comment by nonplussed | Hacker News Reader

It'd be interesting to see demographics on moderators. My perception is that they must skew young because who else has time to do all that work for free?

Volunteer moderation is one of those things that must baffle economists. Here you have people putting in a lot of work for free for a profit seeking enterprise.

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>Here you have people putting in a lot of work for free…

I'd wager it's either a perceived, or in some instances, actual, power that motivates a few few of these folks. I don't doubt there are do-gooders out there who want to see their artisan needlepoint subreddit do well, so they volunteer their time to the community... but I also believe that once a community reaches a certain size, the folks motivated by power start to seep in.

Some economists maybe? Perhaps, if you think the only thing to gain is money? Some people do silly things because of other reasons (fame, ego, obligation, greed, retribution, etc). See recent 'stonks' as a good example of people actually spending money for non monetary gain. It is these other factors which feed into many economic models unknowingly. When those variables move they can radically change a model and cause it to do funny things.

There’s an economic concept called “psychic profits”, and it encapsulates exactly those non monetary gains one gets from volunteering like power, recognition, respect, status, and so on

> Volunteer moderation is one of those things that must baffle economists

They do the same thing for the same reasons when it comes to peer review...

Yeah I used to voluenteer moderate a very busy gaming forum and I quit when I got older.

Which is why it attracts those for whom power is it's own reward.

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