the details aren’t super important and i’m not going to go into particular depth here but, in summary: i am on break. the burnout is quite bad. the “avalanche analogy” is pretty apt for what i’m dealing with here.
if you’ve never heard the “avalanche analogy” before, it is this: no individual snowflake is the problem, but the accumulation in an avalanche is still catastrophic.
individually, nothing i have dealt with so far―technical stuff, users, situations, arguments on here, etc.―have been issues that make me want to not use the site. the accumulation though is currently unbearable, even on this fairly small size. effectively all the time i―or any other admin, for that matter―am on here, i am being constantly paged with things to handle; people to sort out and placate; content to remove; bug issues to delegate; and all while having hundreds of people make contradictory suggestions to me i have to make sense of, balance, and generally hear nonstop while being expected to act like a service worker. it’s pretty draining!
accordingly, i have not logged in for about a week (or really done anything with the site, for that matter) and even thinking about it is exhausting. so things aren’t great. it’s pretty clear i need to extensively step back―which i’ve already been doing because i’d like to actually, eventually use the site i help co-run here again. i don’t feel good about just dipping without saying anything longer than i already have though, hence this post.
i’d ideally like to be back sometime next week, but i obviously can’t promise that. it’ll happen when it happens. please do not page me in the mean time with site stuff―it will be ignored.
thanks
I believe you have already touched on this in previous PSAs but it’s important that everyone here holds Beehaw to a different standard to, say, the traditional social media we have gotten used to over the last decade.
I hold platforms like Twitter to a higher standard because they have hundreds of people who they are paying to run the website, are actively making a profit from it, and it is centralised. I am a lot more vocal about the criticisms I have about the way that site is being run.
However, with Beehaw, it just is not the same. Ultimately it is run by people like you: volunteers, where really this “job” for you needs to be fun first and foremost if this is work you’re doing in your spare time, otherwise we would not have Beehaw at all.
In that sense, I am happy for you to run Beehaw exactly as you see fit and for you to completely ignore any suggestions that are made to you. Hence, I suppose I’ve tried and will continue to try to not to add to the avalanche you describe in your post. Ultimately, I see myself as someone who is tagging along for the ride you are steering.
If it gets to a point where I am no longer comfortable here, or it gets to a point where I am no longer welcome here and I am banned, then so be it. I will move elsewhere on Lemmy. And this is the beauty of decentralisation and the Fediverse and, hopefully, with time, as the technology matures, we will have ever more instances for people to find spaces which suit them rather than hoping to force the admins of existing instances to bend to their will because of a lack of alternative options.
Anyway this is a long way of saying that I think you’re doing a great job and I hope with time the issues you are facing which are affecting your motivation are alleviated.