What advantages do moderators enjoy?

Question

Out of idle curiosity, are there any advantages - I mean rather material ones, besides the respect of the community and all that - that the trilogy's moderators enjoy for being moderators? Access to Fog Creek's Gym and canteen? A place to crash whenever they're in San Francisco? Booking hours on Jeff Atwood's Learjet? Or is it the sheer fun of it, something that (as we all know) works pretty well for the site overall?

After all, being a moderator can be quite an amount of work - and as it's being brought to you, and at least some participation is somewhat expected, it's work with a capital W. Also, the elevated status and power of The Moderator is (quite rightly) bound to make your actions subject to increased scrutiny from the community, and it can happen that you have to defend your actions in front of a critical audience.

Is the "job" (and status) and the fun doing it so rewarding in itself that there is no need for reimbursement of any kind? Maybe moderating duties are much lighter than they may seem from the outside? Is SO more a part of your life as a Moderator than before?

Just being curious about how things work.

Answer 1

In some circumstances, moderators may have "the inside track" to a job at Stack Overflow. According to Tim Post:

'Hiring from within' should become our default practice, and that must include people that have been giving us an enormous amount of time just because they like what we're doing. We should consider giving our moderators 'first dibbs' on our new job postings prior to making them public in cases where that makes sense.

Five current Stack Exchange employees were volunteer moderators on the Stack Exchange network prior to being hired. Listed below in alphabetical order together with the site(s) where they were a moderator:

• Adam Lear, Stack Overflow, Software Engineering, and Literature (first iteration)
• animuson, Stack Overflow
• Grace Note, Arqade
• JNat, Anime & Manga
• Slate, Puzzling

Additionally, 15 former Stack Exchange employees were moderators on the network prior to employment (several of whom went back to serving as moderators after ceasing employment):

• Catija, Arts & Crafts and Interpersonal Skills
• Chris Jester-Young, Code Golf
• Dori, Ask Different
• HedgeMage, Parenting
• Jeremy Banks, Stack Overflow
• jmac, The Workplace
• Jon Ericson, Biblical Hermeneutics
• Konamiman, Stack Overflow en español
• Marc Gravell, Stack Overflow
• Mark Henderson, Server Fault and Pro Webmasters
• Rebecca Chernoff, Web Applications
• sklivvz, Skeptics
• Taryn, Stack Overflow
• Tim Post, Pro Webmasters and Stack Overflow
• V2Blast, RPG

Answer 2

I received some free stickers and a free t-shirt out of the deal. Oh, and Jeff occasionally returned my emails. The Stack Overflow related ones. He still ignored the random ones. :(

To address your questions directly:

Is the "job" (and status) and the fun doing it so rewarding in itself that there is no need for reimbursement of any kind?

Yes, the extra abilities were nice. I wish I were granted the ability to delete spam accounts on every site that I visit.

Maybe moderating duties are much lighter than they may seem from the outside?

Probably. There are a lot of tools and dashboards set up to make it pretty easy, like the 10K moderators get. There's a big orange (on SO) "mod-signal" that lights up at the top of the page when there are flags (so always), but it's only a few extra things to check when moderators visit the site.

Is SO more a part of your life as a Moderator than before?

Probably not for me. I think I spent about the same amount of time here, I just spent it differently. Marc might answer differently, since he managed to maintain his position on the leader board and perform his duties as moderator.

Answer 3

Well, along with page-1 users, the SU mods are getting SU t-shirts, apparently!

I like to imagine they'll be wearing them while they moderate, like a uniformed police officer. (Or cop, to our American friends)

Answer 4

As per the latest swag post

Mods receive the following

Moderator diamond hat
T-shirt (SO or SE)
Stickers (SO or SE)
Water bottle or tumbler

Previously site T shirts were given out to mods, but that's no longer a thing.

Once again there is a hat, but some newer mods keep assuming we're joking about the mod hat. The mod hat is no joke

Answer 5

In addition to opportunities of SE's recruitment, moderators also tend to be favored by the Community team in various cases.

When Meta Stack Exchange started the "experiment" of appointing community moderators, all candidates that the SE Community team looked at were existing moderators. The first set of three glorious MSE community mods were chosen as follows, with their "mod site" prior to this listed

• Journeyman Geek, Super User
• Tinkeringbell, Interpersonal Skills
• ChrisF, Stack Overflow, Software Engineering, DIY and Web Applications

A few weeks later the SE team chose a 4th MSE mod:

• Monica Cellio, The Workplace, Mi Yodeya, Writing, Worldbuilding and Beer, Wine & Spirits