IANAL. I don't work here.

I am a moderator, and stuff like this scares me.

Now, I love the enthusiasm here, but pretty much, if mods were counted as volunteers and had to be paid... we probably would be burning off money I'd rather see on development of the network and better formal community resources.

We've had discussions over whether mods should be paid before. We don't really want it. Sure we want a certain level of fair protection, but for most of us, it is far more important that the company pay attention, and expend resources for things like more community management, and development, social, design and code.

SE has a total of about 300 employees. There's about twice as many mods.

Many of those mods probably wouldn't leave their current employment, and hiring all of us puts a certain pressure on us to perform. I just took a break cause I needed a break. It was indefinite, and I came back cause I felt it was needed.

So, for most part I suspect this would likely simply end up ripping out most of our formal moderation capability. Its simpler for SE to close down a bunch of sites than even pay 500 people across at least a dozen countries, in terms of both paperwork and actual finances, even if it was a minimum wage.

It might also affect a broad swathe of the tech industry.

And honestly? I don't even see how this would make things better for any of us. It would probably kill off the network, not get justice for anyone, and probably bankrupt SE so badly someone would buy it for pennies.

So essentially... hell no, and what are you trying to do?

IANAL. I don't work here.

I am a moderator, and stuff like this scares me.

Now, I love the enthusiasm here, but pretty much, if mods were counted as volunteers and had to be paid... we probably would be burning off money I'd rather see on development of the network and better formal community resources.

We've had discussions over whether mods should be paid before. We don't really want it. Sure we want a certain level of fair protection, but for most of us, it is far more important that the company pay attention, and expend resources for things like more community management, and development, social, design and code.

SE has a total of about 300 employees. There's about twice as many mods.

Many of those mods probably wouldn't leave their current employment, and hiring all of us puts a certain pressure on us to perform. I just took a break because I needed a break. It was indefinite, and I came back because I felt it was needed.

So, for most part I suspect this would likely simply end up ripping out most of our formal moderation capability. It's simpler for SE to close down a bunch of sites than even pay 500 people across at least a dozen countries, in terms of both paperwork and actual finances, even if it was a minimum wage.

It might also affect a broad swathe of the tech industry.

And honestly? I don't even see how this would make things better for any of us. It would probably kill off the network, not get justice for anyone, and probably bankrupt SE so badly someone would buy it for pennies.

So essentially... hell no, and what are you trying to do?

IANAL. I don't work here.

I am a moderator, and stuff like this scares me.

Now, I love the enthusiasm here, but pretty much, if mods were counted as volunteers and had to be paid... we probably would be burning off money I'd rather see on development of the network and better formal community resources.

We've had discussions over whether mods should be paid before. We don't really want it. Sure we want a certain level of fair protection, but for most of us, it is far more important that the company pay attention, and expend resources for things like more community management, and development, social, design and code.

SE has a total of about 300 employees. There's about twice as many mods.

Many of those mods probably wouldn't leave their current employment, and hiring all of us puts a certain pressure on us to perform. I just took a break cause I needed a break. It was indefinate, and I came back cause I felt it was needed.

So, for most part I suspect this would likely simply end up ripping out most of our formal moderation capability. Its simpler for SE to close down a bunch of sites than even pay 500 people across at least a dozen countries, in terms of both paperwork and actual finances, even if it was a minimum wage.

It might also affect a broad swathe of the tech industry.

And honestly? I don't even see how this would make things better for any of us. It would probably kill off the network, not get justice for anyone, and probably bankrupt SE so badly someone would buy it for pennies.

So essentially... hell no, and what are you trying to do?

IANAL. I don't work here.

I am a moderator, and stuff like this scares me.

Now, I love the enthusiasm here, but pretty much, if mods were counted as volunteers and had to be paid... we probably would be burning off money I'd rather see on development of the network and better formal community resources.

We've had discussions over whether mods should be paid before. We don't really want it. Sure we want a certain level of fair protection, but for most of us, it is far more important that the company pay attention, and expend resources for things like more community management, and development, social, design and code.

SE has a total of about 300 employees. There's about twice as many mods.

Many of those mods probably wouldn't leave their current employment, and hiring all of us puts a certain pressure on us to perform. I just took a break cause I needed a break. It was indefinite, and I came back cause I felt it was needed.

So, for most part I suspect this would likely simply end up ripping out most of our formal moderation capability. Its simpler for SE to close down a bunch of sites than even pay 500 people across at least a dozen countries, in terms of both paperwork and actual finances, even if it was a minimum wage.

It might also affect a broad swathe of the tech industry.

And honestly? I don't even see how this would make things better for any of us. It would probably kill off the network, not get justice for anyone, and probably bankrupt SE so badly someone would buy it for pennies.

So essentially... hell no, and what are you trying to do?