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
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Please take care of yourself. We seriously appreciate you and everything you’ve done, same goes for all other staff. This past week has immensely stressful across the lemmyverse and no one blames you at all for needing to tap out from all this. A lot of people are expecting lemmy and lemmy instances to be like reddit 2.0, but that’s just not humanly possible. It also feels like lemmy as a software has had it personally out for beehaw… kind of like a murphy’s law situation.
You’ve done awesome with this instance. It’s great to hear you’re taking a break and paying attention to burnout - it’s not all on you, so take the time you need to center yourself and get your mojo back. We’ll be waiting, but not in the creepy or stressful way hopefully ^^
Given the recent events as well as the general surge of new users joining Beehaw and the wider lemmyverse in general…I don’t blame you.
Take as much time as you need to take care of yourself and recharge yourself. Self-care is important.
Well from the first day I joined it’s been evident how much work you do.
Do whatever you need to do, you’re much appreciated here. :)
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Take time for yourself! You guys deserve it. You’ve had a lot on your plate that you didn’t expect.
alyaza (not tagging with the @ symbol as I don’t want this to just become another notification in your inbox pestering you), you have been a true delight thus far in my time interacting with you. Spend as much time away as you need. This instance has a truly excellent administration team, and will be able to take care of beehaw.org for as long as you need to be away. If they can’t, I’m sure there will be people willing to respond to a call to action for more people. Beehaw.org will be okay without you. And don’t try to rush yourself back just because you feel like a couple of weeks should be enough time. I know what it feels like to think you should be able to expect yourself in some specified time window to come back and then when you do you realize it wasn’t enough time. Instead of timeboxing your recovery time, I recommend picking some project that you really want to focus on and returning once that’s done. Maybe it’s drawing something, perhaps it’s writing a short story, possibly it’s hiking one of the triple crown trails in the United States. But let yourself focus on that thing and see how you feel after that project is done.
Anyway.
The point is.
Be good to yourself. Treat yourself with the same empathy you extend to others. You are valuable and worthy of love.
Will you make me an admin? I have several qualifications such as open PMs and being the first person to reply here.
you have a history of good comments on here and that’s saving you from what would otherwise probably be a permaban. please learn what comedic timing is, man, this is neither funny nor the time nor the place.
No.
Respectfully, I just don’t think this is the right post for this kind of humor.
We need to pay our mods! I saw you all make a significant amount per month as an instance from donations, let’s make it go up! maybe you should put a $1/month minimum on the instance for users? This is what will make lemmy better than reddit for sure.
I don’t like that, it has a huge impact on who can and can’t be here. Obviously most working adults can afford a few bucks here and there, but if you are trying to be inclusive removing any kind of monetary barrier is really important. Those on fixed income, minors, and from countries with extremely low wages would have to think twice about chipping in or may not have the means to actually do so even if they had the cash in hand.
I think it’s very important that Beehaw remains free to use. Though I wouldn’t mind if they nagged users a little for donations when needed.
Edit: to be clearer I’m for paying the people who run Beehaw if/when feasible but a mandatory fee is anathema to the purpose of this instance.
I agree with you that a mandatory money barrier would split this community in an unnecessary way. Maybe setting up a patreon account for Beehaw would be a solution? Only those who can and want to afford a monthly payment would participate, but it would create a bit of financial planning stability, contrary to individual one-time donations.
Beehaw already has an Open Collective set up, it works in a similar way to Patreon. you can find it in the sidebar of the home page.
I’ve been in that exact same spot, running a community and experiencing that kind of burnout. Where something you enjoyed managing just felt draining and like work, when talking about it was a dreaded thing.
And really, taking a break is a good thing. Don’t actively push yourself if you don’t enjoy it right now, it will only hurt you in the long run. But I will say this, I realized all too quickly that when my motivation came back after my breaks, the burst of energy was short-lived before I was reminded why I burned out in the first place. After 2-3 times of that cycle repeating, the burst of energy never came again.
To give a piece of unwanted advice, I think you guys might be stretching yourselves too thin. You’ve got a considerably sized site at this point, and not many hands to run it. I can’t speak for exactly what sort of help would alleviate it for you, maybe creating a barrier of a few community-level mods to help take on some of the bulk to leave the site admins with the sitewide issues. Maybe you could even look into getting another admin or two, if most of the issues are site-wide.
But I believe I can say without a doubt that the circumstances around the burnout will probably need to change before the joy of it is gone altogether.
I wish you guys the best.
I actually think the best solution for a space like Beehaw is to just turn off the creation of new accounts for the time being. The point of this instance isn’t to be the biggest, it’s to be a high quality space. People will still be able to interact with Beehaw from the outside too.
Also valid. At the end of the day, the important thing is that the folks that provide the space don’t burn themselves out too hard. Whatever method they find acceptable to achieve that is perfectly okay.