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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Hugs. Try to be gentle with yourself. <3
It’s great that you’ve recognised the burnout and are taking steps to look after yourself. You’ve done a great job on here, as can be seen by the community that’s sprung up here.
Take all the time you need
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It sounds like you need more moderators. Think about it.
Thanks for the transparency. You’re a great admin!
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.
I’ve not been here long, but your comments have always been a joy to read. I’m a software engineer myself so I understand the burnout of having to manage all the things all the time. I’m thankful for all that you’ve done for the community, and hope you can come back and enjoy it once again whenever you’re ready.
Mental health is extremely important and often overlooked.
Thank you for everything you’ve done to date.
Take your time and we’ll all be here when you’re ready ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
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 ^^
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.
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.
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.
Oh, I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for the heads up, please ignore my previous comment then. :D
