I'm basically alone on 3d printing. It might be a good idea to recruit some help at some point, but I'm in a conundrum about what to do. I didn't create the community, and I'm the 4th mod down. The other 3 are not active. I don't want to discourage them, but I don't want the community to get discouraged by inactive mods either. I try to check posts at least a few times a day, and I have no intention of leaving. I kinda bounce around in interests and am neck deep in AI stuff at the moment. It would be nice to know I have some good help and am not alone here. Do I just keep kicking the can and hope the other mods come back?
Sorry to hijack this post but I wanted to check for whether other people had the same issue first rather than immeditaly create a post myself only to be told that a solution already exists ^^Β°
I'm having a similar problem than the OP with a community I'm somewhat frequent in (c/totk / !totk@lemmy.world). There is a single mod, who has created the community, posted a single comment on the same day, and then apparently left as there were no more interactions after that. At first I thought the mod might be just lurking instead of posting / commenting themselves, but now there are off-topic poststhat don't get removed even after 3+ days and double digits of downvotes, the typos in the community name that were pointed out 2 days after it was created are still not fixed, and it also doesn't look like the other community they created is moderated either.
Would it be okay to request this community, and if yes, is there an official method for that?
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !totk@lemmy.world
Are they inactive as in they don't do mod duties, or inactive as in no account activity? If it's the first then reach out to ask if they can pick up some slack and moderate, or if you should bring in new mods. If it's the second assume all the other mods went on a trip to Reno without you and their private jet crashed, kick them and get new mods.
I'm only speaking as a fellow moderator, but most people don't pay attention to the moderator lists (let alone check the mod queue or posting histories), so I wouldn't worry about discouraging users.
Every team does things differently. I'd recommend reaching out to your fellow mods to mention the need for support and how you plan to identify and engage candidates for the team. It could also be something as simple as "I think we need some help, are folks fine with me inviting a few others?". If you don't hear back from anyone after a few days or a week (depending on the urgency), you can probably just go ahead with inviting folks.
Depending on how active the community is, it's also always a good idea to have some kind of a chatroom setup for this kind of coordination. Matrix works nicely since it's already integrated into Lemmy as the secure messaging option - but you can also setup a team Telegram chat or Discord server (if you go for Discord, I recommend starting your own server and keeping it closed off to your team).
TBH it feels kinda awkward saying something, but then feels awkward spending a bunch of time watching as a mod when some random inactive person could come in at any time and be weird if you know what I mean