I read somewhere that most mods who do it out of love only last about a year or two at the most. I modded a small sub of 20k almost on my own for a year and then helped out for another year... and yeah I can't stand Reddit anymore so I'm stepping down as mod. You really are exposed to the WORST excesses present in a community - even if it's like 97% friendly, the tiny minority that are not will do everything possible to suck out your very soul.:-( It's made me so defensive and cagey now even irl and I don't want to be acting that way with my work colleagues.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: that was Reddit, and the bar was significantly lower there - I hope people will accept mod positions here b/c these communities look just about like 100% different than there.