[Chaosvex]

> That people have different standards when paid? That lack of remuneration justifies poor effort? Isn’t that a very transactional view of human interaction? Are we that transactional?

The answer to all of these questions is yes, for the most part. Volunteers are much harder to wrangle than employees and it's much easier for drama and disagreements to flare when there are zero consequences other than losing an unpaid position, particularly if anonymity is in the mix.

Volunteers can be great but on average they're going to be far harder to manage and far more fickle than employees.

[bborud]

Then you have a much darker view of humanity than I have. What you seem to suggest is that because building a community on volunteers is hard it is not worth doing.

What makes a community worthwhile is its ability to resolve differences productively. I think that if you replace individual responsibility with transactionality you have neither community nor long term viability or scalability.

Then again, we live in times when transactional thinking seems to dominate discourse.

[Chaosvex]

It's because I was involved with a large volunteer-based project that was a literal 24/7/365 operation for several years (dozens of volunteers at any given time and tens of thousands of concurrent users) and can speak first hand as to the differences.

I didn't say it's not worth doing but it will bring challenges that wouldn't exist with employees. Paying people adds a strong motivator to keep toxic behaviour at bay.

Your experiences will heavily depend on the type of project you're running but regardless, you can't hold volunteers, especially online, to the same expectations or standards as employees. The amount of time and effort they can invest will wax and wane and there's nothing you can do about it. Anonymity and lack of repercussions will eventually lead to drama or power struggles when a volunteer steps out of line in a way that they wouldn't in paid employment. There is no fix that'll stop occasional turbulence, it's just the way it is. Not all of your volunteers will be there for the greater good of your community.

Again, that is absolutely not to say that it can't be worth the effort but if you go into it eyes open, you'll have a much better time and be able to do a better job at heading off problems.

I've seen other people express similar opinions to yours and it wasn't until they experienced being in the driver's seat that they understood how difficult it is.