Hello all,
I have a genuine question today. Now, I believe it’s apparent that being a Mod is almost like working a full time job, especially if you are working as staff in IFATC/IFAET as well.
This topic also goes out to all the recruiters, trainers, supervisors in all of IFs official organisations.
What encourages you to do a nearly full-time job people would get paid a decent salary for free? Actually, PAYING £120 a year to do a job? Yes, it contributes to the community, et cetera, but it is a massive sacrifice within your life. I am looking to spark a peaceful discussion here, and I believe it would be a good insight to what goes on within the IF organisation.
TLDR; What makes the volunteers, working in the community, do almost a full-time job, that they pay £120 a year for?
Edit: If you want to close this, you can. I believe this would be an interesting topic to discuss.
I don’t think the moderators or supervisors here see their role as a job but rather their hobby on the side. Take DeerCrusher for example whose a pilot. Infinite Flight is just something he does on the side and it’s a place to share the interest of aviation.
tmk, IFATC trainers spend no more than a few hours a day fulfilling their role and doing training with their trainees. It’s not much of a full-time job, nor is moderating.
Some would argue this is at least a part-time job, and many people get paid for working for a few hours a day. A few hours day, say 1:30 a day, is equal to 550 hours a year. Let’s say, £5 an hour, thats nearly £3000 a year.
Quite a busy hobby, I must say. I assume its not that fun all the time, though.
Well this might just be from your perspective, some people find engaging in the community and other avgeeks as a fun thing to do, and that they don’t need to be paid, there’s nothing wrong with it.
The community is free to use in the first place, you’re only paying to use the app and fly. Everything else like IFAET is full of volunteers which in my view is what makes the community special. People want to contribute to the sim and make it a better / welcoming community without getting anything in return.
First of all, I think we have to clearly define what a full-time job is. In Switzerland, a full-time job typically means working from Monday to Friday, 42 hours per week. In other countries, it might be 36 hours per week, 40 hours per week or 38 hours per week. In any case: What any of us volunteers are doing here is nowhere close to a full-time job.
That being said, it’s still a lot of work. Editing an airport takes time, moderating the Discord server takes time, training IFATC recruits takes time, and so on. The fact that people are willing to spend that time shows dedication. For me, moderating the IFC is not a job. It’s not something I have to do. It’s something I want to do. And I think this applies to all of the volunteers. Nobody is forced to do anything. That’s what volunteering means.
For many of us, our tasks around here are a hobby, something we enjoy doing. If your hobby is swimming, you pay to go to the swimming pool. If your hobby is being part of a football team, you pay a membership fee for that team. It’s not uncommon to pay for your hobby. I guess the same applies here. While still paying the same subscription fee as everyone else, you still get access to additional features as IFATC (being able to control on Expert Server and a special IFATC Discord). That’s your reward.
To end this comment, I want to emphasize that Infinite Flight wouldn’t be what it is today without its volunteers. Can you imagine Infinite Flight without IFATC, VAs or Airport Editing? It wouldn’t be the same. So personally, I’m grateful for each and every volunteer who has picked Infinite Flight as their hobby 😊
I think what’s meant here is paying a fee to be in a swimming pool, as contrary to cleaning the pool. The important thing is the attitude you have towards it. Swimming in itself is the fun activity, just like spending time on IF is fun for most of the people you mentioned. Cleaning and maintaining is wrong due to the view people have on what they’re doing, for them it’s more like swimming (I hope you know what I mean)
Yep, I see what you mean. I guess I can see that being true for running a VA or something, but I can’t imagine it being that way on a job that takes up that much time.
I am starting to understand the concept, though. Thanks for the comment.
I’m aware, thanks. Maybe I sounded stupid in that comment.
It’s just that this type of volunteering is on quite a large scale and more importantly constant, different to most volunteering jobs, like beach cleaning, babysitting etc.
Agreed. People constantly come & go within all of volunteer branches in Infinite Flight.
There’s not many names in IFATC i recognize these days from when i used to be an active volunteer there for example. Same with the moderators to be honest - not many left from when i joined :)
I see your point. Volunteering can be fun. But on this instance, it being busy and constant, it feels more like an unpaid job, instead of volunteering. Don’t take that literally. Do you see what I mean?