**Why YSK: ** I’ve noticed a few communities which have been abandoned by the mods entirely (the ones I’ve seen, have only been a single mod). This means the community never gets the traction it deserves.
Just a FYI, you can ask Lemmy World admins for ownership of communities community and actively moderate it, to help revive them, if you believe they are no longer being moderated
Some general indicators are:
- No Comments / posts by the mod in years
- There is only 1 mod in the community, but, no posts by them whatsoever
- There has never been a post at all (even if you check old).
I’ve seen a few communities now with a lot of potential (like c/debian), and some of those communities even have regular contributors (who may not have even realized yet that the mods likely disappeared years ago).
Even if you don’t think you can post super regularly, posting every few weeks is better than a community with no ongoing posts.
Speaking only for communities on lemmy.world, since I’m an admin here and more recently am working a lot of these requests - any community that I do give to a new mod comes with the disclaimer that I contact the old mod(s) and if I’ve missed their activity, or they otherwise show up again - not much is permanent, including this. So at least here on lemmy.world, if I were to give away someone’s community and they popped up to protest, it’s all but certain I’d give it right back - although I might see if they’d be willing to bring on that other person as a mod to work with them, but as of yet this hasn’t happened, so we’ll cross that bridge when and if it does. :)
Also, to you and everyone else who moderates: Thank you. You are indeed the first line of defense against spam and bigotry, and often are integral to making your communities grow. I’ve been a moderator (and am so) as well as an administrator here, reddit, and other places - and each has its own joys and difficulties, but mods are absolutely in the trenches. :)