Moderator open to recall

I'm not gonna lie. This is a hard thread to make. Let's open with a giveaway, for old time's sake, and to start on a lighter note. No CV, no rules, anyone can enter. Now, let's get down to it. Please read it all carefully before you comment.

I love this site. I started off with a "hey, free stuff!" mentality, but quickly discovered the community. I still remember my first giveaway and the colossal disaster that turned into. I still remember my first puzzle, the first time I won, the first time I met quite a few of you who I'd later consider my friends. I still remember the first time lokonopa cryptically messaged me and I knew what he was asking. I still remember being made a chat mod. I love that chat. The members have changed over the months, like they have here, but I enjoyed being in it, I enjoyed keeping it clean. I remember advising cg on my opinions of who has it in them to be mods. Those opinions still hold true. Then, I left.

For obvious reasons, I don't regret that. That was the happiest time of my life and I'm now engaged. The problems started when I came back. Six months gone, even with frequent check-ins, and the site had changed. I missed a lot of people I thought where major parts of the site's community leave. I missed a lot of policy changes, new people come in, new groups live and die and live again. But the longer I tried to fit back in, the more I had to force that fit, the more it felt like pushing a square block into a circular hole.

I hate this site. I feel like a lot of the people that held the true spirit of it together have left it and there's nothing but a few of them left, in the midst of CV complaint threads and begging and general pointless spam. There's been disagreements, both with you guys and with the other moderators. Most of them have been minor, some of them have been major. I've had disagreements with the admin on numerous topics, a lot of them related to the abilities of the mods to do our jobs well and suspensions. cg is far, far more lenient than myself. Maybe he's right. Maybe that time I spent trying to clean up SteamTrades, where I had to make a hard and brutal line you do not cross, ever, to get anything done on it, poisoned my ability to work on SteamGifts. Maybe they need a different touch and I lost that touch and haven't been able to get it back yet. I don't know.

Moving on to a personal note right now: when I left was the happiest time in my life; now is probably one of my lowest. The site staff are aware of it and certain contingency plans were put in place. I've been constantly depressed since I was a child in various strengths and I'm currently in the middle of a seriously deep depression. Every day is a struggle to wake up, I'm perpetually fatigued, very little to nothing feels truly fun any more, I fake a lot of smiles, laughter, and lie about it when asked. At various points in the last few months, I've been the closest to suicide I have been in years.

I love this site. It wasn't as severe then, but I was still depressed when I first joined. I'm not going to lie: this site has kept me alive. Modding this site, helping people with their issues, being a part of the community has given me a reason to get up in the morning. I have sacrificed so much of my time here, I didn't even have time to game most days, I forgot to eat or sleep and I didn't even feel bad about that, I was doing good work (hell, a couple of times, I even sacrificed time with my fiancée to work through a problem someone was having, though, yes, I felt bad about that one). But the returns nowadays are dwindling. It's not as much fun any more. Lately, it's been a chore. I check support, scroll through the tickets, and move on, answering a couple at most. I check the forums and feel like I see nothing but spam and complaints and rulebreaking and just general annoyances. I've tried taking a small week or so break, get my head in gear again, but something always drags me back in. When I'm not apathetic, I'm angry and I'm sure the longtimers here have noticed that I am far more aggressive than I used to be, even when I try my utmost to rein that back in and I truly have tried.

Am I doing good any more? Is this worth my time and effort? Is this doing more harm than good to me? These questions have been going in circles in my head for a long time now. I have no answer. My love of this site is greater than the frustrations of this site, far greater. So I put these questions to you, the community, the reason why I love this site. It's not the gifts. It's not the puzzles. It's you. Am I doing good any more? Am I worth your time and effort? Am I doing more harm than good to this site, to this community? This has nothing to do with any one incident, but a continuing trend. I love this site and I love this community and I want to do right by you.

Give me your thoughts. Is it time for me to step down, is it time for me to go? Based on the Wikipedia process I took this idea from, this is non-binding. I reserve the right to ignore everything anyone says and continue onwards, but I value your thoughts, all of them. I may or may not reply to individual comments, but I will read all of them. This community is truly important to me and, regardless of our differences in opinion, I respect you all and thank you for my time here so far. It has been truly great.

Moderators, I've made a support ticket as well. Please post in-depth analyses there. Thank you.