Lemmy world vegan community - Future of community update

Hi all, I'm one of the mods that apparently caused lemmy.world to melt down for two weeks. It's a lovely sunny Sunday arvo, and I'd much rather go catch the last rays of sun in my garden than write about mod drama. Alas, I must have sinned in a past life.

Today the lemmy.world admins made a follow up post about the incident where the admin Rooki interfered with moderation of this community in a way which was determined to be against lemmy.world TOS and factually incorrect. Throughout this incident there has been no communication with me, nor to my knowledge any of of the other moderators of this community. Rooki quitely undid his actions and edited his post to admit fault however there was no public acknowledgement of this from him. In fact I wasn't even told I was reinstated as a mod which is quite funny.

The lemmy.world admins' response appears more focused on managing their own reputations and justifying similar actions in the future than providing a good environment for vegans, and other similarly maligned groups. Their statements about wanting to handle misinformation and overreach better in the future ring a bit hollow when they won't take actions to address the anti-vegan circlejerks under their update posts which abound with misinformation and disinformation.

The legalese written basically allows for the same thing to happen, and that if it does the admin decision is to stand while moderators have to quietly resolve the conflict at the admins' leisure. Presumably with a similarly weak public apology and barely visible record correction after the fact.

This community already has a fairly high moderation burden, with many users coming here in bad faith and getting outraged when they are told to take it elsewhere.

I have spoken with /u/neurospice@lemmy.dbzer0.com and /u/Beaver@lemmy.ca and we are of the opinion that given the lack of assurance that admins with an axe to grind wont interfere in the future this is no longer a space we are interested in moderating and can't in good faith recommend as a place to host a vegan community. Instead we would recommend that users come to !vegan@vegantheoryclub.org (note, not federated with .world, make a local account), additionally !vegan@lemmy.ml, !vegan@slrpnk.net, and !vegan@hexbear.net are well moderated and run.

Mods are just glorified internet janitors though, so if any current mods or users want to take over the responsibility of primary management from /u/neurospice@lemmy.dbzer0.com they are welcome to do so and should get in touch. Otherwise I think the consensus is to close this community for now.

Finally I'd just like to express gratitude for the great effort put in by the users here. In particular /u/Rose@lemmy.world you are a bloody champion for trying to get a better outcome here, we all appreciate it immensely.

56 comments

I tried to stem the disinfo in the other ootl thread, but the amount of of rage bait and general vegan hate was off the scale. Really disappointing showing by lemmings.
See you on the flipside.
- It was quite the "here we go again with the vegans" post. Just a ton of redditors using it as a space to whine about veganism as usual.
- Thank you. I saw you in the meme post getting torn to shreds. I couldn't believe how upset everybody got in spite of how tame your comments were
- Thank you. That argument with PugJ was hurtful to see.
- Yeah, for carnist scum you were acting pretty decently ;)
  Seriously though thanks, it is pretty discouraging to see hundreds of posts about how awful you/your goals are. Everyone who tried to present the actual facts and judge with an even hand has been greatly appreciated.
  edit: phew, remembered to change accounts
  ok real edit: how in the fuck is me saying thank you negative on votes? surely this is just spam behaviour?
  
  People probably didn't get that you were joking
  
  Maybe people didn't get the tongue-in-cheek attitude, idk
  
  edit: phew, remembered to change accounts
  sockpuppet! _/s

Thanks for the shoutout! The power move was a clear violation on the side of Rooki. Words and other fluff aside, the new rule additions are the best indication of not only the lack of change but also doubling down on Rooki's original position, as described in further detail in my recent comments.
Once I've made the last comments and it's been a few days since the Lemmy.World announcements, I will fully migrate to lemmy.zip because of this incident, so going to my user page on here should make it easy for anyone curious about the events to get a much clearer picture.
- lemmy.zip
  Good choice!
- You are a saint <3 seriously thank you.

Thanks for all you've contributed. I hope the other communities will be under a less constant barrage of people coming in bad faith.
- My most drastic mod measure I've taken @vtc is gently explaining to a user that some stuff about their posts were a bit speciest.
  World seems to have an anonymously high proportion of users who just browse all and post without sensitivity to community and rules. I strongly recommend moving to an instance that doesn't federate with them just personally.
  
  Yeah, after I blocked the .ml instances, all of the problematic users I've noticed have been world. Might just be from the sheer number, but it certainly does get old.
  
  I strongly recommend moving to an instance that doesn’t federate with them just personally.
  The issue is that out of the 100 most active communities, 57 are on LW. Content is already scarse, without LW it's really quiet

Hello,
I followed the situation from afar, good luck with !vegan@vegantheoryclub.org !
note, not federated with .world, make a local account)
Having a look at the instances page, it seems you defederated, which makes sense based on the current events. Lemm.ee and SJW still seem federated, so hopefully this might give an incentive to people to migrate from LW to other instances and spread Lemmy users a bit more.
- Dbzer0 as well

Creating a new community over at !vegan@vegantheoryclub.org and !vegan@slrpnk.net seems good however I would like to make recommendations against lemmy.ml and hexbear.net as they are known to host tankies and are heavily biased against anti-CCP and Russian(Putin) dissidents.
It seems very paradoxical to me; with the development of decentralized forums I assumed that the admins and mods would be against dictatorships but I digress
May I perhaps suggest mander.xyz and or sopuli.xyz as better alternatives?
- dbzero is federates with both. They're honestly not bad. I think there's a bit of a moral panic around them because usaians aren't used to seeing anti-usa opinions be mainstream.
  The one thread I saw on hexbear about Russia for example was people lamenting how horrible it is for lgbt people there. Expressing frustration and anger at Putin's regime, and expressing frustration at the role usa policy has played in his rise and the reactionary political culture there.
  you might disagree with the degree to which the usa government is responsible but that hardly seems like a community where dissent against Putin is crushed.
  Idk, at any rate the vegan communities are awesome. Mander is a good instance with good users, although I think it's natural science focused and unsure if it's appropriate for a vegan community. Dunno about the other.
- That’s a great tip, those instances are absolutely biased against Western propaganda that has verifiably been proven false hundreds of times over.
  However, valid criticisms of Putin’s authoritarian regime and the failures of China are absolutely up for discussion in the appropriate communities and near-universally recognized as valid by those instances.
  The better question is, why are you attempting to spread blatant CIA propaganda? What even is a “tankie”? Someone that recognizes violence is necessary to end fascism?
  I guess you’d consider the Allies in WW2 as “tankies” as well? Or NATO, right? Surely liberal logic is consistent and not at all a warped parroting of decades of American propaganda that is, again, easily proven to be demonstrably and objectively false?

Lol lemmy.world is a u/spez run reddit wannabe, apparently. There doesn't seem to be much real integrity there.
I feel like most of the mods on c/vegan understand that, which is why their accounts are with other instances.
However, going to hexbear and .ml are probably mistakes. That's a step down from .world, there are better instances out there. Hint hint.
- vegantheoryclub.org is vegan run.
  Also personally I've had issues with precisely one user on hexbear (the one who accused me of being db0 in disguise lol) and none from ml. I don't always agree politically, but that's true for every lemmy instance.
  Tbh I have difficulty understanding the drama around them. Hexbear in particular is fantastic for vegans (vtc aside) as their COC specifically requires certain vegan-forward stances, which they recognise as part of a liberation struggle.
  
  Hexbear is fine until you openly disagree with them. When you do that you get banned for vexatious reasons.
  Hexbear is also an oxymoron in itself, supporting Putin's Russia while also claiming to support LGBTQ+ rights. Frankly, it's a bit of a honeypot.
  lemm.ee is lovely, meanwhile :D Federated with almost everyone, no bullshit, and an admin developer who knows his stuff and supported other instance admins when the shit hit their fans (meanwhile his instance was already immune).
  Also, Estonia gained its liberation from the Soviet Union literally by singing.
  
  one user on hexbear (the one who accused me of being db0 in disguise lol)
  omg. if anyone had any idea what my pre-account-creation exchange with db0 was about, and how you and I have subsequently interacted...
  I try to stay out of explicitly vegan spaces, which I think was part of what I promised them when I was granted and account, but it is hilarious to think that you are db0.
- So happy .world had serious tech issues sometime after the exodus. I had my first account there, it was a bit of pain to move as I used it for a little, but totally worth it in the long run it seems
  
  They did, and then the lemm.ee dev came to their rescue to tell them how they should have set things up (like he did) :D
  And these days it's trivially easy to move accounts between instances.

The Solarpunk guys have made a post including info about the situation here
https://slrpnk.net/post/12925536
!vegan@slrpnk.net could be the alternative community
- !meta@slrpnk.net for people on other instances
  
  Lemmy is weird

I am the vegan extremist who banned Rooki and am the catalyst of this. The amount of shit you get for volunteering for a job no-one wants to do fucking sucks. I really appreciate the gratitude that's expressed from bloodmouths especially /s
Lemmy seems to harbor more resentment towards vegans than Reddit does, which is truly an incredible feat. Reactionaries, carnist apologists, debatemebros, are in no short order here, and have been circlejerking about this for two weeks now. An outstanding advertisement for places like vegantheoryclub.org, completely free from carnist vitriol.
I'm sorry to the vegans that have been affected by this. I tried to make this place a vegan place, but it is apparent that the powers that be are in opposition to this. Thanks for putting your trust in me, and thanks for the other moderators here <3
Be kind to all Earthlings.

Hi, naeva. Would you and Hamid consider re-federating with World? It's not just that I don't want to and probably wouldn't juggle multiple accounts just for a couple communities, but moreso that segregating the main vegan sub away from the biggest instance by an order of magnitude means that it can't be seen by any of the actual good-faith LW users.
If you did, I would volunteer to be a moderator, although I understand that doesn't nearly offset the induced moderation burden. I'd volunteer to moderate here on the LW instance, but especially with the sort of undue pressure from administration being imposed on it combined with being on my own, I'm not sure that I could do it effectively.
- I don't run vtc, and I think Hamid is probably more likely to eat his own teeth than refederate.
  DBzero is federated, and a widely federated instance. The admin has a sense of humour at least so you could do worse than signing up there if you want to see world stuff.
  
  In that case, if you're willing to reopen the LW community here, I'd moderate it. I'm sure it'd be difficult at first. I wouldn't ask you to do anything further here.
- I’d volunteer to moderate here on the LW instance,
  That's nice of you, please note that moderation only completely works from the instance the community is hosted on. Reports are currently not propagated for instance

Honestly I was hoping y'all would take this approach. As I said in my comments over there. LW truly is reddit

additionally !vegan@lemmy.ml, !vegan@slrpnk.net, and !vegan@hexbear.net are well moderated and run.
Hexbear is a raging dumpster fire, ML is a smouldering dumpster fire, and your first recommendation isn't federated with the largest Lemmy instance. Not a good sign at all.
- If you are reading about vegan stuff, why is it important that people from a us politicalmemes community can come in and tell you you're stupid?
  Why is total federation necessary? vtc feds with many instances including some large ones like hexbear, dbzero, ml, and ee.

It’s difficult dealing with LemmyWorlders as they cannot handle the facts as they just want to troll the vegan community. However it makes sense as the admin team has issues with policing cultures they do not understand. When vegan@vegantheoryclub.org was federated with the instance they were so many people I had to ban because of the antivegan rhetoric. Looks like some users are too immature to be considered adults.
These people are not so different from the reactionaries they so detest, seen with them being arrogant, refusing to learn new information and to up their standards. I saw in another thread they were using false equivalences and disinformation to continue to reinforce their obsolete world view. This is why the United States is so behind in so many metrics the people think they know everything and then harass anyone they disagree with. The metric system and veganism are not scary topics Americans, go grow a brain and a spine.

56 comments