1y ago

rules for thee, but not for me

To be clear, not talking about this community, obviously 😛.

What's the point of writing down rules, if mods just do what they want? But I suppose that's the risk you take when you call someone a liar in a small community; they might be a mod.

Edit: I'm not trying to say that mods suck, they perform a useful and often thankless job. Just that it can be difficult for small communities to get a healthy number of good mods, which can become a problem.

140 comments

I get the feeling you're speaking from experience
- Your honor, the prosecution is sullying the defendant’s reputation
  
  Your honor, the prosecution just hit me with a whip
- Lol perhaps 😅
  It was a small community dedicated to shit talking another community, neither of which I was part of. A few posts showed up in my feed and one had a take I thought was kinda unreasonable, so I commented. I had a nice discussion with one community member, but OP came in hot. After a half-hearted effort to try to defuse, and being blatantly lied to in a few replies, I just told him he was a conniving liar.
  A few days later I tried to comment on a different post, but I was banned.
  Not a big deal, I'm not invested in either community, but it made me think of the struggles growing Lenny from these small nascent communities, into more more mature communities.
  
  Lemmy is riddled with echo chambers, most of which are people that love calling out people in echo chambers.
  Circlejerks. Circlejerks everywhere.
  
  Ad hominem attacks generally result in bans in most communities from what I've seen. This is the way it should be.

There are potentially 3 different groups of people that may ban you for a comment. If you break a community rule, a moderator may ban you as you would expect from reddit. However, since reports also notify the admins of the community instance and the admins of the instance of the reporter, you may end up banned by an admin if they believe you are breaking an instance rule.
The modlog is great for transparency, but lemmy should also make it clear what group has banned you and why. I haven't been banned before so I'm not sure what that process looks like currently though.
- This is my first time. I'm not even sure where to find the modlog in jebora.
  And yeah, notifying me that an action has been taken against me and the reason for that action would help me understand that I've done something wrong, what it was, and how to modify my behavior.

I got into an argument in the main Technology community a couple weeks or so back and while I admit that it got too heated so that both of us broke the "be excellent to each other" rule, I still feel that an immediate 3-day ban with no warning or notification (I had to check the modlog to find out why I suddenly couldn't comment there) in a group where I'd never broken the rules before was ridiculous.
Didn't help any that the mod almost immediately unbanned the other guy who had been equally unexcellent during the exchange and initially got the same ban and left mine in place..

My main account got a temp ban for 14 days, the first 3 days I just thought Lemmy is broken, again. My feed was lost, but "all" worked.
A notice or a simple warning would be nice the next time.
- Yup, I got a 30 day ban & still don't know why. Someone must've just gotten butthurt lol. I'm probably gonna make the same mistake again ¯(ツ)_/¯
  
  https://lemmy.ml/modlog?userId=1141565
  You were banned because you requested it according to the modlog
  
  Simply browse to your instance, go to moderations-log search your username and you find the reason.

It can happen in any lemmy.world community, even if you did absolutely nothing wrong and you wont be told anything, not even that you have been banned or why. You just suddenly can not log in any more and when the ban is over you might even find that all content you ever posted has been deleted and can not be brought back. Lemmy.world admin team urgently needs to improve their banning practice and they should really consider to start answering emails. On the other hand, did I already tell you what a great instance lemm.ee is? They also have a very nice admin team over there ...
- People need to urgently stop using Lemmy world so they no longer have any power to abuse.
  
  Izzy always needs someone or something to be angry at lmao
  "But I'm not toxic it's everybody else"
- lemmy.world is just reddit 2.0 but worse. Make your own instances with whatever rules you want, don't chain yourselves to the dicks in charge of lemmy.world
- Simply stop using lemmy.world. Their practices have always been shit.
  
  But you're on Lemmygrad.ml

Yay! The whole Reddit experience, but without warning....
- meh if you're being a shit starting nazi fuckwit I'm all for just banning and moving on.
  
  Reddit bans you for calling out the shit starting nazi fuckwits.
  
  First they came for...

A ttrpg called .dungeon got a remaster recently and I keep coming back to one of the screenshots on the store page, because I'm such a big fan of the rules for community moderation it enumerated:
- 5 is the worst rule there. I've been called that for the most milquetoast of statements. You really have to be more specific. This community sounds like an annoying pain to be a part of tbh, I don't have time to feel like I'm stepping on glass every day
  
  If you have to step on glass to not side with genocide and oppression then that sounds like a you issue.
  
  Stop lickin boots then
  
  I probably should've clarified its the last few that I felt were relevant to this post. I understand it sucks when you feel like anything you say may get you banned due to someone else's interpretations, but in practice I don't think it really becomes an issue.
  Perhaps be a bit more careful when first joining a community as you learn how the community tends to act and behave, and where the lines tend to be drawn, but then after that you should have a general sense of what's allowed, and if you do go over the line the mods are much more likely to just give a warning instead of a ban if you're a regular.
- I like that! For more minor infractions that aren't a perma-ban, I hope that they explain to the person THAT they got banned, and WHY.
  It also helps that they said upfront that they're liberal with bans, rather than saying that all bans are forewarned and then simply not giving the warning.

Often the mods are arbitrary and inconsistent. Moderation can really suck sometimes
- Many many years ago I modded a few small reddit subs, and it was a horrible job. You'd set up these rules, and some tween edgelord d-bag would test you to see how much they can push. Some comments deserve an insta-ban with no warning and no debate.
  I don't know what happened to OP, and plenty of mods let the tiny amount of power inflate their heads past the point of reason. But I think of modding like I think of parenting. I'm not going to criticize someone else's methods, because I'm sure as shit not going to do it for them.
  
  You’d set up these rules, and some tween edgelord d-bag would test you to see how much they can push.
  You can just call those people buttheads and hit them with short bans until they get the message. Really, you can hand out 3-day bans like candy. It's infinitely more useful than any form of 3-strike punishment game or kneejerk permaban.
  
  I modded a Discord for a Gamesworkshop video game and it was like that. It really boils down to whether or no people see it as benefit or nevessary burden. I was offered the mod by devs for making some guides and took it because i knew my discomfort with weilding that power would be for the benefit of the community. I would bend over backwards to not take things personally or react but alot of edgelords still made it into an "us vs them" mentality.
  I've also been permabanned from a steam game hub by power tripping mods who couldnt handle someone calmly disagreeing with them and thought they had the right to insult me and ban me for standing up for myself, then pretend like i was the one who was in the wrong for not eating their shit with a smile. (Distant Worlds 2/Slytherine Games)
  It's like being in politics, you gotta find people who feel obligated to do it as a public service and not those who have any desire for power.
- Arbitrary is fine - there's a reason we have humans do this. But any enforcement of bad rules will always suck.
  "Be nice" is a bad rule.
  "Be nice" is a recipe for failure, and it always winds up protecting mildly cautious assholes. If you see someone reply 'so you think [insane garbage unrelated to parent comment]?' and the accused shoot back 'shut up,' and you only remove the person brushing off that troll, your forum is for trolls. That is who you've protected. That is what you've encouraged. That is how things will go.
  If you think the right answer is to always expend great effort peeling apart that disinformation, you do not know what trolling is.
  It's outright insane, in communities about serious topics. If your forum's about knitting - yeah, you can expect and demand televisable language. The vibe is properly casual. But if you deal with politics then you're going to get people being called subhuman, and if you don't come down ten times harder on sneering bigots than their pissed-off victims, you're not preventing abuse, you're enabling abuse.
  Trying to enumerate all the ways someone could deserve a time-out is a fool's errand. You can be mercilessly rude with nothing but a thumbs-up emoji. Or "Great Save!" More importantly - some vitriol is justified. Be human, god dammit, and spend thirty seconds figuring out if someone's being a crank or merely dealing with cranks. If you think there's never any reason for one user to tell another where to shove it, then you are wrong and you should quit.
  
  Being able to call someone a fucking asshole when they are being one is a valuable thing, especially when they dodge filters in doing so.
  
  I've never seen "be respectable" rules that haven't been in service of protecting nazis, so I always go out of my way to be as thorny as possible.
  EVERY single ban i've caught so far has always been the result of going against the mods/admins (usually calling them out on their contradictions) or, more often, for being openly antifascist. They're going to look for an excuse to ban me anyway and if they don't find one they'll just make something up, so why bother being nice?
- Yes! I didn't wanna say mods suck. It is an important and often thankless job.
  Just that small communities without many mods are at risk of getting a bad apple.

It happens on Lemmy all the time. I've been shadowbanned at least three times, all on the bigger instances.
I really, really suspect that the big Lemmy instances are being run by Reddit admins or spooks or some-such. They're moderating their instances in the exact same way Reddit did minus the profiteering. The censorship is the exact same.
Also, the fact that it's possible to shadowban people and the software itself doesn't circumvent that by auto-messaging you or putting a banner on the top of your screen when you are banned from an instance or community is reason #589238923 why Lemmy fucking sucks ass.
- It's because the most insufferable people from reddit all came over to Lemmy/kbin when they got banned for being exceptionally insufferable.
- It really does feel like the more popular instances are nazi bars run by the same kinds of people who made reddit shitty.
- I really, really suspect that the big Lemmy instances are being run by Reddit admins or spooks or some-such. They’re moderating their instances in the exact same way Reddit did minus the profiteering. The censorship is the exact same.
  It's just the reality of online content moderation. The good mods/admins are people who are passionate about a topic and want to provide a space for discussion and community building. When it comes to the "power mods" or whatever, like those we saw on reddit who moderated 100+ subs, they're just in it to stroke their own egos.
  
  Lol it literally just happened again now to another account. Site ban with no explanation. Clearly the way link aggregator sites are structured is just authoritarian and we need to create democratic social media.

Why? Because internet.
A lot of communities dedicated to politics arent dedicated to political discourse.
They mostly are enforced echo chambers. At best.

I'm a real debate lord and it really annoys me when the person I'm being bickering with gets banned. Ruins all the fun.
- That is why you have to message them being like "Hey idiot you got banned, anyway let me finish explaining why you're an idiot"

Lemmy world's admins silently banned me from the entire instance after I said that anticommunism is equivalent to pronazism.
The only reason I knew is because the amount of weird harassing comments I was getting from there suddenly dropped off.
- Your opinion is braindead, however, I'll defend to the death your right to say and have it. Shouldn't have been banned for that. Shame on them.
  
  Your opinion is braindead
  Justify.

Some improvements I'd like to see, but maybe I'm missing something and could be a bad idea
The submitter gets notified if an action is taken on content they've submitted or on their account.
Define rules with a tally of how many times a user breaks each of them, with well-defined consequences that can be programmed.
The addition of polls
Restrict polls to users already subscribed to the community at the time of the poll creation, or with a minimum of xx days subscribed and/or xx amount of submissions, upvotes, etc
Have the rules voted by the community, and moderators elected/impeached by its community.
- I implement the first two and the last rules in all the communities I moderate. Everyone gets either a message or a comment if they break the rules/I remove their comment/I give them a warning. I also reply to the vast majority of mod reports made, explaining what action I’ve taken and why. All my communities have a one-warning-then-you’re-banned rule, but bans are rarely permanent.
  I repeatedly state that I’m looking for moderators, that I welcome all constructive feedback and suggestions regarding the way the community is run and what the rules are. I make it clear I want the communities to be a community effort. I’ve never ever vetoed a suggestion someone’s made - I always offer to let the community decide. What happens? People complaining/criticising but never taking me up on the offer to hold a vote on whatever it is they don’t like. It’s like shouting in the wind and it’s exhausting.
- Have the rules voted by the community, and moderators elected/impeached by its community.
  lol so you want to increase the amount of work mods do and then vote them out when they do shit you don't like.
  here's an idea: become a mod yourself. do the unpaid work of cleaning up the trash so other people can whine in entitled posts like this about how all the mods are trash. jfc
  
  spoiler: am mod, and apparently asking for fairness and clear rules agreed by the community is being entitled now
  then vote them out when they do shit you don’t like.
  no, it's vote them out when they do shit the majority of active members of the community don't like.
  Yes, it's unpaid, doesn't mean you're entitled to the community itself.

Public warnings are bullshit, anyway. They post a reply, warning you for saying something you didn't say, often /u/ mentioning you, then delete the original comment to cover their tracks.

Does Lemmy need political news? This is big shit and news like this is usually just upsetting.

I've been shadow-banned from a few subreddits when I was still on the site.
Not. One. Warning.
on r/images or r/gifs or something, I 'and my ax'ed on some random thread. Banned. Thread context? All deleted. No warning, no explanation, and when I asked for feedback I got something like "the ban holds" or something.
Honestly, I'm a dick a lot of the time, but I simply can't reconcile a ban for "and my ax". Ban me for the actual stuff I do, sure. A warning would be excellent. But that one bugs me the most as I can't learn from it.

I didn't get a ban, but definitely had a post "disappeared" with no explanation because I had the audacity to mention the extreme anti-Israel bias around here.
- That's one of the real problems I see so often, moderators feel strongly their side is right therefore anyone on the other side MUST be a bad actor and therefore it's good to get rid of them using any means necessary - I've seen the same happen with people arguing against just stop oil and various other similar things - in the mods minds they're just getting rid of bad faith posters and evil agents but in reality they're silencing anyone who disagrees.
- Israel is shit, fuck off
- It is morally right to be against a racist ethnostate genocidal Zionist regime and anyone even a little standing up for them is going straight to hell. Yes, this includes statements like "it's complicated" no it fucking isn't. The entire state was created to do ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
  EDIT: of COURSE it's a lemmy world user. Fucking nazi bar instance.

I need to make a pie chart.
Reasons I have been banned from subforums:
20% swearing at trolls.
20% swearing at Nazis.
60% genuinely polite interactions catching a boot in the ass for incomprehensible reasons.
Still no idea what I was supposed to do here.
- Do you think you were the good guy in that thread? You came off incredibly hostile. I would not have banned you for just that, but still I can see why.
  
  How.
- From where I sit, you replied to a comment about Judaism with a comment assuming the person you were replying to thought the same thing about Islam, and wondered why he got mad.
  
  The thread is about criticism of Islam.
  I would've linked more context if it worked properly on Lemmy.
- Your mistake was interacting with internet hatethiests. The only interaction you should ever have with them is reminding everyone in the room that they were a big part of the rise of the alt right and that the movement never underwent even a little bit of denazification.
  
  Hey look, a worse take than 'how dare you say yes.'
- Fuck the lot of you.
  
  Because people gave you answers to the question you asked?
  
  fuck you nerd

140 comments