So, I saw a report from one of my users. They reported:
https://ponder.cat/post/1594852/1813842
For the reason:
Unreasonable fighting with everyone in every simple post
I think that’s ridiculous, so I talked with them about it. Posting private communications is frowned upon I guess, but long story short, they weren’t receptive. I’ve decided to ban the account.
IMO the general culture on Lemmy is that users are entitled to their free account and everyone needs to be careful and circumspect about limiting that entitlement in any way, but I don’t see it that way. I don’t think it’s a requirement for me to provide hosting space for anyone who wants to use my stuff as a jumping-off point for abuse of Lemmy’s systems, and isn’t apologetic or receptive when I talk with them about not doing that. The fact that it’s in service of harassing FlyingSquid in particular is just icing on the cake, since my perception is that people like to harass him apparently for no legitimate reason at all (with this as an example).
AITA?
Yeah. FS really seems to take a lot of heat. I think it’s because people have come to know that he will always defend himself. And when they repeatedly antagonize him- it always seems it’s for their entertainment.
We’ve reached the next level peeps. Mods pre-emptively opening YPTB posts about their own actions! 😈
Don’t know that I would’ve banned someone for a single report, even if it was nonsensical. Sometimes, people have a bad day, and aren’t thinking clearly.
Generally I’m quick with the banhammer about positions (ie genocide deniers o u t), but reluctant about attitudes. As someone who is miserable and tetchy myself, I know all about what it’s like to snap - even at someone I don’t like - and overstep the boundaries of good taste, norms, or constructive participation in a community.
BPR, I guess? I probably would’ve told them to fuck off, but a ban might’ve been an overreaction.
At the same time, operating on your gut to keep a place clean is often necessary to maintain your sanity. There are only so many hours in the day, and only so much energy you can spend reasoning or enduring people.
I dunno, man.
Yeah, I can see that. That’s why I posted here.
Everyone draws their lines in slightly different places. I’m actually probably a lot more tolerant than most about “banned” points of view, or someone just being abrasive one day, since I do the same (on both counts). As long as at the end of the day they’re open for some form of open communication about it. Explicitly rejecting the social contract or using Lemmy’s buttons in a way they’re not designed for, taking up moderators’ time for frivolous stuff and refusing to stop when asked, explicitly rejecting the idea of backing up your reason for attacking someone when asked, I have a lot shorter fuse for.
I wouldn’t have banned if they were at all receptive to the DM conversation about it, but as it is, I just didn’t think I was doing anybody including them any favors by saying “Oh okay, keep doing what you’re doing, you are welcome to a place on this network after a short time-out.”
It sounds like most of the conversation we cannot see here, so we’re only seeing your side here. Therefore take what I say with that grain of salt that we cannot evaluate what we do not see.
I would have offered them a warning first. Which, in the DMs, you did?
At that point, don’t worry about it. I will bend over backwards to explain something to someone who’s honestly trying, but if you are correct that they are not merely ignorant but rather obstinate, then I think it was the right call.
The fact that you are willing to be so transparent (with your own side of the conversation at least, which is all that you “own” so please don’t think I’m mocking you here, I respect that) and also to receive correction yourself seals the deal, imho. You thereby protect people from abuse and in turn allow freedom to have discussions when toxic people are kept out of the room - it’s like trying to discuss something when toddlers are screaming underfoot, it just isn’t going to happen, yet it requires effort to carve out those spaces to remain welcoming to have discussions.
The rest is just details: FlyingSquid really can be quite abusive himself at times, though this may not have been one of them, and he is often quite fun to talk to (unless he gets triggered), plus a single report is not itself abuse, etc. I mentioned more in a response to Blaze.
After learning about everything that happened here, personally I would feel more rather than less comfortable making a post or even account on ponder.cat, if that phrasing helps explain what I mean. By keeping toxic people out, you allow space for people to post who otherwise would hesitate to, for fear of the toxicity that so very often results from doing so.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
And yes, it’s weird that you have to take my word for the DM conversation without even being able to refer to the exact text. IDK, that’s the rules of the community, and also I do think it’s a little bit weird to expose private DM communication except in some very specific scenarios, none of which apply here (like if someone else is lying about the content of the communication).
Yup, and I only was dancing around that to be clear that the best we can evaluate here is to say “IF your assessment of those DMs is correct, THEN the conclusion seems warranted to me indeed”.
One report is not report abuse. And I do often see FS arguing up and down a thread about nothing at all, so the report isn’t off base either. If you think FS’s behavior is inappropriate, you can remove the comments or ban him. If you think it’s appropriate, then you can explain that to the user who reported it. You’re not required to continue that thread, though.
If they continue reporting material that has been identified to them as non-rulebreaking, then that is report abuse and merits a ban.
So, YTPTB I guess?
The report on that comment was totally off base. It wasn’t in any way an argumentative comment. It was reporting a totally innocuous comment because “every” comment by FS is allegedly combative. And, they refused when I asked for some examples of this “every” behavior by FS.
So they knew it was non rulebreaking and reported it anyway. And then, I did explain that to them as you described, and they weren’t into hearing the explanation. Okay, sounds good, guess who else doesn’t have to care what you think, if we’re doing not-listening-to-each-other? This guy.
I would have just stopped responding after explaining why it wasn’t rulebreaking. Like I said, one instance isn’t abuse, continued behavior is.
I think that’s ridiculous, so I talked with them about it.
Well, there’s your problem. One silly report? Reject, don’t think about it again unless the reporting user gets increasingly uppity all on their own. You don’t have to engage with everything (and I am fully aware of the irony of my saying that).
Now, what the user said after that in your private communications may have warranted a “GTFO,” but you’re right to not publish that. It’ll have to be your judgment call there.
I want so badly to post the content of the DM conversation lol
You are correct that the content of the conversation was what tipped the scales in favor of a ban.
I often agree with your positions on various things, Phil, at least to the extent that it seems that we’re operating from a similar point of reference. That said, and in light of the nature of the private communications remaining private (as it should), there’s only one conclusion that seems fitting.
PTB.
One instance of anything hardly seems like grounds for a ban. Repeat behavior certainly could justify that action, but in the absence of any pattern it seems like an overreach. There might well be further justification for a ban based on the direct messages; but, as you’re submitting your own action for analysis, the only fair way to evaluate is on the grounds of what we are directly privy to. Anything else has to be viewed as simply your biased interpretation of the private conversation.
In the circumstance you describe the onus on the user is not to be “receptive or apologetic” to you in the private conversation, only to correct their usage of the report system. As presented, it reads as if they were banned because they did not show adequate respect for your authority, which is clear PTBehavior. Further, you attempt to bolster your point by painting Squid, a user who loves to try to win bad-take arguments by referring to their own mod status in other communities (essentially a PTB themselves), as undeserving of ire despite an extensive history of spinning out, losing the thread, and generally being a dick when it happens. Carrying water for someone who comes across as power-trippy does little to shift perception of your own actions away from that mark.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
The POV that banning for one report is a big overreach makes perfect sense to me. I talked about it a little bit below, you can search for “clear pattern” to see.
It wasn’t that they were unapologetic. I’ve actually had people have hostile disagreements with me in communities I moderate, and it didn’t even occur to me until later that I had some kind of power not to “get talked to that way” or disrespected or w/e. That kind of thing doesn’t bother me except very occasionally. The issue was that this person refused to back up their reasons for wanting mod action against FS, and rejected my request to not use the report function that way. I do feel like someone needs to be receptive to someone asking them “I consider this against the rules, please don’t do it on my server.” Of course I was less polite than that. Also, maybe I am biased because of course my rules make perfect sense but someone else’s might not, if I’m on their server and the roles are reversed. That’s just how I see it though.
This whole thing of being officially a person with authoritah is new to me, hence posting here to ask about it. I take seriously the discussion about it, even if I might not agree with individual POVs or sound like I’m rejecting anyone who’s trying to tell me I did wrong.
Further, you attempt to bolster your point by painting Squid, a user who loves to try to win bad-take arguments by referring to their own mod status in other communities (essentially a PTB themselves)
Maybe. In the little bit I’ve observed about FlyingSquid, it looks like they tend to get tangled up in long intense arguments which maybe they don’t need to get tangled up in. That’s sure not ideal, but it doesn’t make them a bad person or a power-tripper. I think there was one time several months ago when they noted to someone they were in a long argument with that the person had a habit of breaking the community rules in some other posts, also, and now everyone keeps referring back to that one time as an example of how FS is terrible and threatened to ban the person just because they were disagreeing.
I’ve just noticed that there are all these disparate attempts to get FS banned, removed from mod status, and similar things, and when I looked into the “why” of them they tended to boil down to not that much of consequence. So I have sort of a hair trigger now for something along the lines of “okay THIS comment was perfectly fine but we all KNOW that this person is bad, because they are, and anything they say needs a moderator to step in and remove it,” which to me is harassment unless the person’s done something absolutely truly reprehensible. If someone is being awful all the time, just report the awful comments, they should be pretty easy to find.
So people who can perform “apologetic” are better behaved in future than those who aren’t good at that performance?
Someone reporting something, you disagreeing with it being a reportable offense, and the user getting banned for it… a single mistake isn’t abuse. If you had explained that doing it again would lead to a ban, and then they did, sure.
There’s literally no way to take this other than PTB. Unless he threatened you in the DM, you’re absolutely the one wrong here.
I won’t analyze this case, but: Abusing the report button is an issue. This forces you to do work to check it, clear it and so on. I can handle the reports in my communities (there are a few), but if I would be getting hundreds of reports every week, I would burn out quickly. People like to shit on mods, but most people don’t know how many batshit insane people there are on the internet and that the best way to have a nice community is to keep them away.
PTB majorly. You don’t want to ban people for reports unless they’re spamming false reports.
Otherwise you discourage reporting. Think of it this way, would you rather have them just not report things because you ban them or threaten to ban them for things you don’t think are personally actionable.
It’s a fair point. I talked more about it here:
https://ponder.cat/post/1596872/1816086
Basically, my point is, they knew exactly who FlyingSquid was and were familiar with Lemmy already from some other accounts, and on their first day, started reporting comments of his without claiming that anything was wrong with them, saying that just because of who he is, any comment of his deserves to be reported.
I can understand the point of view that a permaban for that behavior is too much. As a general rule, I actually agree 100%. But to me looking at the context, their other comments, and especially how they reacted when I asked them not to do that, it was time for them to go.
Edit: Also… I do want to apologize a bit for this sequence of events (Please understand that I am listening and this whole conversation was valuable for me to understand and check myself on it):
- Me: AITPTB?
- People: FUCK YES
- Me: Well, if you saw the DMs I won’t show you, you’d understand. I’m still right.
If I understand correctly, he has someone that has multiple accounts that follow him around to argue with him because of his reaction.
Yep. It’s fun for some people, I think.
- Me: AITPTB?
- People: FUCK YES
- Me: Well, if you saw the DMs I won’t show you, you’d understand. I’m still right.
If you’re going to ask here then say “Umm achkually I’m not a PTB” what ws the point of making this thread? Just hoping to take away from the person who was doing the reporting so they wouldn’t ask if you’re a PTB? If that was it then it backfired because people indeed do think it’s wrong to ban people for and to discourage reporting.
Because I react very differently to people who saw “report, didn’t like, ban the person who reported” and are without further investigation giving their reaction to that (totally insane) decision, versus the people who clicked the link, talked with me about the context, and things like that.
Most of the people who simply assumed that I personally thought the report was invalid and so I banned the person (which would, again, be an absolutely insane thing to do), I’m just discounting whatever they have to say about it. Sorry. I don’t need someone to tell me that that would be nuts.
Some of the people who clearly wanted to understand the fuller scope also told me I was a PTB. Which, maybe so. Some of them found the person I was talking about and read the profile and said “Holy smokes that guy’s clearly off his rocker” or some variation. We talked about it. I’m not out here trying to be stubborn about my way only, but I’m also not required to accept whatever anybody tells me just because they’re telling it to me. Sorry. A lot of it has to do with how much effort they seem like they put into understanding what happened.
Three-day bans are like spritzing a cat in the face. It’s corrective.
Permabans should be reserved for diet Nazi shit. Truly beyond-the-pale, never-gonna-get-better assholerey.
… did you permanently ban someone for asking to have rules enforced, instead of starting shit verbally? Because if so, what the fuck.
Quoting myself from elsewhere:
Some people have been telling me that, if it was repeated reports, that would be one thing, and the fact that it was a single report means I overreacted. That’s fair, I guess, but my argument is that there are repeated reports of this type, and there’s no particular guarantee that any account that pops into existence and then instantly starts filing more of them isn’t part of it. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt by talking to the person, and they rejected my attempt, so by default they fall into part of that pattern. Whether or not it is justified to put them there (since it’s impossible to tell one way or another). I don’t think that on a network that’s inherently anonymous, we need to extend indefinite courtesy to every new account that “they must be new, they get extra leeway until it’s ironclad that they’re causing problems on purpose and not going to stop.”
“Reports of this type” being, reports about comments that we both acknowledge are totally innocuous, because of who it is that posted them.
I feel comfortable defining “doubling down on their right to report anything one particular user ever posts, wasting everyone’s moderation time and harassing the user in question” as “never-gonna-get-better assholery.” It’s not beyond the pale, but I also don’t feel obligated to put up with it. IDK where people got the idea that any random person who makes a new account deserves abundant good faith and due process even while doing their best to demonstrate they don’t deserve it.
If this person wasn’t creating new sockpuppets before, they will now. You’ve taught them any misstep can have permanent consequences - and not done any favors for how they interact with mods or admins.
Nobody’s talking about infinite second chances. You did a one-strike permaban for ‘hey please look at this’ followed by ‘why wouldn’t I report things?’ Make it a week. Make it a month. Give them any reason not to dump the brand-new account you just diminished.
If this is a random person with a new account, they don’t know who the fuck Flying Squid is. Inferring conspiracy is obviously not a firm enough basis for instant permanent consequence. Slap them when you might not, or slap them harder than you would, on that suspicion. But it is only suspicion. Certainly you can’t talk about this individual having a pattern of harassment, because one action is not a pattern.
If this is a random person with a new account, they don’t know who the fuck Flying Squid is.
They claimed that FlyingSquid was a known user to them that is always getting in fights with everyone, and so it makes perfect sense to just report any comment by him, even if the comment is totally harmless, because he’s always getting in fights with everyone and so every comment needs to be reported.
I’ll go in-between power tripping and not power tripping. You have a valid reason to give punishment, but a permaban is a bit too much imo
And that’s a fatal flaw, which can’t be corrected, right?
Yeah PTB, why use a water spray to train a cat when you could use a pistol
If this person wasn’t creating new sockpuppets before, they will now.
Exactly.
PTB
I don’t get the ban over one report. Feels Gestapo.
Permaban should be reserved for bots and threat actors IMHO
There’s not an abbreviation for this in the community rules.
It isn’t power tripping fully because the decision was made based on more than a single factor, and they are indeed reasonable rules.
But it is a tad much for a permaban on the first go on your instance. While I agree there are some people that do not give a fuck and stir shit everywhere they go, and I agree that it seems you were dealing with one, a temp ban is the go-to.
Since you can’t/won’t share private communications (and good on you for that), we can only go with what’s available, and a permaban is too far based on only that for a first offense.
If their responses in private were bad enough, that’s a judgement call, and it might change the matter. Since you don’t have a history of wielding the hammer heavily, despite having every right to do so on own instance, I give you the benefit of the doubt as well. A single action does not a power tripper make. It’s about patterns of behavior.
So, the specific action was low grade power tripping, but you aren’t a power tripper.
Now regardless of that, I fully support preemptive bans as a valid tool. Someone has a history of abuse on other instances and communities, and starts the same behavior on another one, it is a valid option. It is, however not an opinion that is held by a majority, and I tend to give my opinion about that less weight here lately. I accept that a lot of people consider that a power trip most of the time. But I think preventing a pattern from forming in the first place is a good thing when done with care.
I don’t think I have anything to add that others haven’t already said, except for
You’re literally PTB - Philip The Bucket
That is all
In this case, you were not the target of the reports, it was the community mods I guess?
But if the purposes of the account was trolling and even stalking of a single other account, that would rise to instance admin jurisdiction?
Edit: this is getting so confusing. Here looks to be the banned account. The instance sidebar rules state:
All are welcome to this instance. Please no illegal content, no personal attacks, no misinformation, no bigotry. Other than that, go nuts. Be productive.
Emphasis mine. Where it gets really odd is that the post was to [email protected], and the target account likewise on Lemmy.world, and filing a report is not the same as a “personal attack”. So yeah I see what you mean now. The only reason this report ended up visible was bc it was originally posted by Cat on ponder.cat. However, if I think about how people from Hexbear use Lemmy.ml alt accounts (cough Cowbee cough) to attempt to escape from moderation of posts on other instances, I can see the appeal of an instance admin getting involved.
The banned account makes personal attacks against people all the time - though here, in this case, filing a single report was not itself an “attack”.
Essentially the person was banned for “general vibes” not matching the instance rules, though only noticed in the first place by filing this report.
Precisely. I know it’s a lot to ask since everyone’s volunteers, but I wish more instance admins would do something to address the issue when their users are openly being a pain in the ass. It’s not reasonable to ask every mod to click away an unlimited number of frivolous reports, every user to block every unapologetic asshole, every mod to individually figure out the complete list of who the fight-pickers are, and so on.
Exactly!
Lemmy already has quite the reputation for being a “Nazi bar”. To be clear, not with “actual Nazis”, but as e.g. Wikipedia defines that term:
Nazi bar (plural Nazi bars)
(Internet slang) A space in which bigots or extremists have come to dominate due to a lack of moderation or by moderators wishing to remain neutral or avoid conflict.
By allowing / facilitation of “unlimited free speech” on the internet, we ironically end up with LESS freedom overall, when their freedom to speak trumps my own freedom to not have to listen. Worse, people (myself included) simply shut down rather than speak up when they would have to shout to get past all the noise…
And you are not at all impinging upon the banned person’s freedom to speak… elsewhere, including that same community on Lemmy.World. You are simply asserting your own rights to not have to listen to their whinging, drawing the line in the sand to cease future offenses, which will inevitably lead to more of the same from other people who will follow suit.
The success (or failure) of your entire instance depends on such decisions. And I for one think that this was an okay call. Some of us here might not have made it, though I am pretty sure that I personally would have, but far more importantly I think we should support your right to have made it, i.e. to uphold your own vision for your instance.
Yeah. The combination of near-total anonymity, and a culture of “everyone’s entitled to their free account which takes two seconds to make, and anyone who wants to remove them has to clear every conceivable hurdle of due process and benefit of the doubt” has laid some obvious groundwork for a pretty toxic environment. Then, add to that organized political fuckery and trolling, home-grown organic trolling, genuine sincere political views which are totally insane, and a moderation model which encourages the creation of little fiefdoms of unlimited power, and it’s a wonder that anything good ever happens here.
Personally, I think almost everyone had good intentions, and that’s why it generally works despite all of that. But the question should not be “why is Lemmy so toxic sometimes?” It should be “why is Lemmy ever not toxic given how its systems are constructed? How can we set things up so that the nontoxic majority can hang out with each other without having this bullshit impinge on them quite so frequently?”
I would guess a large part of the answer would be the Rexodus, which gave many of us a sense of a shared purpose and goal. We also were FAR more willing than usual to overlook a great deal of pain, since we knew that what we were coming from had even more in store from us back there, plus we were more hopeful back then that the tools would grow to make things even better. Which to some extent they have, while in other ways we’ve actively gotten worse.
For example Reddit mods are extremely often PTB, yet there is a modlog, and people can continue to post an already-started comment reply to someone, and even make new ones, which allows people to “finish” conversations that were already started, even if the post is no longer visible on the subreddit feed.
In contrast, Lemmy has the modlog, but people do not receive notifications for events, nor is there a way to ask why or advocate - the only realistic option would be a DM, except how do you do that when the modlog simply says “DM”, and often many mods disappear for months (to years) at a time, so really is someone supposed to simply DM all of the entire mod team at once? And then continue that conversation individually, rather than as a team?
This btw is one of the strengths of Discord iirc, where you can see who removed something, and again Reddit might not do that but instead offers far better in the form of the modmail. Our tools here really suck in that regard. Especially bc removed posts don’t say “removed”, but rather “check back later”. I’m not kidding btw - go and look at one, and you’ll see that text!
I’ve heard it said that among people of conscience, rules are hardly necessary. Think: Star Trek TNG or some such. The mere thought that one’s own actions could impact others negatively would generally be sufficient to halt the vast majority of negative behaviors. In contrast, among people lacking that, no set of rules will ever be sufficient. They simply won’t follow them, or will even find ways to abuse them to harm others, remaining just inside the protective barriers themselves while using the rules as a weapon against their opponents to “win” arguments at any cost.
Honestly, I think moderation + modlog + YPTB is a pretty good approximation of justice. It’s okay to hand people a good amount of power, as long as it’s aboveboard what they are doing with it, and people can raise the alarm and in extreme cases avoid the domain where they’re overstepping what they should be doing, if they’re overstepping what they should be doing.
I’ve actually noticed a substantial reduction in how much PTB there is, since this community came into being and became the default place to raise the issue and discuss it publicly if one of the moderators was out of line.
Overall yeah. I mean, even here the reports continue to flood in unabated about the admin practices of e.g. Lemmy.ml, to the point where db0 brought in a second mod to help deal with the drudgery of handling all the drama and mod reports. And people still don’t seem to know about Midwest.social. But this community does still help a lot:-).
Good point
I would call some ways of requesting sanctions against another user an “attack”. You can’t get all insistent with the staff at the bar, that someone needs to be kicked out, and then get upset when you get kicked out because that’s messed up man.
You’re completely right that it was more about vibes than about violating a specific set of rules, but I also would consider accusing everything someone says of needing to be removed from the conversation to be a personal attack. It would be different if they were saying the reported comment, itself, was in any way objectionable.
Lol you might do that, but never underestimate what others are capable of! They will tell you full on to your face what you can and cannot do - bc apparently that has worked for them to have done so, in the past?
Here I was only trying to separate
our(edit: “out”) content vs. process: you did not ban someone merely bc of a single report that they made - doing so for ONE REPORT really would be a bit of a PTB situation. Instead, what that report brought to life (in the DMs) was content that you were not okay with, none of which you’ve shared here, but I’m willing to take your word for it and say that subject to the correctness of your interpretation there, then it sounds like an okay call to have made.I disagree somewhat that a SINGLE report counts as a full-on “attack” - a “jab” maybe, like taking a “swing” at someone, but not fully rising to a “fight”. Although… it’s not exactly a hug either, nor did it leave well enough alone: they did solidly take a stand on the subject, then it sounds like in the DMs they disrespected your authority, and the latter is what earned them the ban, not the former. Like on an “attack” scale of -10 to +10, filing one report seems like a +1, so no need to exaggerate its effect there, as it is closer to neutral than e.g. to flinging toxic comments that others would have to read (arguably it was more an “abuse” of the moderation system than an “attack” against FlyingSquid, though again: super low level).
Correct. I have nothing to do with the community, or the person being reported or the people handling the reports. I just saw the report because it originated from my instance.
You are not the asshole. Your logic is reasonable and self consistent.
since my perception is that people like to harass him apparently for no legitimate reason at all
I still have them labeled as an abusive mod for baiting someone into a debate then banning them from the community for engaging in that debate. So I think this user does look for fights, to be fair.
I still have them labeled as an abusive mod for baiting someone into a debate then banning them from the community for engaging in that debate.
When did this happen? I feel like they get sucked into long pointless debates the same as some people on Lemmy, but I feel like it’s kind of mutual combat.
I know everyone brings up that one example from months ago when FS arguably threatened to take some kind of unspecified action against someone they were mid-argument with, but did they actually ban someone in that scenario? I have them pegged as more of just an argument junkie than any kind of PTB about it. Maybe I have missed / forgotten about some actual ban they handed out of course.
deleted by creator
Did he? When did this happen?
argument junkie
Thats enough to see why they are polarizing across lots of people.
Here is the exact instance when I flipped the bit on them
I believe the mod in question is an abusive mod: I’ve seen them debate with someone in a conversation, bait them into sparring, then when the person responds, ban them for breaking the rules. That alone is moderator abuse, it’s not being objective, and an environment where the moderator tries to create ban incidents isn’t a friendly one to be in. For this reason I blocked every community where they are a moderator.
Yeah. It’s not ideal to have someone with that habit doing moderation. I just don’t get how people jump from it to “PTB PTB he’s awful.”
I feel like, in general, people have to categorize as “good!” or “bad!”, and FlyingSquid clearly gets in these bitter arguments sometimes which isn’t a good thing to do, and so by default he turns into “bad!” and any bad thing about him becomes true. Like I say, I’m not saying he hasn’t been banning people who argue with him, just I’ve never seen it in several times of checking what was behind people complaining about him. Every time that I remember, it basically boiled down to “He said a rude thing to this person! In a comment!”
I feel like maybe there was one that was recent that was a lot more of an actual PTB, so maybe I am wrong. I can’t even remember the details.
I updated my post above with the example that was too far for me.
Regardless, they are a good user, but a questionable mod of so many communities, and given their argument style plus wielding the ban hammer on those same arguments people can come away with a bad experience/perception… Which manifests elsewhere as just emotion.
Hm.
The user said:
She’s not a regular woman, she’s a freak of a woman. Most those athletes are freaks amongst regular people, she’s just not a freak in the same way most of them are.
(This is in the context of https://hackertalks.com/post/3884023, Imane Khelif)
I don’t feel like that’s all that outlandish to hand out some kind of sanction for. I probably wouldn’t, but I’ve seen people get banned for a lot less. I think they were banned for calling her “a freak” and repeatedly saying she isn’t “normal”, not for arguing with Squid. Plenty of people argue with Squid and it seems to just be arguing, no?
I don’t think kemsat’s factual point is wrong, but I don’t think the factual things he was saying or disagreeing with Squid were the motivation for the ban. It’s in the modlog that “freak” was the issue.
Sure, in isolation thats a good moderation reason, but when you egg someone on to debate then use the ban hammer when they engage. Was their language great, no… but where they earnestly engaging with the prompt provided by moderator yes…
Yeah, I get it. You’re not wrong. They’re just going to learn not to be forthcoming in moderator conversations in the future (which is a funny thing for me to say under this post). Also, as a more general issue, this is why I really just don’t like forbidding points of view in general.
I’m probably way in the minority on this, but even some really offensive things, if that’s really what you think, I think you should be able to talk about it. It’s the only way people can ever work themselves out of certain types of wrong thinking, is if someone’s willing to talk with them. It doesn’t mean you have to put up with unrepentant bullshit or hatred, or let it feature in your comments section. I think that’s what Squid thought he was taking a stand against, there. But yeah I kind of agree with you on it.
Like think of Wade Watts talking with the KKK and talking people out of racism. If someone’s being serious about what they think, and they’re open to hearing and talking about why it might be wrong, I don’t think it does anyone any favors to say “No you are bad get out now.” They’re just going to learn to carefully not raise certain subjects, and never have their mind changed about any of it. Or else, they’re going to decide you’re the enemy now, and talk to other people who think like them, and attack you when they do interact with you.
Again there are certain lines you have to draw. I’m not saying “free speech.” I’m just saying that honest debate means you have to let some people in with wrong opinions. Like I say, I actually agree with certain parts of what kemsat said factually. I think he just used some trigger-words,and trigger-words have this unfortunate outsized importance right now.
