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?
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
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
PTB, idk why you would ban someone for this
deleted by creator
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 person wasn’t creating new sockpuppets before, they will now.
Exactly.
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.
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
PTB in my opinion. It seems banning someone for one post is a bit extreme.
Totally your call, but that’s how I see it when other mods do actions similar as to yours.
History has shown that your opinions are as pointless as the dozens of accounts you create.
No argument there. My opinion is pointless. But it’s Lemmy, so aren’t all the opinions of all of us sorta pointless when ya think about it?
Finally got banned from lemm.ee, did you?
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] This dude is evading my attempts to block him, via an endless series of new accounts he makes on new instances. Please consider this a report for block evasion and harassment, as applied to his UniversalMonk account on your instance (all of those being instances on which he’s previously made some new account and then had an interaction which caused me to block that account and ask him to stop contacting me.)
(Not that you losing an account on any given instance is really that big an obstacle of course. Like I said, it’s a flaw in how Lemmy is set up, from the perspective of moderation, and actually exactly why I don’t give a ton of leeway to new accounts that show strong signs of being up to some kind of malicious behavior.)
As that user said, they’re not deliberately attempting to block evade. Just a side effect of making a new account
I’ve seen them posting in communities and instances they have previously been banned from. If they made an attempt to avoid it that would be one thing but they don’t.
I’m almost certain they are ban evading with their alts.
If you have, then DM admins directly about that. They probably mod those communities as well, so reports never reach the admins
I posted some timestamps of them switching to an alt I don’t have blocked, specifically so they can comment on my posts and I will see it. Happy to send the logs in question if anyone wants to see without digging through their own database.
I’ve seen them posting in communities and instances they have previously been banned from.
Name one. Provide examples. Lots of admins talk to each other. So let’s see some proof of what you have seen.
The vast, vast majority of my posting is to my own communities. But I’m totally fine with you showing some screen shots of where you have seen me posting to places I am banned from with–time stamps to show that they were posted AFTER any ban. PhiliptheBucket seems to have every timestamp of everything I am posting and even he is not accusing me of what you just have.
So give me an example of where you have seen me posting to a banned instance and/or community AFTER I was banned.
I’m almost certain they are ban evading with their alts.
But you just said you’ve seen me posting in communities and on instances I’ve been banned from. Now you are saying “almost certain.”
So which is it? Did you see me like you said above or are you “almost certain?”
And if you are so sure of it it, did you report those to the admin? And do you have examples? Let’s have a look.
I keep the same fucking username. So it would be pretty hard for me to post in communities that I’m banned from. Seems like the mods could spot it right away.
If wanted to ban evade, wouldn’t it be easier to just come up with a random name and then post wherever I wanted?
And again, guys. I am NOT the subject of OP’s original post. This is all off-topic. This thread is not about me. Let it go!
You were caught here in the act posting to communities on an instance you were banned from.
Woah glad you caught that, just gave a ping to sopuli.xyz’s admins on the page hopefully they’ll respond soon and deal with that.
What in the actual fuck are you talking about? The user is deliberately block evading. Its so bad, I am going to start publishing a daily UM blocklist for people.
How am I block evading? It’s not up to me to check on who has blocked me and who hasn’t.
Just ignore and or block me and move on. I’m not sure why you all are so obsessed with me.
Just ignore me! And if you don’t want to interact with me, then don’t comment about me or reply to me. And tada! Problem solved.
What difference does it make what my name is? If I were to actually ban evade, and used a different screen name, the comment I made would still be the same.
That user posted to this community asking for opinions. I gave mine as it fits into this community’s rules. I didn’t even check the name of the poster.
I read the OP. I replied per the sub rules. That’s it. Move on, guys.
It’s just Lemmy. I promise the world isn’t going to end because of any of my posts. Most people outside a few raging posters don’t even know who I am. As has been shown in the threads where you all try to ban me and users say, “I’ve never heard of Universal Monk until now.”
The OP just posted an entire essay in this very thread about me using server times, SQL queries, and other statistics, and his theory about my motivations. I don’t even know what any of that means. I definitely don’t think of you guys that much. He says he blocks me, but he keeps a dictionary of statistics on me? Seriously? Go outside, guys.
If you all want people to stop talking about me, then you all should stop talking about me. Easy.
You guys drive the mods crazy yelling about me. Just ignore me when you see my comments. It ain’t that hard!
All these comments about me are about to be removed anyway because they are off-topic, plus I’m not even the subject of the original post for the thread!
I won’t consider you talking with me about this in this thread to be block evasion, FWIW. We’re talking, since you switched to an alt to start an interaction with me, and it’s not really offensive for me to continue this conversation. We might as well. I probably won’t answer a reply, but here’s my take:
Just ignore me! And if you don’t want to interact with me, then don’t comment about me or reply to me. And tada! Problem solved.
What difference does it make what my name is? If I were to actually ban evade, and used a different screen name, the comment I made would still be the same.
This is a really key point.
The internet (and phone system before that) has developed a norm that if someone doesn’t want to hear from you, that’s their right. Over the phone it can actually be illegal. The reasons should be pretty self-explanatory, but it’s basically just anyone’s right to decide that someone’s being obnoxious and they don’t want to hear anything else from that person. Violating that decision is symbolic, on both sides: Some people will get bent out of shape by someone sending even a single ping if they don’t want to hear it, because they tried to set a boundary and it got stomped on. And some people will take a kind of pleasure in violating someone else’s attempts not to hear from them, even if the context is something totally meaningless. You can see kids do this kind of thing with their siblings sometimes when someone sets a boundary. The core issue that gives it power is that factor of consent, or violation of consent.
The internet has decided that communicating with someone who’s checked the box that they don’t want to hear from you is crossing a line. The content or context doesn’t mean anything. That’s why the block function blocks DMs, and posts, and comments. And actually, the same type of person who thinks it’s fun to make comments to someone who doesn’t want to hear them, often will also think it’s fun to make perfectly innocuous comments so they can then claim they’re being abused if the person doesn’t want to hear the innocuous comments, and is making a big deal out of nothing. Again, you can see kids do this sometimes to each other’s boundaries.
The OP just posted an entire essay in this very thread about me using server times, SQL queries, and other statistics, and his theory about my motivations. I don’t even know what any of that means
It’s not hard to understand. Two separate times, once right after I mentioned you in a comment, you switched from the alt you usually use to one you rarely use, that I don’t have blocked, and then instantly commented on one of my posts. And then feigned perfect ignorance and claimed not to have even noticed that it was me who made the post.
I posted some of the details, just for verifiability by anyone who’s in an admin role, but that’s what happened. Pretty straightforward. You are communicating to me on purpose, dodging around my blocking of you, and then lying about why and how you did it.
You guys drive the mods crazy yelling about me. Just ignore me when you see my comments. It ain’t that hard!
All these comments about me are about to be removed anyway because they are off-topic, plus I’m not even the subject of the original post for the thread!
I would hope this isn’t true. There’s a reason why we want the pattern of little tiny lights on the screen to look one way and not another way. At the end of the day, it’s all just pixels, but it makes a difference whether what’s on the screen in the words shaped by the pixels is kindness or maliciousness, truth or falsehood, stuff we want or stuff we don’t want. You’re saying you have the right to shape the pixels on my screen, and trying to paint it like I’m making a problem if I inform people that you’re breaking the rules to get them to shape the way you want them, instead of it being the way the network is normally set up to operate, keeping things in a more voluntary pixel-shape instead of an involuntary one.
Harassment is pixels, personal insults are pixels, misinformation is pixels. Your messages are pixels. I would prefer not to have them arranged for me on my screen. Please stop doing creative things to continue sending them to me.
I actually don’t think this message is going to do much, either for your behavior or for the admins’ reactions. Actually I think sending you a thought-through message may just sort of egg you on in terms of giving you attention which is going to lead to further interactions. It’s usually my habit for how to try to first approach problems, though, is just explaining them clearly and addressing what’s going on with them, or answering what people have to say about them.
I don’t want this to hurt your feelings, but I actually don’t care about you enough to harass you. My reply in this thread wasn’t harassment by any sense of the word. I didn’t even know it was you.
You are a prolific poster. One glance at your profile shows how much you are all over Lemmy. So yeah, our paths are gonna cross.
I have never called you names. I have never sent you harassing DM’s. We’ve only talked in public forums. And even then, we haven’t actually interacted that much.
Think of it like this. Let’s say your goal was achieved and I was banned from across the fediverse.
Do you think that would make me disappear? No, I’d just create a new name, and come back. (Which by the way, would officially be the definition of ban-evasion, unlike your definition.)
But you wouldn’t know it was me.
So an example from that scenario: Let’s say I pick a news name of BobSmithy. I see this post. And I reply with. “PTB in my opinion. It seems banning someone for one post is a bit extreme.Totally your call, but that’s how I see it when other mods do actions similar as to yours.”
Ok, you’d read it, shrug, move on. Not that big of a deal.
That’s the exact fucking thing I posted. But you saw it was from the big bad evil “UNIVERSAL MONK!!!” and you lost your shit.
You gotta stop thinking about me so much. It’s making you crazy. You’re talking about yesteryear of dial phones, and philosophy of pixels and search query and wanting to make long legal history notes of how what I am doing is targeting you.
Look how many posts I make. How many have been about you or to you? Maybe 5 or 6? And you think that’s targeting you?
Also, just so you know, if you all wouldn’t have fought soooo fucking hard to get me banned on .world, we wouldn’t have this problem. Because I’d still be on one instance. One block and you’d never hear from me.
But you and a few others decided to get soo vocal and scream to the moderators that now I never know when I’ll get banned, so I have to spread my name out. Which is what the point of the fediverse is.
I posted a reply to a PUBLIC POST that you made to this community. And the reply wasn’t personal. And it followed the rules of this community.
Not only that, but you listed with glee that I was banned for lemm.ee. And you’ve listed all my other bannings. But I have no idea if you have been banned from any instance. Cuz i don’t look you up. And I don’t care.
But you certainly look me up. And post stats.
Think about that: I don’t know about your post times, or servers, what comments have been removed or where you have been banned from.
Because I don’t stalk you. Yet you know all that info, and post it. And this isn’t your first time posting my stats.
Think about that, friend.
I’m not leaving Lemmy. If banned under this name, I would come back under something else. (Before you all message the poor mods, don’t convict me of thoughtcrimes before they happen.)
So for your mental health, just ignore me, don’t react to me, or comment about me. It’s not healthy to obsess so much.
I have no ill will toward you. I will try to not reply to you unless you ask me to. But dude, you post more than I do, you’re in almost all the communities I’m in.
I’ll just drop one of your other accounts here: https://sopuli.xyz/post/22490143
(There isn’t any point in reading your stupid rants and crying.)
Quit mumbling.
That’s actually not true. People overuse the word “gaslighting,” but this is actually a perfect example of the original meaning of the term.
This is the second time recently he’s “accidentally” posted on something I wrote, and both times, he switched away from one of his commonly-used alts, to a different one that I didn’t have blocked, right before posting. I can, if you want me to, send you the output of this from my system:
Huge SQL query
WITH target_people AS ( SELECT id, actor_id FROM person WHERE name LIKE '%UniversalMonk%' ) SELECT action_time as timestamp, actor_id, item_id, score, creator_actor_id, CASE WHEN score IS NULL AND content IS NOT NULL THEN CASE WHEN length(content) > 20 THEN substr(content, 1, 20) || '...' ELSE content END ELSE NULL END as content FROM ( -- Comments SELECT c.published as action_time, p.actor_id, c.id as item_id, NULL::smallint as score, creator.actor_id as creator_actor_id, c.content FROM comment c JOIN target_people p ON c.creator_id = p.id LEFT JOIN person creator ON c.creator_id = creator.id WHERE NOT c.deleted AND NOT c.removed UNION ALL -- Posts SELECT p.published as action_time, person.actor_id, p.id as item_id, NULL::smallint as score, NULL as creator_actor_id, NULL as content FROM post p JOIN target_people person ON p.creator_id = person.id WHERE NOT p.deleted AND NOT p.removed UNION ALL -- Comment votes SELECT cl.published as action_time, p.actor_id, cl.comment_id as item_id, cl.score, creator.actor_id as creator_actor_id, c.content FROM comment_like cl JOIN target_people p ON cl.person_id = p.id LEFT JOIN comment c ON cl.comment_id = c.id LEFT JOIN person creator ON c.creator_id = creator.id WHERE NOT c.deleted AND NOT c.removed ) combined_actions ORDER BY action_time DESC;So what it shows this time, is UniversalMonk using his sh.itjust.works account and lemmy.dbzer0.com account and nothing else for a few days, including most recently at Feb 12 at 23:27, and then at 23:36, switching to his r.nf account, which I haven’t blocked and which he doesn’t use much, and the first thing he did with it was comment on a post of mine.
The previous time was actually even a little more egregious. He was using his other accounts (including his lemm.ee one, before that one was banned), then at Feb 4 at 21:04 I made a comment in some thread mentioning the existence of a new alt of his, and he switched from other actions on his mainly-used accounts (most recently at 21:38) and then at 21:39 from his vegantheoryclub.org account, his first action on that account was to post this:
https://vegantheoryclub.org/comment/1670126
Then, when I semi-politely told him that he was evading the block (since it was pretty obvious to me that something along the lines of the above had happened, although I didn’t verify it at the time) and asked him not to, he played the exact same game of pretending he had just innocently stumbled across a post of mine and wanted to say something about it, and it was totally unreasonable for me to ask him not to.
There’s a reason he switches to an account I haven’t blocked right before leaving these comments. And yes, I know it sounds semi-psychotic that I went digging around in the database to verify that he is gaslighting you when he feigns total shock and surprise that he had left a comment under a post by me, pretending it was total coincidence. This is why he keeps getting banned on different instances: His behavior is really very strange, dishonest, and malicious in a kind of unique way.
Anyway, yes he was block evading on purpose to minorly irritate me. I’m happy to DM you proof excerpts or similar. I know it sounds kind of petty for me to go to this extent, but the other way to look at it is, this is the extent that someone has to go to if they want to not be communicated at by UnviersalMonk. He has a history of targeted harassment of users in the past (which is what got him banned from lemmy.world), and for me he seems to have chosen this kind of “gaslighting and hoping I’ll complain about it, so he can feign innocence and write a big italicized innocent message” approach.
Nice details
Dude, I didn’t even notice the name of the person posting. I just replied in the thread.
I have no idea what names of mine that you have blocked or not blocked. I’ve actually kept the same username so that people who want to block me can easily block me.
You posted in a public forum that I subscribe to. And I replied to the post, in the spirit of the community, and according to the community guidelines.
There is no deceit on my part.
This isn’t ban evasion. I’m not evading a ban because I haven’t been banned from this community.
And besides, if I did use an alt name and proceeded to post the EXACT SAME COMMENT as my original comment, then you wouldn’t have a problem. Yet it would still be me commenting, and you wouldn’t know or care!
If you don’t want people on Lemmy to comment on your posts, then don’t post to a Lemmy community.
People are saying that a mod shouldn’t show DM’s. Why? It says all over the place that they’re not private.
It would actually be a great community sharing the really bad ones. They’re pretty funny sometimes. It might make people want to be on that wall for having the best ones though. Maybe not.
I think it is because the sub is aimed at people who are sometimes revisionist about how they present the story, and there’s no way to verify that the DM is real or is the whole story. PTB definitely happens but also, the people who got sanctioned by the mods often got sanctioned because they’re being unreasonable, and sometimes they continue being unreasonable while they’re arguing their case here.
I think “We have no way to verify what was in any DMs, so let’s go only off the public record” is more solid ground to stand on to keep it all within a nice verifiable landscape.
That makes sense. I misunderstood and thought they meant that you shouldn’t post the DM’s ever.
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”.
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?
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.
Is it a coincidence your username acronym is PTB? because I don’t think this comm has been around as long as that username.
Sometimes, the universe just needs to provide its input on some kind of situation, and there’s not going to be a thing that you or I or anybody can do to stop it from voicing its opinion.
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.
