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.
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
Denied, continue
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.
That was pretty much exactly the case here, afaict.
Ad hominem attacks generally result in bans in most communities from what I’ve seen. This is the way it should be.
That’s not an ad hominem, though. If someone says something, and you dismiss it and call them a liar, thats an ad hominem. If they tell a bunch of lies, and you label them a liar, that’s not an ad hominem. That’s accurately describing the person based on their choices.
Calling someone a liar is absolutely and always an ad hominem, because it labels their character rather than pursuing their argument.
You can call their words lies and attack those words and their intent, but once you start labelling you are looking to subvert it and attack character by assuming malicious intent.
Which you’re free to assume, but that doesn’t excuse you from the fallacy.
I’m ok with that.
If someone repeatedly and probably tells untruths, and then doubles down when confronted with evidence, I’m ok making that leap to calling them a liar.
It’s okay to be okay with it, it’s even better when there is convincing evidence. I’m just saying you can skip the fallacy by attacking their argument/lie, which you have to do regardless if you want to conject that they are liar.
However it still implies that they are a liar in some habitual or further-reaching sense. This is not easy to prove. Did they lie before? What were those lies and how can you prove them so? Will they lie in the future? How can you know for sure? These are the questions that make it a fallacious label as it frames character rather than argument, and it just seems a bit … dull and irrelevant, when you can attack the lie just as easily.
We’re pretty much all strangers online, correct?
If something is posted that is provably false, it is provably false. It doesn’t matter if the poster regularly posts accurate things about another subject. The post would still be provably false, even if the poster was normally truthful about barley.
Imo, if someone wants to be seen as honest, the onus is on them to act honestly. If you act in a way that’s dishonest, people will likely acknowledge that you’re acting in a way that’s dishonest. If their only experience of you is through you being dishonest, it only makes sense that they’ll think that you’re dishonest.
No one is owed being considered as an honest and trustworthy person. If you do lie, you should expect the people who you lied to to no longer trust you. Why would they? That’s not a reasonable expectation to have.
Being considered as an honest person is one of those things that you kind of have to do to earn. If you act dishonestly, it would be silly to expect other people to still consider you as an honest person. You don’t get to mislead people and then become upset when they don’t believe you anymore. That isn’t rational.
It’s pretty easy to avoid being labaled as a liar online, tbh. Verify your stuff before you post it. Don’t double down against solid evidence, especially without any of your own. Don’t make stuff up. Accept and acknowledge that you can be wrong sometimes, and strive for the correct answer instead of the one that “wins” the argument for you.
Misinformation is dangerous, and it deserves to be called out. Misinformation can cause a lot more harm than someone occasionally being called a “liar” online by a random stranger.
I would also argue that most people probably haven’t really had problems with being called a “liar” online.
If the misinformation is about how many seeds an orange has, people probably won’t care too much, as it doesn’t really cause a lot of harm. That type of misinformation usually just gets passively corrected.
If the misinformation ends with someone else suffering, it will likely get called out harshly, and probably deservedly so.
I don’t know what’s happened to cause you to dislike people being called liars to this extent, but there is a good reason for people doing that sometimes. I’m not going to stalk your page or comments, so idk where you personally fall on that. Calling someone a “liar” is similar to calling someone “dishonest”.
Sorry, but that’s crap. Questioning the credibility of a liar is not automatically fallacious reasoning or an ad hominem. Attacking their character instead of arguing against their points is an ad hominem fallacy. Pointing out the consistency of lies from a single source and then extrapolating out to question the validity of future statements of fact is rational, logical, and reasonable. It’s perfectly valid to label a liar when they repeatedly tell lies, as long as you can support the label by proving they are lying.
I mean, if some lies, and I come with receipts and tell them that they’re bad for doing so, I should get a ban? That doesn’t seem right.
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…
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.
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)_/¯
Simply browse to your instance, go to moderations-log search your username and you find the reason.
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.
A prime example of the vitriol he’s talking about!
A lot of moderated instances with vague rules like that have quite a bit of nuance. The mods usually arent jerks looking to ban everyone who doesnt agree with them, and if they are then they did you a favor good riddance. One of the issues with the classic “but mah free speech” sea lioning that occurs on reddit is it makes it hard to actually keep things moderated and civil. People get outraged and start going “the rule says that Im not allowed to be an asshole, but I was specifically being a asshat and I think if you really wanted no asshats you should make a rule about it”
Which does lead to granular rules that actually do remove nuance and discretion from enforcement.
It’s true, I have zero chill.
Clearly you have no sense for nuance. Not everything anyone disagrees with is siding with genocide and oppression just because they disagree. It’s concerning that that’s immediately what you assumed.
Nuance nonces on their way to defend nazi war criminals.
I really need to make that a bot.
Stop lickin boots then
Nothing says “well-moderated community” quite like vague, easy-to-bend rules!
Nothing says bootlicking by applying the same bad-faith thinking you accuse others of having without caring about the fact that humanity has had to operate on good faith the entire time it’s existed.
Define “bootlicking” please.
Antidisestablishmentarianism. That’s functionally what it is.
That should be in the rules instead of “bootlicking,” then. Well-defined rules make it harder to enforce them unfairly. The fewer questions the community has to ask about guidelines, the easier it is to follow them.
Thank you for answering in good faith, by the way.
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.
You must absorb and commit to full integration of the hive mind before you can commit!
I mean hey, by all means if you think a community is too hive mind-y or echo chamber-y then by all means don’t join. That’s the beauty of small highly customized communities - it can be moderated in a way all the members agree with, and anyone who doesn’t like it can find or found a different one.
I don’t know what exactly you’re imagining such a community would disallow, but I feel like whatever it is, I’d agree with it being disallowed. Disagreeing with someone is typically fine in most communities I’ve seen, it’s just hate speech or any -ism or -phobes that aren’t. And that’s fine.
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.
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.
yup. another good reason to never visit that filthy spezpool
First they came for…
the nazis and we were cool with that cause fuck nazi’s
The Nazis? That’s fine, I don’t mind them coming for the Nazis, because then the Nazis can’t come for everyone else.
They in this case being the fucking nazis, who first came for the trans people, and then the communists, the socialists, the trade unionists, Jewish people, etc
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 think this is good, as long as the user gets informed a) they they’re banned and b) what rule they broke.
A warning first would also be nice, especially if it’s in the community rules 😛
Reddit’s automatic mesages on mod action were a positive and arguably necessary feature.
But if bans are long enough to annoy and short enough to frustrate, they basically are the warning. Less gun-to-your-head, more spritzing a cat in the face.
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?
I don’t expend effort trying to be rude, but I rarely bend over backwards to reign in my default blunt tone. Not that gentle honesty seems to matter. I will argue the ethics and efficacy of well-meaning censorship with randos and moderators alike. Some of them are definitely Nazis in disguise. Some of them are not in disguise.
But most simply do not know what trolling is.
It’s like the Twitter generation thinks it means harassment, or vulgarity, or just being mean to people. No: trolling is fucking with people to get an emotional reaction. Sometimes that emotional reaction is extremely justified. Think of any “just a prank, bro” bullshit. That is trolling. That is violating the social contract to laugh at people for having sane responses to your inexcusable behavior. It is being an asshole, as bait, so you can pretend to be shocked, shocked!, and then play the victim while continuing to be an infuriating asshole.
Any moderator who expects polite discourse, and does not create an environment where words matter, is actively making the internet worse. You want an easy time pruning a worthwhile forum? Aim for a cocktail-party atmosphere. Screaming rants no, casual banter yes, tell people to take five if they’re starting shit. But if someone lays out why another user is completely full of shit - you had damn well better come down against being full of shit.
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”
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Eh sometimes. Paradox of tolerance is a real danger.
But it’s good to allow people a chance to grow.
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while I absolutely agree with you in a private setting, in a public setting I believe it does more harm than good to provide a platform for people to preach hate.
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Being tolerant of the intolerant will eventually mean destroying the tolerant.
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I disagree. Saying certain things are hate crimes, and shouldn’t be allowed. Like burning crosses, etc.
Deciding where to draw the line is difficult and subjective, but that doesn’t mean that it’s best to have no line.
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.
That’s why and how I got banned from NCD and stomped on multiple times in shitposting
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.
