1y ago

"." is not a rule

Screenshot shows three comments being removed from !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone (this community) by one of 196’s mods with the reason for removal being “.” (literally just a period).

I looked into this and discovered that the comments were just some fairly polite, if snarky, comments in response to the mod themselves. I could not identify a reason for comment removal per the site or community rules, so if there was one, “.” doesn’t cut it.

This is a callout post y’all. Do better. Start putting actual moderation reasons into the modlog for the benefit of you and other mods, otherwise what is the point of a transparent and federated platform?

As of now, it looks like the mod involved is just using their mod powers in a self-serving fashion. I am not making that accusation now, but that’s how it looks.

Please and thank you. Mods here do an excellent job keeping 196 on Lemmy a bearable place to be, and I know you are already struggling to staff the positions, but please also hold one another accountable when it comes to misuse of power. Thanks :)

77 comments

Alright, I'll try to do better. I will say that while this doesn't defend my actions, I've been under a high amount of stress in the last 2 weeks. If people want, I will resign as mod without question.
EDIT: Restored the posts with "Restored due to community feedback/me being a dick."
EDIT 2: I am going to do some shopping and chores, if the community wants me gone, I will remove myself when I am back, or have the mod team boot me.
- That's pretty cool of you to show up to the conversation in good faith tbh.
  
  Mainly because I sometimes need a reality check. I agreed to be a mod here at a normal point of the last year, and the last ~5 months have been putting so much weird shit in my brain it's not been healthy.
- Gonna throw my hat into the ring here and say this kind of self-reflection and improvement is exactly how communities of any kind improve.
  People have problems, stress and issues. This shit happens. The ability to say "I fucked up", then fix the fuckup and prevent similar fuckups happening in future is how we as a global society improve and become better people.
  In short: everyone should attempt to be better, that's all anyone can ask.
  
  Completely agree. I understand that as of now, Queue has stepped down as a mod, but I hope that at such a time in the future where their mental health is better that they will return. The ability to say, 'You're right. I'm too stressed to properly do this right now. Here's what I'll do instead' is incredibly appreciated.
  That's the kind of person I WANT as a mod, provided that they actually take the time to de-stress, reflect and come back as a better person.
- I think that your willingness to self-examine, admit fault, and attempt to make amends speaks well of your character and suitability as a mod (if you desire to continue and it is healthy for you to do so). You come across as genuine and willing to try to listen and self-correct.
  We all have bad days/weeks/months/years. It's unfortunately just part of being human. And we all do things that we may not think are necessarily right when reflecting on them, often because of emotional state, etc. That's ok. Yeah, it may cause some hurt or upset, and damage that we do may not always be repairable but, that's just life as a social being. As long as you try to do better, there's nothing more anyone can legitimately ask of you. Personal growth and emotional health isn't linear - don't beat yourself up if you hit a rut. You're human; screwing up is one of our species' greatest talents.
  Please take care of yourself and see what you can do to address stressors in your life, where possible. Your well-being is more important and any moderation queue. If taking some time away is needed but you wish to continue, please coordinate with the other mods to get it.
- I wasn’t involved in the post in question, but FWIW I appreciate you taking feedback into account and putting the posts back up. Everyone’s human and is going to make sub-optimal calls sometimes, being open to fixing it is basically the best that can be asked for.
  I don’t want you to resign over this or anything like that, but please do take care of yourself even if that means taking some time away. If internet modding is adding to your stress in an already stressed time, you gotta put on your own oxygen mask first before you assist others, you know?
  
  Fair enough, but I sometimes feel like "if no one will clean up the mess, who will?" in most things in life. Small and big, trivial and actual problems. From "if I don't do the dishes, who will?" to "If there's a flood of Mod requests, and everyone else is busy, I should deal with it."
  Being an online moderator is simultaneous the most trival and easy task and "I can't believe people say these things, why do I have to clean up the messes users leave with zero thinking behind them?"
  I recently left a role as a voted in admin of something since I grew tired of moderating my friends and the straw that broke the camels back was during the self-immolation protest a few months back ::: spoiler spoiler Two people heavily implied if not directly said that if anyone in the server didn't want to do it themselves, they are a false ally and why socialism never took root in America. ::: Really was dumbfounded by such a take that I screenshot the chat logs for clarity, removed the chat, banned them, and resigned as admin and told my friends "If you wanna hang with me still, I'll be here in this place, otherwise I'm done being here."
  Sometimes people just say the dumbest things online, I'm one of those people sometimes.
- This statement by itself restores a ton of my faith in you. I have no weight to throw around here and ultimately my opinion is more or less meaningless, but in my meaningless opinion, if an actual effort is made to improve on this then I'm happy to have you stay. A simple apology, explanation and promise is more than I've gotten out of 99% of all other moderators I've ever interacted with.
- I have no horse in this race, but the fact that you're being communicative and taking any responsibility means you're probably a better mod than most. Admittedly, it's a low bar but still.
  Probably best not to do it again though.
- Bit of a waste to have someone learn how to mod properly then have them leave, no?
  
  Been a mod before, but I'm at least taking a leave for a bit to just reduce mental load. If I do stay, this is something to keep in mind.
- Yes, please step down and go away.
  
  . incoming
  
  I'll at least be taking a break as a mod for a bit, after talking to Moss and the others.
Thank you for that call out, we will discuss this with the other mods and make sure that removing and banning reasons are used transparently
In the meantime I would love to remind y'all that we are moderating this forum in our free time as volunteers, it takes time and capacity. Sometimes it works better sometimes it doesn't
Feel free to write in the mod-application post if you feel like becoming a mod here would help.
Best wishes and a good night from Germany Funky-rodent
- Meh. Y'all get more than enough applications every time. I don't think it's fair to complain about having a position of power over everyone else that you could ditch in a heartbeat if you wanted to. I don't think users owe moderators patience. Rule following, yes. Patience, no.
  
  Bruh what are you talking about. The "We need mods" post is still pinned in the community, first thing everyone sees when they browse the community itself.
  This is not just power, it's also a demanding service, done out of responsibility and goodwill, and that is proven by this accountability-seeking post itself we're in.
  We're a long, long way from being Reddit, as of yet.
  
  Ya, I guess I could get a power-rush easier in my life :D Sifting through reports and reading mean stuff just doesn't tickle that spot for me.
  I am a social worker in real life and think of modding more as a service than, power-governing. I like the fediverse and most of the time I enjoy beeing part of a garbage crew here
  But I agree we don't owe eachother shit here. But I also think beeing friendly, understanding and nice is helpful:)
  Have a good day
also found this comment got the user permabanned by the same mod for “corpoposting,” which is on the “will get your comment removed” list in the rules, not the “will get you banned” list. and yeah, user was banned after a discussion with our same friendly mod.
will update this comment with more if i find it. i do want to reiterate that i’m not here out of spite, i just want to bring attention to nonconstructive behaviors. :)
edit: ok ending my search as i tend to agree and am thankful for the rest of the mod’s recent actions
- I will attempt to do better, but if the community wishes, I will resign as moderator due to my real life getting stressful and being a moderator here isn't going to solve real life issues.
  EDIT: I have restored the posts.
  EDIT 2: About the banned user IsThisAnAI @lemmy.world, they are constantly being reactionary and defending corporations at every given moment. It felt right to do it from my point of view. Right now they are complaining about "nanny state california" and that's not something I personally want in this community.
  EDIT 3: I am going to do some shopping and chores, if the community wants me gone, I will remove myself when I am back, or have the mod team boot me.
  
  I’m not calling on you to leave just please best don’t do it again.
otherwise what is the point of a transparent and federated platform?
So we can call this behavior out, then pack it up and move 196 to a new instance where this mod isn't in control.
- There’s more than 1 mod on 196, might want to consider waiting longer than 30 minutes for a response before deciding everyone should leave
  
  True lol, I'm just saying that the option being on the table is important. If they don't fix the issue, they risk everyone leaving for a better 196 elsewhere.
  
  There should be exactly 196 mods here, no more, no less. This is the only way it will make sense.
- My dear, you are of course free to do so, that's the fun of the fediverse.
  I also think it's good to call out flawed modding moments so we as a small group o volunteers can work in this and improve. So this (shitpost)-Forum can remain as big as it is in the moment.
  Otherwise you are free to write Moss and become part of the mod-team
  
  Otherwise you are free to write Moss and become part of the mod-team
  I did when they put that sticky up a while back, but I applied too late and never heard back from them lol
  But to be clear I'm not saying we should do that right this instant, I'm just saying it acts as a good deterrent from letting this stuff fester.
I'm going to review our mod policy and talk things over with my team to try to minimize this going forwards.
- sounds good, thank you! i appreciate the work you all do for free, and i appreciate even more you taking this seriously :)
  
  to be honest, I should be contributing to moderation more. it's mostly my team that does the upkeep.
  I'm going to try to be more active in my management of my team members from now on in order to nip moderatorial issues like this in the bud, rather than allowing them to continue for months. it feels unfair for me or others to blame those who made poor calls of judgment when I wasn't there to consult.
196 mod or instance mod?
- mod of 196, will clarify in body text, ty :)
  
  Senkyuu <3
- Me, the mod. I restored the posts and I am willing to de-mod myself if wanted/needed by the community.
Reminder that we have our email 196mods@protonmail.com
Important tool for those who have been banned and feel it undeserved, etc. While it's awesome that we have a small active community to double check the mod log and post any oddities right now, this may not always be the case. Hierarchies are wack and knowing the tools to hold people accountable is always a good thing. I do occasionally go back and check on our sent folder to see if anyone is being treated unfairly (which to be clear I haven't seen anything on the email side).
Thanks for the post ✌️
If anyone says Lemmy is like reddit I'm just gonna link this thread in response lol.
Much prefer discourse and sledging than getting insta banned by some random mod or admin
- eh it’s important to note that this is 196, not just default lemmy. 196 has always tended toward being more chill and respectful to its users.
  i have done some minor callouts of mods outside blahaj zone in the past, and the end results were much less constructive, much more reddit-core, if you will, than this.
- be warned, they may link lemmy.ml
Queue has stepped down from the mod team of their own volition. we are looking for new mods to fill in for them
- i wouldn't recommend myself.
  
  fair
Edit: I kind of regret writing this instead of just talking with the mods, but I'll leave this up so that the replies aren't left without context.
This kind of reminds me of that time someone looked at the mod logs and noticed that someone who got banned for allegedly being transphobic got unbanned and made a mod (the unbanning reason was something like "became a mod"). This was on the last call for mods. I mean, nothing against if the person regretted writing the thing that got them banned, but it's fucking sus that the mods did this without talking with us about what was happening (and nobody fucking knows who the mods are because they never "presented" themselves as mods, they could've just said "hello, my name is X and I'm a new mod", but they never did).
- So funny enough, I was the person who banned them like a week before, and it was due to me not following the chain of comments. If you want, I will share the discord mod log where I found out who and any, and double-checked the reality of the situation.
  Believe me I don't want transphobes running the biggest community on a trans server. But if every mod saw no issues, and I did, I assumed I was weird. And I was.
  
  Thank you for explaining. It did cross my mind whether or not one of the new mods had went rogue and started making banned accounts as mods. But honestly, I shoud've just talked about my concerns directly with the longtime mods instead of acting entitled and posting comments saying "they shoulduv explained even though no one asked them to explain >:((". I'd like to apologize for it.
It's so nice, so nice that lemmy has a mod log. Something reddit doesn't.
as a former reddit user I'm taken aback by the mod responses to this callout post. lemmy mods here, not very reddit-mod-like.
- honestly i am pleasantly surprised too. 196 culture has always trended towards being decent and i am glad this didn’t get me a lot of pushback, because of course im just looking for what’s best for the community :) and obviously this wasn’t the worst of abuses compared to other communities but better to nip it in the bud than wait till there’s dealbreaking abuse going on
The mods remove comments for a lot of reasons that aren't in line with the rules, or require some serious mental gymnastics to equate to the cited rules.

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