moss: “we don’t want to moderate under Ada”
us: “…. okay? then quit. there are plenty of us who will gladly take over. :)”
moss: “NO NO NOT LIKE THAT”
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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Is it just me, or is there seemingly always some massively petty drama happening somewhere in the fediverse that people just can't help but whinge about? I swear it's like 50% of the All feed sometimes 😂
I've now probably read more posts about 196 on here than I've read posts on 196.
All I've seen is "differences in opinion" but no one actually saying what they disagree over? Seems like a lot of drama over nothing from my perspective?
This is heresay from another thread on the topic, but I’ll repeat it here:
The 196 mods were from the lemmy.world instance despite 196 being hosted on blahaj.zone, resulting in delays of moderation actions. Blahaj.zone admins stepped in to pick up the slack, but the mods didn’t figured a better solution would be to just move it to lemmy.world, but apparently some instances are federated with blahaj but not world, or had other reasons to not want it to move, causing drama…
Sometimes, users make comments and posts that are tricky to moderate. In those situations, it appears the 196 mods wanted to be a bit more lenient, while the admin wanted to be a bit more strict in terms of removing that content. It's not one specific thing, it seems like more of an accumulation of small decisions that built up and caused the mod team to make a rash decision.
Locking the existing version of a community and forcing people to move to another instance without any prior consultation is indeed quite rash
I'm just not really getting all the hate hate. These people started a community or worked their way into a mod spot. They had a specific set of rules for the community that was posted and reasonably fair. Their community got popular. They realized their site admin was modding their community according to rules that they didn't want to also enforce. They tried to move the community to a better fit instance as non-dramatically as they knew how.
That's all perfectly reasonable to me. Clearly they did a shit job at doing it non dramatically but they're communicating and adjusting their position to try and accommodate others and that alone should buy them a little good will. They are trying to figure out what to do, everyone is trying to figure out what to do. What's with all the hate?
You're overlooking that the users don't want to move. The mods seem to think that they're the reason we use 196 and that they can just pack us into a suitcase and take us wherever they like, when the fact is we use blahaj zone for a reason and they can't take us anywhere. They're perfectly free to close the sub and make a new one elsewhere, but no one's going to follow them.
It's like, imagine you're renting a house with a few people and one of the people none of the housemates really like (they don't follow the house rules everyone has agreed on) marches in and announces "We all, as a group, are moving to Florida!" And then moves out and takes the refrigerator and expects you to follow. No thanks, good riddance, we're getting a new fridge and a better housemate.
"as they knew how" is carrying a lot of weight there. Just reading through the responses to https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/20937206, people were very incensed, and as people are saying here the mods responses are only making the already tense situation far worse.
From what I’ve seen it appears that (at least one of) the mods claim to “own” the community - which is a disturbing way of thinking about moderation, in my opinion.
I mean one of the things that I hated most about Reddit in my final days was that the admins removed and replaced mods that purposefully closed in protest.
If someone starts a sub they should be allowed to close and nuke it at will. If someone wants it back enough then they can make a clone.
It's like, imagine you’re renting a house with a few people and one of the people none of the housemates really like (they don’t follow the house rules everyone has agreed on) marches in and announces “We all, as a group, are moving to Florida!” And then moves out and takes the refrigerator and expects you to follow. No thanks, good riddance, we’re getting a new fridge and a better housemate.
They can do whatever they want with the space, paint it blue, burn it, close it, whatever. They shouldn't expect people to follow them.
I don’t disagree with your first paragraph but partly do with the second.
If it’s a unique channel-type community you started, produce most of the content for and actively moderate quickly and consistently then, for sure, you should have almost complete control… but 196 is/was none of those things.
I don’t think requiring a mod team to mod and create all the content is reasonable barrier for control of their sub.
Nah, it's one of the use cases for sites/services like reddit and lemmy.
A way to have a forum for your specific interest that you can build into the kind of community you want.
The barrier to hosting a standalone forum is very high. Prohibitively so. The time, the money, the level of skill needed.
Reddit, for a long time, treated subs exactly like that. It hosted your forum, and as long as you didn't do illegal shit, they would leave you alone. You owned it as much as you can own anything on someone else's hardware.
Lemmy is entirely a clone of reddit based in a reaction to reddit stopping that way of doing things.
The key to lemmy though, is that instances are individual reddits. You host the instance, you decide how "subs" are allowed to function. Some instances have a looser way of doing things, others are more hands on.
But, really, a moderator that creates a community should be as close to the owner of the community as you can get when it's hosted on someone else's hardware. You can try a fully democratic community, and they can work. But they don't work better than what amounts to a dictatorship model. It's just that it takes a higher number of people being jerks to fuck up a community when it's democratic. Organization by a panel is slower to adapt, and also more open to disruption because of that.
It's all about the benefits and drawbacks.
All of that is still trumped by the fact that whoever literally owns the instance can nuke, take over, ban, whatever any community or users. So it isn't like you can escape ownership without making a formally run instance with a legally binding structure. Without that, you still have to hope that the owner doesn't go crazy.
Yeah, at the end of the day Lemmy is just a colloboration between the users, the mods, and the admins.
The admins do have the final say, but in order for users to use their instance in the first place and communities to grow there, they also have to follow the desires of the users and work with the moderators to a major extent. It's just teamwork and being able to compromise on some things but stay true to your principles on other things.
This really shouldn't have been as big a deal as it became, and I would blame that mostly on the mods, somewhat on the users, and maybe just a little bit on the admins for not discouraging the moderators from taking this action in the first place. Everyone could probably have done a little bit better, but it was mostly on the mods for making a bonehead decision without realizing the consequences. That being said, raking them over the coals in the aftermath doesn't really accomplish anything other than letting people feel self-righteous.
It's very easy to see from the outside and in retrospect, but when you're making moderator decisions every single day, you tend to lose a bit of perspective. It can be frustrating especially if admins are interfering with a community that you dedicate so much time and effort to, and I like to think if everyone had walked a mile in those shoes before, they probably wouldn't be acting so condescending right now.
That being said, raking them over the coals in the aftermath doesn’t really accomplish anything other than letting people feel self-righteous.
The mods are still in place, and trust is definitely eroded, so we're probably not in the aftermath yet.
I like to think if everyone had walked a mile in those shoes before, they probably wouldn’t be acting so condescending right now.
I have issues taking seriously a mod that still doesn't have a local account to get the reports after so long, and blame it on the admins
So perhaps if LBZ was the right instance to check reports from, it would have been super helpful for both parties if they accepted my application. I’m still waiting two years later.
You certainly have issues, we can at least agree on that, Mr. Blaze. Keep on linking random shit though, and I'll keep on ignoring it 👌
Blaze has definitely been the biggest shit-stirrer in the situation. He's all over every thread about the migration doing what he can to stir up drama.
TIL all blahaj users are my alts
Maybe let your alts take over for a while then and go touch some grass.
They did. @[email protected] and @[email protected] made a meme on [email protected]
@[email protected] posted on [email protected]
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] are now the mods of [email protected]
You seem to fixate on me, but this event involved hundreds of people.
As I’ve mentioned somewhere else I’d take all that in to consideration if it was a more niche sub - but it isn’t. It very much seems to be that a already existing community found its way to Blahaj where (almost) all of the contributors were happy. Then some mods arbitrarily decided that they didn’t like the instance and moved to… .world, of all places. Back towards centralisation and the possible looming spectre of interacting with meta users too.
Fair enough.
Though, I would call 196 pretty niche, just not small. That's piddling over word usage though, and not at all relevant to the real point you made.
I definitely agree that the moving was a bad call, btw. Particularly where it moved to, and for the same reasons you gave. I don't have a stake in it, I've always found the 196 thing a bit too silly even for my absurdist tastes. It still seems like a horrible way to handle everything overall.
I think the problem was the fact that they blocked the "old" community, despite a lot of people coming forward to actually keep the "old" community alive.
And then they unlocked the community. They fucked up and they apologized. Certain users really need to take a deep breath and stop writing essays on the topic calling for everyone's heads. It's giving off major Karen vibes, which belong as far away from c/196 as possible.
This is the internet, this is Lemmy, it's really not that big of a deal. Laugh about the drama, make memes about it, but for the love of God please stop taking everything so seriously.
This comment isn't directed towards you, but rather to a bunch of others I've seen from my cursory glance at a few threads, calling for everyone's resignation and expressing their outrage. Like calm the fuck down, you're embarrassing yourselves, and by extension the rest of us.
This comment isn’t directed towards you, but rather to a bunch of others I’ve seen from my cursory glance at a few threads, calling for everyone’s resignation and expressing their outrage. Like calm the fuck down, you’re embarrassing yourselves, and by extension the rest of us.
It just gave very Reddit API shutdown vibes, which is not something people have very good memories of.
Also most of the energy was dedicated to the creation of [email protected] , which was the evidence that the community was ready to restart elsewhere had the mods kept the community locked
The old community was being led by a corrupt admin, wasn't it? Isn't that the entire issue? Sounds like they can't fix it.
It was just a difference of opinion in the way they wanted to moderate the community and how the admin wanted to moderate her server. And of course, the admin has the last word.
But this stuff happens all the time on Lemmy, the only unusual thing is they decided to take the nuclear option and lock the community. Then they realized their mistake and unlocked it. It is what it is. I just get annoyed at all the people who flock to this drama like flies to shit so they can pile on the mods. It's super lame.
And of course, the admin has the last word.
Ada has expressed she didn't want to intervene
I am not going to take a community off of people who haven’t broken any instance rules. Mods need to have confidence that the communities they run aren’t going to be arbitrarily taken away from them because of an issue with an instance admin.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12477708
That's an interesting difference to note with the usual admin/mod hierarchy
so they can pile on the mods. It’s super lame.
Mods shouldn't make such decisions without asking the community first. That was supposedly the idea of Lemmy, having power tripping mods being kept in check by meta communities like [email protected] and the ability to move to another community on a whim. Still impressive to see how [email protected] got active in only a few hours, that's definitely something that's interesting.
Blah blah blah unrelated link blah blah blah
I have never seen someone talk so much while saying so little.
Dude they’ve been doing this for the entire time since the switch happened. I give it another 24 hours or so for the schadenfreude and then the smart thing is to simply block and ignore their little corner of the internet.
Yeah, it took me a long time to realize because that user is extremely careful to always be superficially polite and always framing their actions as trying to help the fediverse, but I'm beginning to recognize that they're basically an energy vampire that just drags down the vibe of Lemmy with constant but what about or I don't fully agree replies.
They seem to make every discussion way more complicated and contentious than it needs to be. What is the point of constantly linking and posting about every single time that anybody has a disagreement on Lemmy? They would nominally say they do it to expose mod abuse or whatever, but it's typically fairly innocuous incidents that get blown way out of proportion. Mods aren't ever going to be perfect, and constantly putting them and also random users on blast is extremely unproductive, because you get a whole bunch of commenters who don't understand any of the nuance of the situation and inevitably get their pitchforks out, causing way more frustration and anger than the original situation would have caused otherwise.
They also never upvote anybody who replies to them, even when they occasionally claim to agree, which is extremely rare in itself. Who does that? Like how do you use Lemmy that much but consistently refuse to upvote the other users who are taking time out of their day to have a discussion with you? They make using Lemmy seem boring and tedious, which is really quite a remarkable accomplishment considering how many other interesting personalities we have on here. And they always sound extremely insincere when they performatively congratulate or thank others, often opting for a one word Nice! or Thanks. Like I said, energy vampire. I could go on, but you get the message. I do not like this user and I am suspicious of their intentions.
Yeah, it took me a long time to realize because that user is extremely careful to always be superficially polite and always framing their actions as trying to help the fediverse, but I’m beginning to recognize that they’re basically an energy vampire that just drags down the vibe of Lemmy with constant but what about or I don’t fully agree replies.
They seem to make every discussion way more complicated and contentious than it needs to be. What is the point of constantly linking and posting about every single time that anybody has a disagreement on Lemmy? They would nominally say they do it to expose mod abuse or whatever, but it’s typically fairly innocuous incidents that get blown way out of proportion. Mods aren’t ever going to be perfect, and constantly putting them and also random users on blast is extremely unproductive, because you get a whole bunch of commenters who don’t understand any of the nuance of the situation and inevitably get their pitchforks out, causing way more frustration and anger than the original situation would have caused otherwise.
They also never upvote anybody who replies to them, even when they occasionally claim to agree, which is extremely rare in itself. Who does that? Like how do you use Lemmy that much but consistently refuse to upvote the other users who are taking time out of their day to have a discussion with you? They make using Lemmy seem boring and tedious, which is really quite a remarkable accomplishment considering how many other interesting personalities we have on here. And they always sound extremely insincere when they performatively congratulate or thank others, often opting for a one word Nice! or Thanks. Like I said, energy vampire. I could go on, but you get the message. I do not like this user and I am suspicious of their intentions.
I'm just going to quote the whole thing because it's just too good.
Ok. If you are sincere then I am sorry, but that only means that you should majorly re-evaluate your behavior and try to honestly analyze if you are having the positive impact you claim to desire for Lemmy.
If you truly have an interest in improving the fediverse and making it a better place with better communities and a more diverse group of users, then you should be able to recognize that I am on your side, despite your personal dislike of me. I know that I come off as condescending and arrogant at times, but that's because I deeply care about making this platform succeed, and it can be immensely frustrating when those who claim to support and believe in the platform seem to be acting counterproductively and worsening the climate on Lemmy by fanning the flames of petty drama and constantly calling for communities to split apart, servers to defederate, users to be banned, etc.
fanning the flames of petty drama
You consider that mods locking a whole community without intent to reopen it is petty drama. The 290 comments on that announcement show the opposite: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/20937206
(I know you don't care about links, but I'm doing this for other people reading this).
constantly calling for communities to split apart,
Not sure if that's because you only follow this account, but the one where I post most "in community" content is @[email protected]. I regularly post there trying to build communities rather than split them.
And if you are referring to split communities like [email protected] to [email protected] , that's because ml are known to be very power tripping: https://feddit.uk/post/12952230. This is known, and there is even a whole community dedicated to them, on your instance: [email protected]. I don't post there that often.
I recently asked for consolidation of [email protected] and [email protected].
And if you are referring to [email protected] , that was initiated by PugJesus, not by me: https://sh.itjust.works/post/29284968?scrollToComments=true
I'm also the main poster on [email protected] , which objective is indeed to grow communities.
servers to defederate
Kind of similar to the point above. Ml, hexbear and lemmygrad are known to be tankies, so I was suggesting one instance to have them all defederated, to allow for new joiners to have a better first experience on Lemmy: https://feddit.org/post/6819084
Is it really that debatable? The feedback from the comments was quite positive. I don't remember calling for any other defederation, but maybe I forgot.
users to be banned
When did I last asked for someone to be banned? My latest comment on the kind was there, but I was actually against a ban:
IP banning him from the whole site seems too much.
Fair enough. I do appreciate your posting of content at times. However, not all content is good content. Quality trumps quantity.
Maybe it would be best to focus more time on non-meta topics, like sports communities, gaming communities, hobbyist communities, etc. I feel that the neverending discussions of what is going on with whatever Lemmy server or communities and what needs to be done about it become a self fulfilling prophecy. The more that people focus on it, the more they tend to disagree.
Sometimes users and mods and admins are going to have disagreements and get angry at each other. It doesn't need to be linked all over Lemmy every time that happens. We already have plenty of options for servers, it's best to allow instances to handle their disagreements internally/privately and we don't need everyone else in the fediverse getting in on every bit of drama. If the admins and mods are truly that bad at their jobs, the users will speak with their actions by leaving the server and/or community.
MeanwhileOnGrad is indeed a community that has generated some drama, and our admins have had discussions about this. Our current consensus is that due to the draconian censorship on hexbear always and lemmy.ml sometimes, it's important to have hard evidence of some of the crazy and violent things that those communities upvote and agree with. This provides an easy way for new users to see for themselves what they are getting into if they choose to interact with, or god forbid join, one of the tankie servers. Although some drama gets generated along with that, the alternative would be to leave the blatant lies and bad faith tactics unchecked, which would be a much bigger problem imo.
Maybe it would be best to focus more time on non-meta topics, like sports communities, gaming communities, hobbyist communities, etc.
I am the main poster on
And a few other communities. I even organize a weekly thread on [email protected] so that other "main posters" can discuss about their feeling of "shouting into the void" (https://sh.itjust.works/post/31030466)
I feel that the neverending discussions of what is going on with whatever Lemmy server or communities and what needs to be done about it become a self fulfilling prophecy. The more that people focus on it, the more they tend to disagree.
[email protected] shows the opposite. All interested users went to it, posted content, and reached 3k daily active users, which is more than [email protected] . They all agreed, and found at least one community that they can use from now on, whatever happens with [email protected]
It doesn’t need to be linked all over Lemmy every time that happens.
It's usually limited to [email protected]. It wouldn't have spread over all Lemmy hadn't the mods decided to lock that community, basically forcing the Blahaj users to start a new community that would get visibility on /All.
Although some drama gets generated along with that, the alternative would be to leave the blatant lies and bad faith tactics unchecked, which would be a much bigger problem imo.
Your conclusion is the same that makes people post to [email protected].
If the objective is to offer a better alternative than Reddit, we have to evidence that there are indeed countermeasures against power tripping mods and admins. [email protected] is that countermeasure. And if people don't like drama, they can just block that community. Same for [email protected] , one of the recurrent themes are going to be drama, as it's the easiest context to create memes about.