admiralpatrick

joined 10 months ago
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[–] admiralpatrick 1 points 21 hours ago

Nothing for or against the content, OP, but removing since it violates rule 1 which prohibits political posts.

[–] admiralpatrick 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Posting this to sticky it in the comments.

This post is somewhat in the realm of rule 1 (no politics), but it's highly topical (for better or worse) and not specifically political. So as long as the discussion remains civil and without devolving into endless volleys of Godwin's Law, I'll allow it. Please don't make me regret this lol.

[–] admiralpatrick 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's good news (hopefully). Thanks!

Will keep an eye out, but community is remaining locked until the clarifications are published and deemed acceptable.

[–] admiralpatrick 3 points 2 weeks ago
[–] admiralpatrick 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

My stance has always been keep the server/instance rules generic / non-micromanaging and let the communities do what they do (so long as they're in compliance with the generic server rules). That's pretty much been LW's stance until yesterday.

Re: fiefdoms

Many times I've seen new communities spring up as alternatives and people slowly (sometimes rapidly) moved over organically. That's one of the big benefits to the Fediverse. My experience has been that, letting the Fediverse do what it does, the problems will generally sort themselves out as bad mods/instances are identified and avoided with alternatives springing up to fill the gap.

[–] admiralpatrick 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm with you in spirit, but I can't and won't endorse that kind of behavior (not even saying that to cover my ass; I'm truly against it).

However, should that occur organically (and it will), feel free to shine a "I told you so" spotlight onto it.

[–] admiralpatrick 25 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

As I understand it, yes, that is the intent of the policy. However, as-written and presumably as it is to be enforced for all mods LW-wide, it has wide-reaching implications with worse side-effects.

Basically, the proper tool is a scalpel and they brought out a machete.

[–] admiralpatrick 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (8 children)

I never said I was against the goal they were trying to achieve, just the means by which they're using to achieve it.

[–] admiralpatrick 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I'm mostly with you, though with a much more strict stance against allowing misinformation/conspiracy/etc. On that:

The beauty of the fediverse is that I also have no problems with someone setting up a competing community that takes a much less tolerant perspective and has a rule that participation is conditional on agreement to certain perspectives.

That's what this new moderation policy abolishes: That competing community is now apparently required to platform misinformation, propaganda, et al while also being more or less required to spend time refuting every claim lest it stand unchallenged. As I said in the announcement post, it's holding the doors open and saying "no, after you" to gish-galloping the mods and platforming every crackpot conspiracy, propaganda, "civil" hate speech, etc so long as they're civil and not spamming it.

Yeah, the Fediverse allows for "just moving to another instance" but for the largest Lemmy instance to force a "both sides" stance on its entirety is a slap in the face.

Vote manipulation is common in Lemmy. While the actor described in that post has changed tactics (and that post barely scratched the surface), they certainly did not stop. All they need to do is boost the misinformation and downvote the rebuttals when previously, the misinformation would just be correctly modded.

[–] admiralpatrick 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Pam from 'The Office' defiantly saying 'Yep!'

Yep, sure do! But only on my own instance in accordance with our polices; communities I moderate elsewhere are modded according to those instances' rules and TOS.

If someone does nothing but give out downvotes (the upvotes-given to downvotes-given ratio threshold for the automated ban is quite generous), then they're contributing nothing but negativity and shitting on things for everyone else. If everything here displeases them so much, they can and should go somewhere else.

I stand by (and have reviewed) every automated "Mass downvoting" ban my automod has issued.

[–] admiralpatrick 11 points 2 weeks ago

It definitely does not seem like a well thought out solution for sure.

[–] admiralpatrick 25 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

It's an option, sure. But (at this point anyway) it's more about making a statement and trying to bring visibility to the horrible side effects of this new policy.

I'm not trying to burn bridges, lol, merely shine a light and hope the LW Team sees it.

 

Edit 2025-01-13: LW has indicated they will be clarifying these rules soon. In the mean time, the community will remain locked until those are updated and deemed acceptable.


So the LW Team put out an announcement on new, site-wide moderation policy (see post link). I've defended, to many a downvote, pretty much every major decision they've made, but I absolutely cannot defend this one. In short, mods are expected to counter pretty much every batshit claim rather than mod it as misinformation, trolling, attack on groups, etc.

My rebuttal (using my main account) to the announcement: https://dubvee.org/comment/3541322


We're going to allow some "flat earth" comments. We're going to force some moderators to accept some "flat earth" comments. The point of this is that you should be able to counter those comments with words, and not need moderation/admin tools to do so.

(emphases mine)

Me: What if, to use the recent example from Meta, someone comes into a LGBT+ community and says they think being gay is a mental illness and /or link some quack study? Is that an attack on a group or is it "respectful dissent"?

LW: A lot of attacks like that are common and worth refuting once in awhile anyway. It can be valuable to show the response on occasion


I understand what they're trying to address here (highly encourage you to read the linked post), but the way they're going about it is heavy handed and reeks of "both sides"-ing every community, removing agency from the community moderators who work like hell to keep these spaces safe and civil, and opening the floodgates for misinformation and "civil" hate speech. How this new policy fits with their Terms of Service is completely lost to me.

I'll leave the speculation as to whether Musk dropped LW a big check as an exercise to the reader.

For now, this community is going dark in protest and I encourage other communities who may disagree with this new policy to join. Again, I understand the problem that is trying to be addressed, but this new policy, as-written, is not the way to do it.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by admiralpatrick to c/[email protected]
 

Voting has concluded on whether the community wants to remove the "Vote the opposite of the norm" voting guidelines.

As you can see in the screenshot below (or in the post), the results are a tie (only upvotes are counted, not the score). I abstained from the vote, leaving it entirely to the community, and I do not wish to cast the tie-breaking vote.

Since it is a tie, I'll treat that as a non-majority vote and, as such, we will keep the voting guidelines as they are.

 
 

Since the world is so depressing right now, the mod team has agreed to rebrand this community as "Popular Opinions" to try to lighten the mood.

Instead of than sharing opinions that highlight our differences, share the ones that everyone can agree on.

The voting guidelines remain the same: Upvote if you agree it's a popular opinion, downvote if you think it's an unpopular opinion.

So, let's hear some things we can all get on board with!

In conclusion, happy April Fool's Day!

Note: This is a real rule change and will be enforced, but only for today as a fun change of pace. Normal rules return tomorrow.

Since we're all on differen timezones, we'll be running these rules midnight to 23:59 UTC.

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