What the fuck is going on with 196/onehundredninetysix?
What the fuck is going on with 196/onehundredninetysix?
I know there was some schism and moving of instances, but beyond that I can’t deduce what happened/is happening.
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Back in December, the instance hosting 196 (lemmy.blahaj.zone) announced that, as part of its mission as a trans-friendly space, harassment based on gender or neopronouns would remain prohibited—even if the user in question was suspected of being a troll. Users were asked to disengage, block, and report suspected trolling behavior rather than bring harassment into a community already vulnerable to that kind of bullying.
There was a small backlash to the policy from some users. This led to a number of “toe the line” posts that weren’t outright gender-based harassment but strongly signaled an intent to misgender or harass in the future. Blahaj admins promptly removed all offending comments during this wave of dissent.
Important to note: The majority of the Blahaj and 196 users supported the policy, upvoting and praising the admins for creating a safe space for trans individuals.
By January, the backlash had mostly subsided, and the trolls causing issues had moved on. However, 196 moderator @moss and their team remained unhappy with the policy. They cited “personal differences” and felt Blahaj admins had overstepped by removing comments themselves rather than allowing 196 mods to address users who openly expressed intent to harass others.
Yesterday, @moss and the 196 moderation team enacted a major decision without consulting the community. They locked !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone and instructed users to move to !196@lemmy.world.
This move was extremely unpopular. Many users strongly dislike lemmy.world for various reasons (a complicated topic better unpacked elsewhere). The announcement post was met with widespread backlash, and @moss eventually locked it. In response, a few users created a new community on Blahaj: !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone. The new community quickly grew in size and activity, with most users opting to stay on Blahaj rather than migrate to lemmy.world.
It’s clear @moss and the 196 moderators underestimated the community’s attachment to its home on Blahaj. By attempting to uproot the group without input, they alienated much of the community. As a result, most users have moved to the new Blahaj-hosted community, which has already become the more active space.
TL;DR:
@Moss and the 196 mod team tried to move the community to lemmy.world without consulting anyone. The decision was extremely unpopular, leading to backlash and the creation of a new Blahaj-hosted community that most users now prefer.This comment would probably make for a good crosspost to !fediverselore@lemmy.ca
on it!
edit: https://lemmy.cafe/post/12094663 thanks again for the suggestion
Great write-up, thanks. I love a good shit-show. 🍿
Sounds to me like the OG mods could have said “we don’t like how the admin runs things here, we are leaving as mods and starting a new 196 on .world with hookers and blackjack, you guys do what you want here.”
I genuinely would have had no problem with that, and I think most others would agree with me.
Which everyone would think is fine, but that would mean they'd be mods of an empty community, and thus have no power, and that of course made them upset.
I guess they decided to forget the hookers ...... and the blackjack.
Ahh forget the whole thing
Oof. Rookie mistake. Even if people aren't against a move most people won't follow you to the new site simply because of laziness. It kills communities.
There really should be a life shattering reason to move a community to a new site.
Yup. Clearly, “the admin is going to generally protect trans identities on her instance” didn’t ring as “life shattering” to too many. 😸
Anyone who is angry they can't whip out queerphobia when they're annoyed at someone who uses neopronouns doesn't understand why it's not OK to say racist shit about Clarance Thomas, misogynistic shit about JK Rowling, or transphobic shit about Keffals.
Just a huge red flag that respecting other people's humanity is contingent on benefiting them.
Exactly. It's fine to attack their horrid personalities, terrible actions and all-round aweful nature, but we don't attack people based on things they can't control.
They chose to be fucking terrible, and we can attack that, it's really pretty simple, and easy too.
They stated pretty directly it wasn't about the Dragonfucker incident, nor did it involve policies on neopronouns. Drag wasn't even banned for anything to do with neopronouns.
I think the move to lemmy.world was a mistake, but I believe them when they say it has nothing to do with the neopronouns policy.
Correct. Nevertheless the neopronouns incident was something of a catalyst; all the “differences” had to do with trans issues in some way, and it would be amiss of me not to point out the biggest moment that made 196 come out in support of Ada and Blahaj.
Their other “differences” are also bogus in my opinion.
Thanks for the writeup ... there should be some kind of news service for stuff like this. Everyone notices weird changes on lemmy but not everyone is in tune to every detail, every personality, every major user or mod, every instance, every community and everything they're doing.
All I saw were the changes and activities but I had no clue who, what, where or why .... which meant you didn't know who supports what or for what reason.
I was watching that community over the past day or two and didn't see any news about any of this until now .... things were happening on Lemmy, lots of new posts from 196 everywhere and noise about a controversy there and no info for those who don't know until this post was made
fediverselore is good .... it's just a bit slow in the uptake
It usually waits for the dust to settle.
!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com might be more what you're looking for
I was trying to understand who was who and now I know. Cheers
Fantastic write up. Reminds me of a post on Hobby Drama.
I wonder if Blahaj admins will kick out all the mods who locked 196 and replace them with the mods who created oneninetysix.
No and no. Ada stated that she will not oust the mod team, and she is currently the mod of onehundredninetysix, though is trying to find someone else to take it over as she has no interest in being mod.