Meta: For the sake of mutual aid with Blajah and my sanity, no more posts about Blajah's moderation policies please.
Meta: For the sake of mutual aid with Blajah and my sanity, no more posts about Blajah's moderation policies please.
I'm gonna get real with you folks, we've had way too many of these posts recently. I've been reflecting on this topic a lot the past few days. For me personally, I couldn't care less about my gender identity. But just because that's true for me, doesn't make that true for everyone.
The beauty of the fediverse is that if you don't like the way a particular instance or community is moderated you can simply choose another to hang out on, or create your own.
Blajah has made it pretty clear by now they will ban anyone who argues against the validity of xenogenders, in order to create a safe space for those folks. That's fair enough imo.
Safe spaces should be respected, and Blajah's admins/mods do not deserve abuse for creating and maintaining those spaces.
I can completely understand why Blajah users don't want to have to constantly argue with external users about the validity of their chosen identities. Bans are one way Blajah has decided to manage that problem so that their users can experience lemmy in relative peace and safety. While it is a blunt tool and I have my reservations about preemptive bans, there are not many other options for @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone, other than defederation from most instances. That would be a terrible outcome for the fediverse as a whole.
In order to help Blajah to maintain their safe space, I would like to propose, if @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com agrees and community sentiment is positive:
- that we no longer accept posts about this topic in this community; and
- we also remove previous posts on this topic from the community.
That's all folks, have at 'er.
Edit: thanks for all your feedback and comments. I think it's clear that the vast majority of people are fed up with this topic coming up repeatedly.
Summarizing the feedback, I'd say most folks would prefer to retain previous posts for the sake of posterity, and to serve as an example of why we don't want anymore of these posts. I'm happy to take that on board. For those folks saying I'm a PTB for intervening in this way, I'll just remind you that I haven't made any arbitrary mod decisions, and I've consulted with db0 and the community as a whole before taking any mod actions.
I think the way to move forward with this is to acknowledge that there's a bunch of queer and straight people who have a problem with xenogenders. Personally, I think that's a valid perspective and shouldn't sanctioned on our instance. But for Blajah, they've drawn a line in the sand over this and that's ok too. Our instance won't be blocking anyone over their opinions on the topic, especially in this community where free discussion is necessary and encouraged. But safe spaces should be respected.
A lot of folks mentioned I should more more specific about the "no more posts about Blajah's mod policies" rather than making it a sweeping and overly broad statement. I think that's good feedback. I will amend this to "No more posts in this community about the validity or otherwise of neopronouns, xenogenders, and bans originating from Blajah about gatekeeping or transphobia. This is in recognition of Blajah's safe space policy. You are of course free to discuss those topics outside of this community.
Note that this decision isn't about ideological gatekeeping, its about reducing the workload for our own mods and admins in trying to moderate this community, and to avoid iterating over the same old topics again and again.
Blajah isn't getting a "free pass" over YPTB posts - if you feel they are power tripping over other issues then feel free to make a post here. But if it's a post questioning the validity of xenogenders or about Blajah bans for gatekeeping then that will no longer be allowed here. Those folks deserve a safe space on Lemmy, even if it's not a mainstream opinion.
For those folks who feel aggrieved about being accused of "transphobia" or "gatekeeping" over their views on this topic, I completely understand just how hurtful it can be to be unfairly (imo) accused in this way. I've been in the same position, and I also found it difficult to deal with. I want those folks to know that our instance does not require you to support xenogenders in order to participate in our instance. However we do require that you use preferred pronouns whenever they are specified. That's been a longstanding instance policy on dbzer0.
Thank everyone for your feedback.
In favor of doing this, but keep the old posts locked without removing them so people know what happened and what led up to this.
I'm OK with that but it has to be a bit more targeted specifically to blahaj's rule about gatekeeping and neopronouns, and I would add everything drag of course.
I wouldn't delete old posts, just lock them.
Maybe make it a temporary moratorium?
agree. seeing that the trolls the posters here are crying about have been banneed for weeks to months, a temporary moratorium is probably fine. maybe six months but im pulling that number from nowhere.EDIT: I have changed my mind about this. See https://lemmy.cafe/comment/10132150 and the preceding thread.
I agree, this community should be a place to discuss mod abuse, not bellyache over transphobia and hate speech being censored or being banned from it. Such discourse makes this community extremely toxic and unusable to vulnerable groups, it also creates inherent bias here favoring alt-right shitheads.
I think @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone would very much agree with this decision as well.
I'm completely in favor of this.
Frankly, most of what I see on this comm is BPR and YDI, and most people could probably benefit from taking their bans and touching grass. But having some posts be YDI makes the PTB's more exciting so maybe i'm wrong.
Maybe we should make some penalty for earning a YDI or BPR, so that people who receive them aren't encouraged to re-hash the same conflicts over and over? I'm honestly not sure. Part of the problem is that the same people cross-post the same conflict on similar comms, which makes it feel as if the same issue is being litigated repeatedly.
But complaining about receiving a ban from a protective community with strict conduct policies is certainly not the intent of this community, i don't think.
I'd want the old posts kept for historical reference, but otherwise I'm fine with this.
This shouldn't even be a debate or question. This hateful bullshit against Blahaj just needs to stop and mods need to put their foot down and say enough is enough. Like if this kind of shit arguing against a queer friendly instance for being queer friendly is okay or permitted I don't think that !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com should even be on our instance anymore, and our admins should just remove it.
I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope this community can put an end to this bullshit and stop endorsing queerphobic users' complaints.
Being queer-friendly doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. The issues people have with that instance have little to do with it being queer-friendly, and more to do with heavy-handed mod practices, and I think it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest that that's the reason why people are upset.
Nah the core of most of these posts is whether or not it’s ok to disrespect someone for their xenogender or using neopronouns. People will come in here to say they have been banned for accidentally misgendering or just ‘sharing their opinion’ but every case I’ve seen so far, if you look into their modlog you see that they were actually being really disrespectful about it, making other people with xenogender and/or neopronouns feel unsafe. Blahaj admin has made it clear that disrespecting someones pronouns or identity is not allowed on the instance, which most blahaj users agree with. Anyone who would still like to argue about this rule is just better off on another instance.
If I were a Blahaj user, I'd be posting about defederation from db0. The transphobia needs to end.
"They can't be power tripping mods because they are queer!"
No, that is stupid.
The way I see it, is that the rules and aim of the instance are all written out pretty fucking clearly and people on a platform dominated by longform text don't really have an excuse for not being able to comprehend it. Like seriously, I had been using Lemmy for two days when I checked out Blåhaj, and I feel like I understood then already because it's not hard and English is my native language.
So that said, when I see people complaining about it, I think they're either fucking stupid, or they're probably these 'free speech' people that want the right to go around insulting everyone without consequences (while doing the most epic pearl clutching the moment anyone insults them).
As far as I'm concerned, moderators and admins doing exactly what is clearly fucking written in the description and rules is not power abuse.
Well, I'm for this move. The why is obvious, as you've covered it in the post already.
I would also like to voice support for a couple ideas from previous comments
First, that previous posts stay up, and locked, so that people can still see that the issues were.
Second, that y'all consider the possibility of an FPT (frequently power tripped) thread at some frequency where folks can still hash out the common subjects. This and the mod abuse C/ are valuable pressure relief valves. I worry that a total banning of "frequent fliers" (sic) might have effects down the road.
I know that's extra work for mods, so it's definitely a big ask, but lemmy does need places where disgruntled users can complain. Having multiple places is better because one community would get swamped if they're the only place people can go for specific complaints.
- Leave the threads up, probably locked. Don't erase history.
- I wouldn't start on wholesale topic bans just yet. This should be an absolute last resort and this will probably do more harm than good.
- Possibly create some extra categories for titles so users can filter it out if they don't want to hear about it. Instance name of the potential PTB? Not sure.
My suggestion for this topic right now is to get everyone together that needs to and talk/scream/yell about it in private. I think everything has been said publicly at this point and the reading comprehension has gone down the toilet. The amount of misunderstandings, blanket downvotes, pettiness, bad assumptions, baiting and finger pointing is getting ridiculous. Have your damn say and find a conclusion, even if said conclusion is 'fuck you' from each person.
For shit like this in the future? If it comes to it, it is far better to lock first, talk to the person, and then unlock it. We can tell each other all day to be an adult, but it isn't that simple. There will always be some big event that floods the community at some point or another. This community practically begs for it. It will eventually be filed into PTB history.
As a blahaj'r, I would deeply appreciate this.
i started banned by blahaj to resolve this issue i hope you appreciate it
I think you're doing the right thing. The trolls are really stepping up, which is obvious in this thread. I'm trying to share it a lot because if you really read it and understand the process of what they're doing, you'll save yourself a lot of time and energy.
“Once we isolate key people, we look for people we know are in their upstream – people that they read posts from, but who themselves are less influential. We then either start flame wars with bots to derail the conversations that are influencing influential people, or else send off specific tasks for sockpuppets (changing this wording of an idea here; cause an ideological split there; etc).”
Edit: I forgot to add this part of the thread:
The goal is to keep opinions we don't want fragmented and from coalescing in to a single voice for long enough that the memes we do want can,...
I’m fine with not allowing it in the future, but I would appreciate not deleting the ones that already exist.
For archival’s sake. And for so when questions are asked about why, people can see for themselves what happened and decide whether what they see justifies blocking blahaj for them personally or not.
The way Blahaj creates a safe space is a way that ends up creating a very toxic space for others, and I don’t think erasing grievances people have had with them in the past would be good.
The fact that it’s so common means a lot of people are feeling attacked/invalidated/whatnot because of Blahaj, and leaving evidence of what they’ve done to others could help reassure people that it’s not them. Blahaj is just like that.
… If anyone up to the challenge of being a mod of a meanwhileonblahaj, that might be another decent alternative. I saw the idea floating around.
Everything involving this Blahaj slapfight has been BPR, and anyone continuing to rehash it over here is just BPR^2
Like, seriously, this should've ended the minute the obvious troll provoking everyone got banned. Nothing productive will ever come of continuing to talk about it now, all sides need to let it go.
real af
I wouldn’t be against a temporary ban on posts about getting banned from LBZ over neopronouns, but my general inclination is to keep the previous posts up but locked as a wall of shame. I also understand wanting to take them down altogether and I wouldn’t be that fussed about it if they were.
I agree in at least a memorandum or a break on this so everyone, myself included, can outside and breathe from air. Play games they enjoy. Read a good book. Listen to music.
Taking a break from the keyboard helps me when I'm upset about online stuff that doesn't impact the real world.
Mad love for the user name, btw :)
Thank you!
If I might make a suggestion, assuming it wouldn't cause more of a moderation nightmare: Maintain a list of soft banned topics that get relegated to a weekly "containment" thread. Complaints about explicitly stated instance wide rules get routed there. People have their space to complain but it keeps things cleaner. It also still allows this place to serve as kind of a watch for abuse. Just because it's a clearly stated instance wide rule, or that anyone can pick up and go somewhere else on the fediverse, doesn't necessarily mean it's not being abused.
Either way, I despise the idea of deleting the previous threads. There's nothing illegal and people should be able to draw their own conclusions about those shitshows. I think the previous threads should be locked to prevent any further comments requiring mod work, but left up. They are important context to this whole mess in case it flares up again. Really sucks coming into something late and being attacked for asking questions that are only obvious if you're already up to date, that come across as attacks to people already in it, but you have no way of knowing any better about.
I also have some concerns about this comm if certain topics start becoming forbidden. It limits the ability of this space to allow the community to pass judgement on and discuss mod/admin actions. But not limiting could end up with this com just devolving into a complaint quarantine for leapords ate my face "contestants".
Tl;dr- don't ban topic (maybe a weekly quaratine thread for certain topics), lock old threads and leave up
Proposing a very specific limit on posts referring mod/admin actions taken against users on LBZ that directly fall afoul of their instance rules regarding very specific gatekeeping might have some value. The subject has been hashed and re-hashed too fucking much. Their rules are their rules, breaking those rules on the instance is clear YDI. Breaking those rules elsewhere and having action taken against you is arguably PTB. I'm in favor of the idea of putting that on wax.
Purging previous discussion is no good, and even the proposal, coming from a community mod as it does, rubs me the wrong way. It shouldn't, because you have just as much right to propose a change as any other community member, but it puts me on edge.
There is value in what's been said already, even if some of it is highly disagreeable. Suggesting removal of that record for any reason invites future discussion of the same, IMO. Not everyone who will ever be a member of this community is a member now. If we're going to consider making a rule about this whole mess, best to leave the roadmap that led us here intact.
Potential yes to a well-defined rule of specific, narrow scope. Hard, hard no to retroactive application of that rule.
I just want to clarify. The only people getting banned for remote comments are people who knowingly and explicitly gatekeep other folks identity in response to this topic coming up. They are banned so that they don't start appearing in blahaj communities with the very people they're invalidating.
To me, there's no difference. If someone's response to this topic coming up is to double down on gatekeeping, it doesn't make them any less harmful just because they did it outside of a blåhaj community.
I appreciate your willingness to respond and engage on the subject. I understand your position, and that it makes sense to you. I personally feel that there is a degree of overreach involved when action is taken based on behavior that happens outside of an instance, but I also acknowledge that defederation is a more severe version of the same action. That causes a bit of cognitive dissonance for me, which makes me wonder if I'm viewing it all wrong.
For now, I still believe that your method is beyond what I consider to be a reasonable exercise of authority. That's not a slight on you; I have always gotten the impression that all of your actions are taken with the intent of doing what you believe is best for your instance. Our philosophies just differ somewhat when it comes to exercise of authority. I find you and db0 to be the most intellectually honest of the larger instance admins with regards to how you go about the business of adminning, for whatever that's worth.
Thanks again for engaging, I hope everyone else sees that you do your best to be consistent to your instance values.
I have a related question:
Where do the users who get banned from YPTB go, when they eventually get banned from YPTB?
believe it or not, straight to jail.
I appreciate this post, really helps me fill out my block list. It is sad that people cannot just let others live as they want.
I think people should be allowed to complain about any mod, on any community, on any instance.
Otherwise, it shows a pretty clear favoritism.
I don't come here for fruitless arguments regarding lemmy.ml or blahaj.zone moderation, but that is the cost of open discussion. If people want to fight each other, who are we to prevent them?
That's just it, though. The blahaj people don't want to fight about this, that's literally the entire point of the rule. This is about other people coming into their spaces, starting fights, getting banned for rules that are very clear and then pitching a shit fit about it.
I don't complain when I get booted from lemmy.ml communities for breaking a clear rule because I went to their place and fucked around. It would literally be a waste of everyone's time for me to complain about.
The rule about pronouns is pretty cut and dried. You can either respect them, or you can not engage with the people who you think are trolling at all, which to be clear, is incredibly fucking easy to do. No one is forcing these people to make comments like that in those communities. That's a personal choice.
Once again, if you show up on blahaj and start fucking around with pretty clearly defined rules, only one side is fighting, the other side is just banning them for breaking clear rules. That's not a fight, that's enforcing the rules they've laid out.
This community is on lemmy.dbzer0.com
I'm talking about people containing their fights over moderation topics to this community, not going into another community and trying to start fights there.
They should be able to complain about any mod, any community, or any instance here
I don’t come here for fruitless arguments
Well I did. And I want all of them.
In fact I thought this was already a rule.
It used to be, there was at one point a rule against bellyaching about being censored or banned for bigotry, but they got rid of it in favor of making the community a free for all, what a disaster that turned out to be.
i did too i was surprised at the recent resurgence
I kinda feel you on this.
I only turned-up in the fediverse because my phone, the Voyager app and Lemmy looks suspiciously like how my phone, the Apollo app and… some other aggregator site I used to visit looked. (Robbit, or something. Can’t remember all the details)
Anyway, having a browse, looking around. Happy happy. Saw /196 and checked it out - I knew the “content” and “the rule” from the other place. Just like old.
Got to understand the difference between community and instance. Had a look around Blahaj… eye-opening. I felt the place out and discovered that it was, in fact, what it appeared to be. Doubly eye-opening.
If Blahaj was a pub, run by Ada, and I was the doorman I wouldn’t even let me in; let alone drink at the bar.
So I wound my neck in.
Plenty of other instances to go bump my gums on - if I’m so inclined.
Just let it slide, folks… their place, their rules.
P.S. The sum of human time wasted on these few words, again and again, reheated and reserved, again and again. I mean, really? We’re at the peak of technological advancement and saturation whilst possibly on the cusp of a dystopian cataclysm and we are all - me included - wasting our time churning over the same old nonsense.
Well, I’m livin’ in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge, someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
Come in, she said, I’ll give ya
Shelter from the storm
- Bob Dylan
Agree. Thank you.EDIT I have changed my opinion on this. See here https://lemmy.cafe/comment/10132150 and the preceding thread.Good move.
Doesn't one of the db0 mod team literally think xenogenders are trolling? He's probably just going to override you and say those posts are allowed.
After thinking about this a little bit more: can we just only exclude anything related to xenogenders, no matter the instance? or even just the topic when coming from blahaj? There could be actual moderation issues on blahaj, as seen with 196's fiascos.
First the came for the dragonfuckers, and since I was not a dragonfucker, I did not stand up.
/s?
I think it's the wrong direction. Though much more work is involved, focusing on the comments themselves should be the way to go.
This community is about rules and whether the people in charge of maintaining them abuse their power. The topics in which this happens matter less than whether there is an abuse happening.
So the comments that focus on the wrong thing are the ones that should be moderated.
Is there an abuse? Yes/No and why.
Should we just have a pinned post about them and lemmy.ml?
three hundredth
No
This fucking comm is already SRD for Lemmy.
Cya.
Themesong for this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt30uxh2fhM
which is a mf'n bop bee tee dubs