1w ago

Moderation policies vs enforcement of instance rules.

lemmy.dbzer0.com

Are we all "Anti-AI Trolls"? Enforcement of instance rules and community standards. - Divisions by zero

I was encouraged to create an governance thread for discussion dedicated to community focused around the db0 lemmy instance users. Please see the linked post for context. I decided to leave my original post for potential discussion including voices of outsiders.

In short, not to duplicate information - I'd like to ask our community the following questions:

Is the mod's behaviour of proactively banning users from moderated communities without clear violation in accordance to the instance rules, especially The Golden Rules, which call for "cooperative participation"?
If yes, what actions can be proposed to be taken next to alleviate the issue, not only with the two directly mentioned communities in the linked post, but also others that potentially fall a victim to this kind of mod misbehaviour?

It should also be appropriate to hear the stance of the involved moderators, why they do what they do, but obviously it is up to them to provide clarifications.

Thank you in advance, I love you all.

governance type: sense check

46 comments

Acknowledged governance topic opened by https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/migratingape

This is a non-voting post. Known users should leave comments with your thoughts on the subject.
While I generally do feel that some level of preemptive action is acceptable and even necessary for this type of community, some of the actions in question have been... extreme. And worse, some of the actions have been taken across communities that don't relate at all.
An example being the fairly recent discussion, in which a user found themselves banned from communities about AI art, PS2 games and Switch piracy because they downvoted one or two things they passed on all and didn't like. At this point, we've gone beyond any form of sanity in the actions.
My take is that we leave some leeway to moderators of our comms to handle them as they see fit, because they are the ones growing them primarily and we need them to feel somewhat in control and invested for all the effort they're putting it.
There's limits of course, but I don't feel their actions exceed those limits, as those bans don't really affect the users being banned, and if it wasn't for the modlog and some notifications people get about it, they wouldn't even notice as they don't ever interact with those comms except downvoting them in the occasional /all post.
We also need to be cognizant on why some mods take such seemingly "extreme" reactions. Not everyone has as thick a skin as to tolerate a constant dogpile of bad faith arguments, and those people still deserve to exist in the internet and in the threativerse, and for their mental health, these people might need tighter control of their comms to prevent people who would cause them mental anguish.
The topic of GenAI is very heated and we're the only instance which is explicitly not againt GenAI as a technology (but still against corporate GenAI and its hype). Because of how hated it is, especially in the more radical spaces, we constantly get hate drive-by comments in every post containing any sort of GenAI image, and when they can't comment, they downvote. The mods actions are colored by these interactions and their attempts to combat these behaviours. Point is, these comms and our instance don't act in a vacuum, so the larger reaction to GenAI needs to be taken into account to understand.
- You may wanna state this in the YPTB thread and also state that Mystic doesn't want to go in, as zir will be harassed again like earlier this morning.
  They hate that our community doesn't abide by .world and hexbear's rules, and harass users.
Hi I'm the mod of these two communities, so I'm going to give my input on this. Basically this started back when I began before I started my first community and I noticed that other AI communities receive a surprisingly large amount of downvotes, however when I started my first community !stable_diffusion_mycology@lemmy.dbzer0.com I found that number to be much higher, and when I looked into the Voter data I found that it was being brigaded from users who moderate !fuck_ai@lemmy.world as well as very active participants there. So I made a decision that instead of allowing them to suppress and hurt my community I would ban the ones who do it so they can't hurt my community. Eventually I found that that wasn't enough because there were too many of them just waiting to take the place of banned users, so I started screening users by post history, and if they made bad faith anti-AI arguments I banned them, and yes I also used posts like the linked one as honeypots to catch other Anti-AI trolls who would complain about banning. When I began !stable_diffusion_witches@lemmy.dbzer0.com I transferred the bans from my already established community because I knew that these same people would continue at it again.
I know that these people will not block and ignore these communities on their own, they are intentionally trying to suppress it, some of them have actually admitted to doing such and saying they won't block posts. If it's considered unacceptable or against the rules to ban people in this manner then that means it's essentially impossible to fight large scale brigading and hate voting like this, which I do not think is fair for people wanting to start communities here.
In addition to simply brigading my communities I have had people harass me in DMs, make death threats towards me, and make fun of me for being a recovering alcoholic. I've had these people deny my gender identity, claim I'm a woman, deliberately use the wrong pronouns, and even one person impersonating me while acting like a pig. Really vile stuff.
In short these are not knee jerk reactions, the vast majority of the bans I cast are for good reasons, and while I have made mistakes on occasion, the majority of these bans are correct, and I don't believe we should be forced to allow known problematic users to hurt our communities just because they haven't left comments there yet.
- and make fun of me for being a recovering alcoholic
  Before I say anything else, I wanna say sorry that happened to you. I've personally seen people struggle with alcohol addictions in my inner circle, and the fact that someone would use that to attack you, makes me sick. This pisses me off way more than all the other random shit I see on Lemmy combined.
  Please stay strong, and don't give those fuckers a chance to knock you down bully you out of here.
  I support you in your modding efforts as well, brother. You're appreciated here.
  I mean that. I'm not saying it as Universal Monk, I'm saying it as a person. I appreciate that you are here.
- You may wanna say this in Ye Power Tripping, I'm trying to defend you there. But I understand if you don't wanna, the people there can be weird.
  
  I try to avoid that place, it has a lot of toxic people there and most of the ones there are just upset about being banned, they don't care that it's actually for a good reason or not, they just want to be unbanned so they can do whatever they want. My comment about the reasons largely fall on deaf ears. And also since many of the people there are the people who have been brigading even if they know and understand they will double down because it's in their interest too.
  Also by the way I saw your comment there and just want to clarify that I go by Ze/Zir pronouns I don't go by she/her, I tolerate it sometimes but being called by she/her gives me mild dysphoria and ickyness, so I'd prefer not to be.
- Thanks for coming here and providing your PoV.
  After reading the comments on YPTB I can only say this: the f is wrong with some people… I must be living in some bubble where people can have sane reasonable discussion even if they disagree.
  I understand you are trying to build communities and defend them against users with ill-intent. I don’t know what your ambitions are as far as the target size of these communities goes, but I just thought that banning users like described simply sends a bad message and, unfortunately, brings unnecessary attention to your person (especially if user does not agree or understands a reason for a ban). Forgive me for inadvertently being a part of the problem.
  On the other hand, if you are right that some users made it a hobby out of downvoting all posts from your community and we both want to provide a space for it on Lemmy (on any instance), then this potentially calls for some software feature? Like joinable, discoverable but semi-private communities that don’t appear on "all" with limited voting and posting rights for non-members? I don’t know - you tell me what would be your dream scenario! But definitively I don’t believe you can have it both ways, be totally open and not exposed, especially for controversial themes.
  Lastly, allow me to address you as a person. Please don’t understand me wrong as my wording might upset you but I really mean good for you. If you are going through some hardships in your life - don’t ever let the trolls see you are vulnerable. In general, the social media, be it federated or corporate, is not a good place to seek support or publicly confess intimate details of your life. If you really have to because you find that helpful, at least make a second account not used for moderation. Don’t feed the trolls.
  Love.
  P.S. - you can probably unban me if you are not mad at me, I promise to behave ;)
  
  I must be living in some bubble where people can have sane reasonable discussion even if they disagree.
  Where is this bubble? I wanna be in that bubble!
  
  Thank you for your response. I do agree that banning people en masse can have a negative impact in how people see me, and I don't exactly like it even though I do it a lot. But I do it because at the moment Lemmy doesn't have any other options to ameliorate the mass downvoting that my AI communities receive and they would be in the high negatives by now being seen and enjoyed by no one if I didn't try to do something.
  Yeah I agree with that last part, it's not good to let people see vulnerability. I don't know about having a second account I'm bad at managing two accounts especially since I don't use any fancy Lemmy apps, just the browser and my phone with a PWA thing so having more than one account would be a pain and I would probably forget. Also I feel like people would identify my alt anyway from my history here since I would still vent just as much there about the things I've already vented about. I already do try my best by not interacting much with them or simply reporting them. Though Lemmy is my only social media since I cut everything else off a while ago so it's hard to do anything beyond not responding to and simply reporting trolls.
- "Pro-AI people are kind and defend artists."
Pinging: @MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Thank you, I will address this.
Gotta love how we have our own instance with our own rules, like every other instance with rules that are enforced, and people online hate us for making people follow the rules on our community.
I dont fault anyome for being rubbed wrong by this type of mod action, but I've personally come to terms with it. There are a couple of comms whose entire premis is built around preemptive bans (i think 'pleasant politics' is one.
I dont think we need to pretend that mods are omniscient and perfect in their interpretation of behavior outside their comms, only that they are ultimately responsible for trying to build their communities, and sometimes that means fighting against popular sentiment. Being proactive about banning people who have a clear distaste for your content - whatever that looks like - isn't unreasonable IMO. Especially when there's precedent of people seeking out a mod to harass them.
As long as mods arent fomenting a community of hate or using their authority to hurt other people, I say we give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to preemptive bans.
- whose entire premis is built around preemptive bans (i think ‘pleasant politics’ is one.
  Yep, he has a bot (santabot or some shit) and he pre-emptive bans anyone that has even been downvoted a few times about any subject over all of Lemmy. LMAO. Guy's a dick about it too. He tried to report me for ban evasion for posting to his comm, but I had no idea I was even banned from there.
  So a bunch of people pointed out that his bot doesn't notify of bans, and that how is it ban evasion if they don't know they've been banned from there. He said he didn't care. lmao
As someone who is allegedly an anti ai troll (I checked the modlog lmao) who cares?
Let people build their own communities. If you wanna press on some digital eyes and see mushrooms in static power to you, I'm gonna go eat mushrooms and press on my eyes and see god in the static.
My input filters down to the direct notion that while mods have leeway to best manage their comms, I feel there's at least a responsibility to also respect the immediate vicinity they are within regarding the shared nature.
Even if I wouldn't necessarily agree with reasons potentially given, if a mod or team has documented the process or line of thought somewhere (wiki?), it would be better at avoiding both confusion and a bit of the flack that could reflect upon the greater server itself.
I don't see who did it on the app i use (later checked, looks like _cryptagion), but i was almost immediately after i made this account banned from multiple communities¹ for being an 'anti ai troll'; somebody can check if it was our good mushroom here. Communities I don't think I'd posted in yet, just for not going down on that technology enthusiastically enough. There are no bots in my name, i have not harassed any users, and none of the excuses given here really applies. I even feel like i go much farther than average with good faith arguments when im not doing a bit, deep in sarcasm, or surrounded by libs. So forgive me if i take most of the excuses provided by comrade mushroom here with a shit ton if salt.
It made me think less of the people who defend that dog shit, less of those communities, less of mods in general, and less of the server.
Brittle precious shit heads punitively controlling discourse, or trying to based on imagined sleights to their favorite toy, does not leave a good taste in ones mouth. It's a little troubling and substantially fucking embarrassing.
Edit:Maybe there's another version of this that's just proactive curation of the conversation you want to have. I haven't sern that, and doing it by discarding people so aggressively still rubs me the wrong way.

46 comments