The amount of trolling and debatemebros keep going up each thread and it looks like people are just trying to start drama here now rather than report actual mod abuse. I'm not sure how you could improve this, it seems like every one of these kinds of communities turn into drama communities with people at each other's throats each thread lol. I think temp bans would help for the most egregious offenders, but locking threads after a certain timeframe might be better? Considering the comment threads keep going on and on for some of them.
Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.
Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions from mod(s).
- Provide the cause of the sanction (e.g. the text of the comment).
- Provide the reason given by the mods for the sanction.
- Don't use private communications to prove your point. We can't verify them and they can be faked easily.
- Don't deobfuscate mod names from the modlog with admin powers.
- Don't harass mods or brigade comms. Don't word your posts in a way that would trigger such harassment and brigades.
- Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
- You can post about power trippin' in any social media, not just lemmy. Feel free to post about reddit or a forum etc.
Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.
Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.
Some acronyms you might see.
- PTB - Power-Tripping Bastard: The commenter agrees with you this was a PTB mod.
- YDI - You Deserved It: The commenter thinks you deserved that mod action.
- BPR - Bait-Provoked Reaction: That mod probably overreacted in charged situation, or due to being baited.
- CLM - Clueless mod: The mod probably just doesn't understand how their software works.
Relevant comms
What would that timeframe be though? A week? A month? A day? Ultimately, what would that matter even - why is it bad to respond to something three months later, e.g. asking a follow-up question "was this matter ever resolved - did you manage to get in contact with the admin/mod and what did they say?"
The problem with that approach is that it penalizes people other than the offender (I assume here you mean locking the entire post, not just a comment chain underneath it?), e.g. if you take time to think about the scenario, read it thoroughly, go gather some additional references, type out a reply, and not even necessarily to the person inflaming the conflict but others who happened to respond more quickly, but then bam, your well thought out and crafted message is rejected, bc you did not deliver it quickly enough, and because while you were treating the matter seriously, a flame war was breaking out, but it's not like a chatroom where you can see the messages coming in live?
It makes sense for the people involved in spreading drama to be affected/penalized, but why discourage discourse elsewhere by others in the community? And all the more so the ones delivered more slowly, while allowing the most hot-headed quick replies to go through before the post can be locked.
My suggestion is to warn the user first, and then if they don't comply a 3d ban. Because:
- Cooperative users are quick to comply, even without punishment.
- It helps to show other users the limit of what's considered acceptable in the community.
- When people get really worked up, a single day is not enough.
Trolls are a different can of worms. I think that users who are blatantly trolling should be removed = permabanned; there's no place for those.
[Replying to myself to avoid editing the above again.]
Ah, I propose an explicit rule for this comm: "off-topic is only tolerated if non-divisive, non-derailing, and in the comments". That gives people some room to chitchat, but would do a quick work of "ackshyually u don't have rules against flamewars right".
Well, this is drama heaven because it's for users who aren't legible to post in fedidrama (because they're involved themselves) and then they end up here. And IMO the posts kind of set the tone. You often start out with a negative impression after reading the post, and then you're likely to be negative. And it doesn't help that other comments are negative or low quality as well... Then it's super easy to drop what's left and just shitpost.
I'm not sure if I want to continue reading anyways. It's several posts a day of people whining about something they brought upon themselves. Often something completely insignificant like one removed post/comment or a one day time-out from shitposting. And half the people don't listen or get anything, neither does OP, and the commenters just flame about arbitrary things, or attack each other for their strongly held opinions... I'd say a bit more moderation would be worth a try. But don't listen to me, I'm probably not the target audience of this community.
Is that a thing? That's what used to happen with SubredditDrama like 15 years ago. I wonder if it's the same people.
First, make it a rule. This community is for discussion about moderation, not about whether a cat can be vegan. If you see off-topic discussion, nip it in the bud and remove the comments. If users continue to knowingly violate the rule, progressively longer bans.
It's really not hard to stay on topic and avoid a flame war. I know fighting is stimulating, but sometimes it's better to just put your phone down and walk away.
Tbf, if something were removed for "misinformation", like Russia has invaded Ukraine "for its own good" or whether cats can be vegan, then evaluating whether the mod is acting appropriately or is a PTB depends on those facts?
Though that should not be the focus - as you say the point here is the moderation.
PTB. I should be allowed to be as mean as I want to whoever I want. But make sure you permanently ban everyone who is mean to me because that's bad.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, I’m the only one that people shouldn’t be mean to.
(This is a joke if it wasn’t obvious >.>)
banning people for reporting seems like a way to discourage reporting.
but banning for flaming and trolling sounds reasonable, especially if it's a short ban. even a 6 or 12 hour ban might send the right message.
banning people for reporting seems like a way to discourage reporting.
Is it if they're flooding your feed with nonsense reports? That stuff takes time to sort through, and the time spent sorting through it takes away from other moderation duties.
Besides, if you're only banning excessive reporters like that, aren't you only discouraging people who are actively abusing the report button?
EDIT: to be clear, I mean a temp ban, not permanent one
Do it. But please be self-aware and remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lets not get bogged down in analysis paralysis. Do it, gauge the feedback, adjust, iterate (the beatings will continue until morale improves).
Yes please I need one 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Didn't know about this community, just read the description to understand its title, and I immediately thought that it was going to be a trolling mess. So my first thinking is that you created a banquet for trolls, and now you're dealing with the consequences. Do you have the magic mental power to deal with this?
If yes, then I would make it very clear from the beginning in the rules that uncivil discussion will be moderated, that continuous incivility will lead to a 1-day ban and that attempts to bypass the temporary ban will lead to a permanent ban.
Get ready for motivated trolls spending days creating new accounts to harass your authority, or you, after they have been banned.
We don't have a huge troll problem tbh. Mostly people taking things too personally and seriously
I dont like the idea of banning people for speach that isnt calling for actionable violence.
U could just delete the whole comment thread (from point of off topic onward) for reason "off topic" and that would solve almost everything.
Im not sure how reporting works never done it and nobody has reported anything on the community i mod. But i can see that people would abuse it it an attempt to silence their opposition. I think bans for clearly bad faith reports is fair.
U think people should at least be warned prior to being sent to the sinbin.
Moderator reports are currently not federated with remote Lemmy instances - so with your account being on Lemm.ee and the !news_summary@lemmy.dbzer0.com being on a different instance, whatever reports are being made you are not able to see them. This is only one of the many ways in which moderator tools for Lemmy suck ass atm. Another way is how that list of reports cannot be sorted or filtered in any way, besides resolved yet or not.
I’d rather mod reports not be federated. A lot of mods are power tripping and who the hell wants to earn a reputation as being a problem from some dick head mod across the entire federation?
I know it has downsides but I’d rather things stay decentralized.
None of these already as clear but as you suspects. Neither will simply deleting comments pass uncontested (there's a post in ytpb right now about me doing exactly that) nor is "bad faith reports" obvious to those making them
(there's a post in ytpb right now anoint me doing exactly that)
LOL
I dont like the idea of banning people for speach that isnt calling for actionable violence. // U could just delete the whole comment thread (from point of off topic onward) for reason “off topic” and that would solve almost everything.
Then the flame war continues in another comment chain.
Maybe, but it does serve as a warning to knock it off, so if that happens then a stronger response is warranted next time.
Rather than going straight to bans (except for egregious trolling, or repeat offenders) I think that maybe removing off-topic discussion threads in their entirety is probably the way to go. If they are discussing something that isn't directly related to the OPs original complaint, then it's off topic imo. That would cover 90% of the problem. Personally, I don't mind some strong language and argumentation so long as it's about the actual topic. While I know drama isn't everyone's jam, it can be entertaining for some folks. And I agree with @neurospice@lemmy.dbzer0.com that maybe a 24 hour or 48 hour post lock rule would also be helpful so people aren't going back to dredge up drama again in older posts, while still allowing time for folks to discuss the issue?
The problem is that people don't have agree with what is "directly related". Just see the point about PTB in ytpb
Tiny one-day bans are barely a slap on the wrist, which some people need to help them cool off. The usual caveats apply like perhaps driver a warning first and all of that, but obviously depending on severity you may not want to wait for that to develop further, at which point a quick ban along with explanation should at least, again, allow them the time they need to cool down.
You'd be surprised how seriously people take even a 1-day ban. There's a lot of ND people in these comms who feel passionately about their position, and you can easily hit someone with RSD or with ASD and get a bad reaction. I try to tread lightly because I know how these peeps can be affected but it cannot always be helped unless people have already internalized you're not trying to power-tip but to maintain civility.
Does Lemmy provide a council/consensus type voting system on bans? How do you arbitrate it by yourself on what is or isn't "rudeness" or "trolling"?
Imo let downvotes and reports sort it out, instead of being proactive, until there is a multi-headed arbitration system in place.
Being mean to someone else because of what they said is fine, unless someone threatens someone or is mean because they're discriminating
I generally allows some of level of hostility, but when it gets to the point of the just trolling and insults I think it's time to pause
If its just insults, let the community deal with it with downvotes. No need to get ban happy for something like this.
I disagree. Downvotes don't have any effect and I don't follow a complete hands off approach
Downvotes affect the algorithm of comments that are displayed. They do have an effect.
I'm not saying to be hands off. Definitely you should ban accounts who post misinformation or racism, for example. But bans for "being mean" is an overstep of your privileges.
My privileges are what I say they are. There's no natural law on how to run a comm. 😅
It kind of reads like you posted this as a question then accepted no feedback and pushed back on anyone with a different view. Not saying that's what's actually happening, it's only been a few hours, but you've responded exclusively negatively in these comments.
The fact is that I haven't responded to most comments because they make good points. There's nothing to argue against good points. I'm not going to go around saying "good point" to everyone
Good point, sir!
If the issue is too many reports and we're just letting people fly, then the reports won't stop coming. Downvotes don't stop repeat responders. It will just be a chain of 100 back and forth comments reporting each other.
The downvotes don't stop how many pointless reports the mod has to sort through, do they?