this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
131 points (100.0% liked)

Like 196 but with more letters.

28 readers
243 users here now

This community only has one rule.

Rule: You must post before you leave.

founded 16 hours ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm kinda regretting not naming it oneninesix, but here we are. I guess I love letters.

To anyone wondering what's up, I did this on my phone while out in the "big city", so I'm still waiting to get home to do anything serious. I have a few ~~suckers~~ really nice people who volunteered for modding along with me. Anyone else who is interested, drop me a line. I'll be picking mods when I get home in a few hours. Sorry for the wait and I'll do my best to put out any fires in the meantime. I didn't think this would take off!

For those wondering, here's my take on moderating the place.

  1. Moderation is to facilitate an experience for its users in line with the goals of the community and the instance. It's not to push a personal agenda, give you a bigger hammer in debates, set up a digital fiefdom, etc. You certainly can and should include your mod experience on your dating profile, though. Unilateral decisions are not cool except in a few situations, like if 100% of your userbase is usurped by literal Nazis.

  2. 196 exists to be a place where you post something (often but not always something goofy) when you visit. I know not everyone does and that's fine - I still love you. These things can't be offensive or hurtful, though, especially not intentionally so. Unintentional vs intentional I believe is a HUGE distinction and needs to be considered when moderating.

  3. ~~LBJ~~ LBZ exists as an inclusive, (relatively) judgment-free zone for gender-diverse folks. I intend for us to uphold that here. I say relatively judgment free because there will be people looking to start shit and mods and admins are going to have to judge their actions, but only their actions.

If you wanna be my modder, you gotta get with my bullet points...or argue persuasively why I should amend them (but that part doesn't fit the tune).The three big things I'm looking for otherwise are diverse viewpoints, if you can remain reasonably impartial, and if you can say you're sorry. The last is huge for me. As a mod, you're going to mess up. I used to mod on Reddit and I certainly did! I find it's important for maintaining the community's respect to be able to admit when you made a bad call and what you'll do to avoid it in the future.

@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone, pointers would be welcome as I think you do a great job.

Community feedback is encouraged and welcome, just be aware I'll be a little slow to respond for a bit.

PS: wow, I really DO love letters!

Edit: Corrected point three, damn autocorrect! Believe it or not, we're not an inclusive community in LBJ's corpse.

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[–] nimpnin@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 minutes ago

Lemmy UI shows this as 196@lbz in the feed which is amazing UX xd

[–] C4RC0S4@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 24 minutes ago

trans lover of memes and progressive politics here!

I would love to help out Blahaj Zone Logo

[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 1 points 29 minutes ago* (last edited 23 minutes ago)

I vow to make this comm 1000% more trans and leftist if appointed mod 🤓

I am in cahoots with the international trans mafia. I will not show anyone any quarter. (I already mod shit on here)

[–] C4RC0S4@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

Yay thank you so much for taking this on!

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] darvit@lemmy.darvit.nl 1 points 31 minutes ago

Congratz on mod!

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 hours ago

I think we should use the same picture we used in R*ddit as community icon.

[–] WrittenInRed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

One rule I think might be a good idea is that mods aren't allowed to moderate their own posts/comment chains. Not that it's really been an issue on 196 in the past afaik, but there are some communities where the mods will get into an argument with another user and then remove comments for incivility or a similar rule which obviously has massive potential for abuse. Assuming there are enough mods where it's not an issue to do so (which seems very likely based on the number of people interested in moderating) preventing situations like that entirely seems beneficial.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 hours ago

I cannot agree more. Good call, I appreciate the input.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 32 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

The canonical name being written out in words makes sense if you or Ada didn't want to take over the existing community (which IMO would have been preferable). But I would strongly prefer that the display names of both communities make it clear which it is. So !196 would become "196 (archive)" and !onehundredandninetysix should just display "one hundred and ninety six", or at least "196 (new)". This is just so it's very clear at a glance, regardless of where in the UI you're seeing it, which community you're looking at, and helps differentiate it visually from the LW one.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 5 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Do you not see the instance name after it? For me, it shows up as "196@lemmy.blahaj.zone", which makes it distinct from "196@lemmy.world". It doesn't need to be distinct from the old one, because they locked that one to new posts.

I agree that it would have been much better if we could have just taken over the old 196@lbz but here we are.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 12 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

!onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone and !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone show up as similar in a few menus as they rely on display names and not ID

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

That's the main problem, definitely. A secondary problem is that in some places it might show the instance name, but it's not quite as prominent as the community name. So it takes a second longer to figure out which one you want. If that second can be entirely removed by one easy change, even if it is only one second, that's a good thing to me.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Nah I think this is a mod thing, not an admin thing. That's why I was suggesting the display name be "196 (new)" or "one hundred and ninety six". I'd now add "one nine six" to the list, that could be good. Though the one with 196 would be the most searchable, since then you can search either by text or by number.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I was thinking about editing the old one as "196 locked"

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 points 9 hours ago

Oh right. Yeah admin help on that one would be good.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

That depends HIGHLY on which app/client you are using and in what context you are viewing it.

Sometimes display name is all that shows.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 1 points 8 hours ago

Fair enough; I only use Lemmy on a computer, so I'm not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the various apps.

[–] Cornflake@pawb.social 3 points 7 hours ago

Hell yeah, let's make it happen, folks!

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 4 points 7 hours ago

Hello, drag will volunteer. Drag can confidently say drag is a very diverse voice, and isn't worried about policing other people for any personal agenda. Drag didn't like c/196 because the mods there thought they should ban people for advocating violence against Nazis. Drag would like to help build a community where those left wing viewpoints are more accepted. And don't worry, drag has no desire to silence conflicting viewpoints. Just to create a space where everyone can shitpost safely. Drag can say sorry, too.

Drag is going to post a meme to the community now.

[–] fxomt@lemm.ee 3 points 7 hours ago

Hello, i wouldn't mind modding 196 along with you all. However i am not trans, so i may not be the best choice.

In any way, thanks for creating this and good luck with it 🤠

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 10 hours ago

Feels like it should have been 197 😅

[–] GuyFi@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 11 hours ago

Literally didn't know there was a blahaj 196, and now you guys are my entire feed lol. Love this fediverse lore

Also if you read this I wish you a wonderfully fulfilling day

[–] will_steal_your_username@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

You could always just copy the old 196 rules. They work pretty well.

I wrote these rules for a venting room on the blåhaj matrix, perhaps they could be of some inspiration here. A venting room on a different medium will have very different needs of course from a community like this.

Rules

User rules

  • Assume others have good intentions. Strive to keep this a safe space to vent.
  • Tangents are allowed, but the primary purpose of the room is venting.
  • Don't respond to vents if the venter does not wish to be interacted with. You can mark a vent with /dni to signify this.
  • Keep mature vents in 18+ rooms if possible. Use https://trggr.link/ if such rooms are unavailable.
  • Censor/spoiler sensitive issues and provide content warnings as appropriate. https://trggr.link/ is an excellent way to censor something. Some clients support surrounding text in || on either side of it to censor it like this: ||spoilered text||. Some clients may have a spoiler command: /spoiler spoilered text.

Issues you probably should spoiler: Slurs, racism, ableism, bigotry, suicide, self harm, abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, blood and gore.

Moderator rules

  • Use a gentle hand, don't reprimand!
  • Assume good intentions.
  • When moderating, use DMs or moderator rooms for anything beyond single-comment moderation and for anything serious.
  • Don't leave moderated users in the dark regarding issues they are directly involved in.
  • Warn, then kick, then temp-ban, then perma-ban (avoid), in that order, when dealing with non-compliant users and serious infractions. Skip steps if necessary for larger infractions.
  • Users may appeal your decisions and some arguing should be tolerated. Attempt to deescalate when this happens. Harassing you however is never okay.
  • If you feel yourself become angry at or get a bad relationship with a user you are moderating then pass on the issue to another mod if they are available.
  • Take care of yourself. You are moderating voluntarily after all.

Proper guidelines for moderators is probably key, and then for users a quick summary of the purpose of the community is important, followed by any additions to the instance rules.

[–] Gork@lemm.ee 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Ahem. Can I propose a dumb rule in the spirit of the community's name?

  • All numbers shall be written out in full here.

One hundred and ninety six.

Two thousand twenty five.

The Kessel Run can be run in less than twelve parsecs.

The universe was made thirteen point six billion years ago and was widely considered a bad move.

[–] erotador@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 11 hours ago

if i have any feedback then i would say that we need some proper rules in place, yeah we can just default to the instance rules but i think having some solid set of rules for moderators and users alike to follow would be a good idea. if you need help modding im interested.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 5 points 10 hours ago

Can a rule be "fuck spez"?

Oh wait, we don't need something so obvious.:-)

[–] sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 11 hours ago

I'm willing to help with moderation if needed

[–] TheCoolerMia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I have a few ~~suckers~~ really nice people who volunteered for modding along with me.

r those the people I mentioned in my post or r there even more?

I didn't think this would take off!

yeh the community has been specially active today to make sure the new 196 grows apparently X3 I knew thatd happen the moment I saw the migration post in the old 196 tho, I love this community :3

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 hours ago

r those the people I mentioned in my post or r there even more?

Yep, yours and more. I'm vetting people that chimed in and am pretty sure my wife thinks I've finally gone mad.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 8 points 11 hours ago