Edit 2025-01-13: LW has indicated they will be clarifying these rules soon. In the mean time, the community will remain locked until those are updated and deemed acceptable.
So the LW Team put out an announcement on new, site-wide moderation policy (see post link). I’ve defended, to many a downvote, pretty much every major decision they’ve made, but I absolutely cannot defend this one. In short, mods are expected to counter pretty much every batshit claim rather than mod it as misinformation, trolling, attack on groups, etc.
My rebuttal (using my main account) to the announcement: https://dubvee.org/comment/3541322
We’re going to allow some “flat earth” comments. We’re going to force some moderators to accept some “flat earth” comments. The point of this is that you should be able to counter those comments with words, and not need moderation/admin tools to do so.
(emphases mine)
Me: What if, to use the recent example from Meta, someone comes into a LGBT+ community and says they think being gay is a mental illness and /or link some quack study? Is that an attack on a group or is it “respectful dissent”?
LW: A lot of attacks like that are common and worth refuting once in awhile anyway. It can be valuable to show the response on occasion
I understand what they’re trying to address here (highly encourage you to read the linked post), but the way they’re going about it is heavy handed and reeks of “both sides”-ing every community, removing agency from the community moderators who work like hell to keep these spaces safe and civil, and opening the floodgates for misinformation and “civil” hate speech. How this new policy fits with their Terms of Service is completely lost to me.
I’ll leave the speculation as to whether Musk dropped LW a big check as an exercise to the reader.
For now, this community is going dark in protest and I encourage other communities who may disagree with this new policy to join. Again, I understand the problem that is trying to be addressed, but this new policy, as-written, is not the way to do it.
Just unlock it already, no one gives a shit about your drama with the admins. If you can’t deal with it, move to another instance.
!unpopular@hilariouschaos.com Guess I’ll switch to here. Better a dead community than one held hostage by some power mod.
FYI HilariousChaos is starting to gain a reputation for being “ExplodingHeads reincarnated”
If it’s already dead, why not just make your own community on your instance?
Better a dead community than one held hostage by some power mod.
Ironically, that’s probably unpopular
What happended to “Don’t feed the trolls”? I thought it’s shared expirience that giving attention to trolls like that only gives them motivation to keep on going. Ignoring them is the only way to stop them from spamming.
Well I suppose it’s a good thing .world isn’t the entirety of lemmy.
It is particularly egregious that they decided the flat earth thing was the example they were going to run with. We don’t need to refute it every time a dunce brings it up and it’s nobody’s job to attempt educating the willfully ignorant. If the counter opinion is a thoroughly dead horse that’s been beaten into paste, we collectively expect that to get downvoted and or moderated if it’s actively harmful.
True the admin should’ve used a different example
nice job OP genuinely appreciate your expression of discontent and it seems like it might be successful too
“Communities should not be overly moderated in order to enforce a specific narrative. Respectful disagreement should be allowed in a smaller proportion to the established narrative.”
It looks extremely reasonable to be honest
I was waiting for something like this to happen. I’m not surprised it happened to world, mainly because it ended up as default.
Why not just migrate to another instance? Have you forgotten that we are in the fediverse? This is a good opportunity to move communities to other instances.
I explained that in another comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/14408131
It’s not that easy for some of us. I’m using the voyager app on iOS. Otherwise I have no idea or technical knowledge to get on Lemmy. I don’t know how to change instances and keep what I’ve subscribed to
If you go to the settings (on the website, not in an app) there’s an import/export settings on that page. Save your settings to a file. Then, create an account on a new instance and import that file. Note that you will get subs and blocklist and all that, but your comment history will not follow you.
I don’t use the website. I wouldn’t even know where to go. That’s the problem with Lemmy and the fediverse. I’m not some tech pleeb. I could figure it out, I’m sure, but it’s not where I can just open an opp therefore it’s not something I will do and Lemmy will never supplant Reddit because of that
Lemmy will never supplant Reddit because of that
There’s a lot to unpack here.
You don’t need to change the instance of your account to subscribe to any (with the exception of defederated communitys’ instances) community. You simply need to subscribe to the unpopular opinion community in, for example, lemm.ee instead of the one in lemmy.world. You should’ve figured this out by now, with some communities having a
@<instance>at the end in their names.That’s not how the app works and shows things. That seems more like desktop stuff which is not something to do. I can already subscribe to anything I want, I just don’t know what I can write since I’ve randomly been banned or muted without comment and I understand it’s because of the bullshit moderators I’m on. Someone had to tell me I was on world and now I see it by going to my settings. Otherwise everything looks like and works like Reddit in the app
I’m using Voyager and I’m amazed you’ve managed to get as far as leaving multiple comments while pretending it doesn’t make Lemmy functionality like instances clear
How can one get this far into the fediverse while being so ignorant of it & unwilling to learn the basics so hard?
How can one get this far into the fediverse while being so ignorant of it & unwilling to learn the basics so hard?
Was that really necessary?
Yup
I’d say no if this guy wasn’t here for almost a year. He also didn’t even know what his account’s instance was until someone told him. Apparently Voyager never made the instance of a community or user visible in the app, so he was unaware of instances.
New people are good and all, but I really dislike ones that don’t even try to learn the absolute basics of the platform they are going to use.
My personal motto: there are no stupid questions, but there are many inquisitive idiots.
Maybe the other person was just being willfully obtuse to score a “point” in the debate they thought they were having. It’s weird but you see people double down all the time once they’ve stated decided their argument.
Yeah I decided to move off of lemmy.world recently. Seems like they’ve been making a lot of bad decisions.
This is the way.
But seriously, Please! I’m a frequent poster and every time I have to post to lemmy.world, I just assume it’ll be blocked/removed.
Enjoy SJW!
Am I missing something or is this policy change to combat the tankie mods who are just banning left and right for anything that doesn’t match the tankie narrative?
As I understand it, yes, that is the intent of the policy. However, as-written and presumably as it is to be enforced for all mods LW-wide, it has wide-reaching implications with worse side-effects.
Basically, the proper tool is a scalpel and they brought out a machete.
Fair enough. I hear where you’re coming from. Is there an alternative that stops the little fiefdoms that you have in mind?
Genuine, open question because I do feel like something has to be done about the ban happy gang.
My stance has always been keep the server/instance rules generic / non-micromanaging and let the communities do what they do (so long as they’re in compliance with the generic server rules). That’s pretty much been LW’s stance until yesterday.
Re: fiefdoms
Many times I’ve seen new communities spring up as alternatives and people slowly (sometimes rapidly) moved over organically. That’s one of the big benefits to the Fediverse. My experience has been that, letting the Fediverse do what it does, the problems will generally sort themselves out as bad mods/instances are identified and avoided with alternatives springing up to fill the gap.
Niiice
Hell yeah! I’m with you on this one. Maybe I should start intentionally brigading communities and start spewing fascist bullshit just so they can see how dumb this rule is
I’m with you in spirit, but I can’t and won’t endorse that kind of behavior (not even saying that to cover my ass; I’m truly against it).
However, should that occur organically (and it will), feel free to shine a “I told you so” spotlight onto it.
Admirable admiralpatrick
But @GrammarPolice@lemmy.world you already do that.
Why are you on my ass bro?
Brother*
Ain’t no way you just correct bro to ‘brother’
They’re literally just asking mods to wield their power like a surgical scalpel and not a cudgel and actually do more than see a triggering keyword or phrase and instantly dropping the ban hammer based on a knee-jerk reaction.
Someone who is misinformed saying something that is incorrect doesn’t mean they should be banned for spreading misinformation. There has to be intent behind it.
Someone saying they wish so and so would drop dead shouldn’t instantly warrant a ban for “inviting violence” if it’s not an actual, credible, serious call for organized violence.
I don’t really expect that shit to change, regardless. Most people who create a community, volunteer to moderate or even administrate a whole ass server, do so because they want to set the rules and run things their way.
TLDR;
- LW policy perspective --> I agree on balance
- LW enforcing it on all LW communities --> I disagree as it is not necessary, but it’s their instance, so…
- Fediverse strength --> Move your community to another instance. I’ll susbscribe if you do.
I can see both sides.
On the one hand, history is replete with popular opinions that were later shown to be incorrect. One of the reasons I chose to move to Lemmy was the inherent resistance of the fediverse to the enforcement of a particular narrative, and the inherent potential for respectful discussion and debate. As long as people remain respectful, my inclination is to leave up content that I disagree with. Please note, it has to be respectful, not merely polite.
On the other hand, there’s no shortage of evidence that deliberate misinformation remains a threat in online communities. This is why we implemented no astroturfing and no sealioning rules in the larger community I help mod.
Holding these two competing thoughts, I think that points of view that run (edit: contrary) to the current scientific understanding should not be removed provided that the quantity is limited, it’s respectful and it’s not-harmful. But that’s just my perspective, and how we handle it in the communities I mod. The beauty of the fediverse is that I also have no problems with someone setting up a competing community that takes a much less tolerant perspective and has a rule that participation is conditional on agreement to certain perspectives.
Hello,
I think that points of view that run to the current scientific understanding should not be removed provided that the quantity is limited, it’s respectful and it’s not-harmful.
Sorry to ask for clarification here, but would that mean that flat hearters could ask people why they think Earth is a globe on !asklemmy@lemmy.world ?
As you have worded it, I would be fine with that question provided they were respectful, and weren’t obviously sealioning or astroturfing. It would be thought/discussion provoking, open ended, and they might just end up reevaluating their beliefs as a consequence.
The comments might get spicy, but that’s what mods are for.
I’m mostly with you, though with a much more strict stance against allowing misinformation/conspiracy/etc. On that:
The beauty of the fediverse is that I also have no problems with someone setting up a competing community that takes a much less tolerant perspective and has a rule that participation is conditional on agreement to certain perspectives.
That’s what this new moderation policy abolishes: That competing community is now apparently required to platform misinformation, propaganda, et al while also being more or less required to spend time refuting every claim lest it stand unchallenged. As I said in the announcement post, it’s holding the doors open and saying “no, after you” to gish-galloping the mods and platforming every crackpot conspiracy, propaganda, “civil” hate speech, etc so long as they’re civil and not spamming it.
Yeah, the Fediverse allows for “just moving to another instance” but for the largest Lemmy instance to force a “both sides” stance on its entirety is a slap in the face.
Vote manipulation is common in Lemmy. While the actor described in that post has changed tactics (and that post barely scratched the surface), they certainly did not stop. All they need to do is boost the misinformation and downvote the rebuttals when previously, the misinformation would just be correctly modded.
though with a much more strict stance against allowing misinformation/conspiracy/etc
Facts are sacred and freedom of speech is not a freedom to lie.
I am all for moderating outright lies. I am strongly against mods removing views they disagree with under the pretence of “trolling” or other made up reason.
@admiralpatrick@lemmy.world , seems like the LW admins changed their decision: https://lemmy.world/post/24135976
There will be a new announcement soon to clarify.
That’s good news (hopefully). Thanks!
Will keep an eye out, but community is remaining locked until the clarifications are published and deemed acceptable.
Sounds good!
Wow, why the change of policy now of all times?
