This was in Lemmy world politics.
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2024
461 points (94.9% liked)
Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
477 readers
24 users here now
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
founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
FlyingSquid has a tendency to threaten moderator action in response to arguments they're heavily involved in, which often comes off as a last-ditch effort to 'win'.
Well, that's not ideal. Have they actually taken action on it, though? If it's just getting heated in an argument, that definitely seems not as bad as handing out bans for misspelling "Palestinian" or talking about jury nullification.
I got a three day temp ban after providing examples and further context disproving their arguments.
Usually I think they aren't that bad, but they do sometimes lose their cool on sensitive subjects.
You're talking about the exchange featuring your statements "The victim gave consent (as far as a 12-year old can do that of course). She in fact started self-harming because he got convicted and still does not regret or feel bad about the encounter." and "According to the case notes, the attraction was mutual. He did not have to coerce her, by her own statements. It's why he wasn't convicted of grooming. Seriously, do at least a modicum of research." Right? That's the only time I see that anyone moderated you. Also, it wasn't FlyingSquid that gave you that ban. They were just arguing with you, and then I think someone else banned you for your statements.
Here's what Wikipedia says about Steven van de Velde:
This is, to me, yet another example of FlyingSquid doing absolutely nothing wrong, and then people spreading rumors about how they're terrible.
Hmm, I must have misread the modlog then. I thought I swore I got a message from them stating I was banned.
Just to clarify (without getting into it any further), that guy was convicted for rape (never disputed that) but explicitly cleared of the grooming charge, because there was nothing in their exchanged messages that suggested grooming at all. The broader argument was that this guy is definitely a total fucking idiot who should have known so much better, but he didn't have the characteristics of some precalculating serial child rapist or something. The case details is also why he was convicted of a lesser charge in the Netherlands. He took all the necessary steps (therapy, avoiding solo contact with kids despite being cleared by therapists, etc...) to avoid this from happening again. I challenged his "irredeemability" that was present in that thread, which is a very accepted view in the Netherlands but not so abroad. Possibly because whilst Dutch sources have a lot of the details of the case, the English sources are much less in-depth.
I don't really have any other grievances against FS btw. They can be a bit headstrong and combative at times, but I don't know much else about them.
For what it's worth, I don't think you should receive a temp ban for those statements. I think you are wrong, but I don't think we need to remove every wrong statement from the comments to keep them as "correct" comments only. I think people can say things, and we can just all talk to each other, and it's okay. There are some things that I think should be banned from the comments: Misrepresenting why you are saying what you're saying, or deliberately egging on a confrontation, or using multiple accounts to create a false consensus. But almost any real individual who's just saying what they think and why, I think is okay.
The point that I'm making about FlyingSquid is that the way you told the story was that you argued with them, you were right and they were wrong and you demonstrated that with evidence, and then they banned you. Then, looking into the facts, nothing remotely similar to that happened in any respect. That's the pattern I've consistently seen about people who are critical of FlyingSquid's moderation. I don't know why that is, although I have a theory that because they are generally on point about moderating certain types of toxic individuals, there's a whisper campaign by certain toxic individuals trying to paint them as some particular type of bad moderator even if the facts don't support it.
It's not even all that hard to misconstrue some event that happened into some huge malicious deal that it isn't, as you just discovered.
I wonder if perhaps FS has a higher tendency to use the report button, triggering moderator action more often than average? Even if it's justified it could create the appearance that comments in discussion with him are removed more often than average.
Perhaps it would help if the mod log was more visible, e.g. if a comment gets deleted and the user banned, it could show the given reason and the moderator's handle for transparency.
FS has a bad habit of engaging in fruitless arguments, often devolving into outright flamewars.
Haven't seen any questionable mod action myself and I tend to think any objections spring from these, though I do think it's a behaviour unbecoming a moderator.
It's usually just best to stop engaging.
Yes, absolutely. If you support all your claims with good sources, maintain a civil demeanour, and clearly hold the superior argument he will go through your entire history to find something, anything, to justify action no matter how irrelevant or ancient the reason.
Can you give an example?
If you're that interested just go through his comment history. He's not shy about doing the same in his comments. Usually it is just a thinly veiled threat.
Edit: Found a good example
That's not really handing out a ban, though. That was my question on "taking action" about it. Talking in comments is different.
I'm curious to see if this is in response to him "losing" the argument, or if it's in response to someone being personally hostile to him, and him pointing out that if they're doing that to other people they may get moderated for it. Most of what I've been seeing that is summarized as the first thing is actually the second thing.
Check the mod log. I'm sure the user had something done to them. He's that petty.
What you're saying sounds to me a bit like one can break community rules if mods won't notice right away. If community rules were broken, I don't think it matters much if it happened right now or earlier. Besides, I would also expect that someone breaking the rules will not argue in good faith.
So, to me this example doesn't prove what you imply.
Nah, you assume the unreported 'transgressions' were valid to begin with despite the fact he outright admits he went digging for something. It's obviously looking for an excuse to get back at someone. Regardless, even the appearance of childish behaviour by mods taints their community and it is disappointing how desperate people are to excuse someone with such a glaringly apparent pattern of abuse.
I'm not sure if they actually have. I know they've publicly called people out for reports which isn't great, and have made threats based on reporting content multiple times, something that isn't possible in lemmy, the content in question at the time was spam.
Yeah, that's the one un-called for message I talked about. It's not ideal but everyone swears there are all these examples of FlyingSquid doing much worse, and then if I ask for examples, it's either that one message, backpedaling from the earlier claims, or else it's something that when I look at it is a wild mischaracterization of something perfectly reasonable.