this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
728 points (97.9% liked)

Technology

60052 readers
2774 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 228 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (8 children)

FYI - the owner of this site, gamingonlinux, was a mod on the [email protected] community until they were caught abusing their moderator powers. Then they deleted their account and complained on mastodon that it's stupid design that mod logs are public.

[–] [email protected] 124 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

That's one of the things I love in lemmy. Moderation transparency.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I’m boosting this and the screenshots too, but just thought I’d point out for quick scrollers that it does not seem as dramatic as this comment initially lets you believe.

I mean it’s awkward, but just seems more like your usual social awkwardness/incompetence than malicious behavior as such.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 months ago

I agree that the main interaction was mild, but if they were willing to go this far to try to hide this, then that shows how low the bar is for them to try to manipulate things to their favor and liking with the trust that was given them as a moderator.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Look at the screenshots few comments down. That was a shitty mod. They can have those back at reddit.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What does this comment mean. No other communities have bad moderators?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Oh they absolutely do, but ml has a reputation for being particularly poorly moderated

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

And it's a behaviour that stems from the admins who'll ban users from the entire instance if they disagree with their opinions.

It's the only instance I have blocked at my account level so I don't see their communties.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you have any sources for this?

[–] [email protected] 69 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Deleted comment:

I called them out for not following their own community rules:

Please be nice to other members. Anyone not being nice will be banned. Keep it fun, respectful and just be awesome to each other.

and they deleted their account.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

What was wrong with them removing your comment? You were being annoying 🤷‍♂️

Their response seemed perfectly measured to someone being needlessly pedantic.

Edit: And also Shuts down? Did you miss the 'down'? Was the title edited after the fact? What does the rest of that modlog say? The screenshot is cropped.

My perspective is you were being annoying, got downvoted/called out, feigned shock, got your comments removed, and now you're on a bitter smear campaign.

This is the weakest accusation of mod abuse I've seen. Good grief.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (19 children)

Yes, their comment was extremely annoying, both in tone (whining) and content (TL;DR: "pls spoonfeed me basic reading comprehension"). If the mod simply removed the comment, or issued an official warning, it would be 100% warranted.

However, what the non-mod user is saying ITT about moderator abuse is still spot on. The mod in question answered to the whining in tone, tried to cover their own arse with content removal, and then went to whine in Mastodon about the events, or the fact that there's transparency functionality in Lemmy (the mod log) against the exact same behaviour that they showed there.

So it's a case where both sides were wrong but given their relative positions the mod being wrong is a bigger deal.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (7 children)

I agree with you, but what does a moderator do once they engage with the user other than remove the whole interaction? They deleted the whole thread, not just their opposition.

Seems like the the whining on mastadon about transparency was more because this guy is following them around harrassing them via public modlog screenshots, when on any other forum it wouldn't even matter... unless it actually mattered.

In this situation, my view is OP made a mess, pissed jannie added to the mess, OP feigned shock, pissed jannie thought better and cleaned the mess up.

Yet OP here is still trying to stir the pot like the mod was silencing their opinion or something. It was a worthless comment.

edit: oh my god he's been copypasting this for months LMAO I'm done. God.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I agree with you, but what does a moderator do once they engage with the user other than remove the whole interaction?

You think before engaging. And if you fuck it up, you apologise to the community (not to that specific user) for what you've done wrong. But unless the content is sensitive (for example, the other user posted something illegal), you keep it alone, at most you lock it.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I would ban 24 hours and continue with life.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (17 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Pointlessly snarky comments are one of the worst parts of Reddit and Lemmy and I fully support mods putting a stop to that. I guess the important part is to be transparent about it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

But if it was transparent you wouldnt be able to see it

Now that I've willfully misrepresented what you said, I am eager for your reply so i can pointlessly be an asshole about it!

/assholesnark.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

"Annoying" is subjective, and there is no rule against being perceived as being "annoying" in the community rules.

The only rule is to be respectful, which they did not follow at all, then tried to hide it.

Response to edit: yes, it was edited after it was brought up. The modlog is public, there's no need for me to try to hide anything like they tried to do. If you're going to try to give me shit for that, why do they get a free pass?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (12 children)

Nothing they did appears to have negatively altered the quality of the comments or discussion.

Respect is also subjective. Your initial post seemed to be mocking and disrespectful for no apparent reason. I'd argue the comment section is more respectful with your remarks gone.

Objectively, it appears they were right to delete their account. You're stalking posts mentioning their site and complaining about this nothing burger.

I would also distance myself from pedantic harrassers and focus on literally anything else productive if I were them.

load more comments (12 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The "down" was definitely edited after the fact.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

You're definitely right. But without any sort of context, just the screengrab with the title corrected, it makes OPs rant seem even more pointless.

It could have been one word if they were genuinely confused: "...Shuts?"

Or if they were smart enough to realize it was an error:

"There's a word missing..."

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Thanks! Not quite as wild as I was expecting (kind of surprised this was enough to push them to delete their account)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Mod abuse is mod abuse, regardless of the level. They clearly felt embarrassed for needlessly being mean and getting caught for it after trying to hide the fact.

Then they tried to excuse it on their mastodon.

If they're willing to go through all that for something so minor, they would absolutely be willing to do the same to hide worse behavior.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Probably decided “fuck this” and quit volunteering instead of dealing with drama llamas.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not gonna lie he was right about the shuts thing. It's not a common phrasing but totally legit and you did seem kinda dickish when you pointed it out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Pointing something out is not inherently being a dick. It did not warrant the response, particularly a response that clearly breaks the rules of the community they were trusted with the responsibility to manage.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It was snarky. Some people interpret it as rudeness. He's still a shithead for sure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

No snark was intended, but I can see why people could interpret it poorly. I won't claim to be perfect at communicating over Lemmy comments.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

Fuck that guy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

I really dislike that guy. I was interested in his website but lost interest because of him. I already forgot why I started disliking him. But this just adds to that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You seem very hurt about that one interaction you had with him months ago. If you're gonna comment that under every gamingonlinux article you'll have a lot to do.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

All moderators should be assumed to be abusers. Acab

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well yeah that's why the mod log is public. It's a feature not a bug

load more comments (1 replies)