As a newly-appointed moderator myself, I think “customer service representatives curating a space” is going a little too far. I see myself more as a janitor taking out the trash while doing my best to leave all the art alone, whether I like it or not.
Stay Gold ponyboy, stay Gold
And sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
What do you do when that happens? What guides do you look to?
To me it’s exactly the type of services a customer service representative would provide.
In my personal experience, the people I see posting to !modabuse@lemmy.sdf.org deserved the actions the mods took, and are looking to whine to someone.
It’s a very mixed bag, dependently largely on the personal views of the moderators at-large relative to the speakers. For the most part, the mods at .world seem egalitarian and amicable to liberalish dissenting views. We haven’t seen a slew of censorship/bannings over arguments about veganism or Israel/Palestine or capitalism vs socialism.
But the “y’all deserve to get banned” mentality is largely tied up in the idea that their ideas are bad for being outside the spectrum of your allowable discourse. Meanwhile, a community like .ml or Truth Social doing a censorship/ban on content is morally repugnant because its limiting conversations that are inside the spectrum of your allowable discourse.
The technical mechanics of these communities are the same, everyone’s just arguing where the lines should be drawn.
Not to be that guy, but exactly what kind of conversation are we supposed to have with fascists and people openly calling for an end to both your and my liberties?
Ideas are debatable, but there’s no debating that we all deserve to live and to exist. But I’ve ever only encountered far too many people from the right openly calling for the opposite of that. My own existence to them is offensive and worthy of murder. I want to have no conversation with such people, but you seem to be willing to tolerate that for the sake of “just having a conversation”.
what kind of conversation are we supposed to have with fascists and people openly calling for an end to both your and my liberties?
Depends heavily on who you’re dealing with. Obviously, very hard to talk to a cop in the middle of cracking your skull open. But a lot of Americans are polarized into fascism through mass media and other forms of propaganda. You have to talk to them like you’d talk to anyone else. And you have to get them disconnected from the fascist media stream as best you can.
It’s less about a specific conversation and more about building trust relative to their mass media of choice. No single thing you say is going to outweigh a daily dose of right wing agitprop. So divorcing people from that mass media has to be the first step, either by keying them in on how and why the network is uncomfortable to listen to or by engaging them with alternatives.
there’s no debating that we all deserve to live and to exist.
The fascist theory is, at it’s heart, that egalitarian coexistence is impossible. You are in a tribal war of domination and you either win or you die.
The counter has to be evidence to the contrary. Introducing friends and family to people who are “the enemy” but are clearly no threat. Reminding them of who they’re being asked to reject.
A majority sure but probably not too much beyond 60%. There’s a lot of pretty evident bad behavior on the mods side
Happy cake day!
Thanks!
No, they’re usually just power tripping. When certain people get even a modicum of power, real or imagined, they become full-on dictators at superluminal velocities. There’s some crossover with powerless people seeking revenge on the world at large (or any piece of it) for their misfortune or flights against them, real or imagined. I don’t have any data on the ratios but my gut instinct wild-ass guess is that at least 25-33% fall into the tinpot tyrant category.
I imagine that phenomenon is similar to how super sheltered kids become the wildest teenagers/young adults (whichever age they are when they first get a taste of freedom.) Like how people with newfound freedom often party hard with it, people who’ve never been in a position of power before can easily take their new authority too far.
Totally not excusing it. It’s not some inevitable “human nature” thing. There are good parents, teachers, and others in positions of authority that take their responsibility to others seriously. They’re the ones that allow some modicum of function in society.
But those who seek power for its own sake are going to be ruthless about it. Then once someone has power, it’s extremely difficult for them to let it go.
As a head CSR for my job : no mod I’ve ever seen is anything close to providing customer service and it’s hilarious that you’d even think that in passing
Sounds like I was doing customer service before you were born.
Do we count ‘nametag’ jobs of the late '80s? If so, then I’m in!
You see us as customers, by your own words. So much for community. Trying to misplace and simplify the situation using this metaphor this way is basically also another way of justifying not even ostracization, but autocracies as communities.
I see myself as a customer.
Would you agree that banning/censoring is a form of suppression rather than oppression?
Nope, I think curat3d spaces should be allowed to exsist. Suppression would only exist if you owned a space and it was being squelched by an outside organization.
So, purely hypothetically, you would be fine with a curator deleting / omitting a fact because it goes against the narrative they are driving?
Interesting… personally I’d
beforeprefer (edit - damn predictive) to read a truth I disliked than to continue believing erroneous information; but that’s just me.I’m fine with it, but me personally, am also fine leaving communities when they have stopped being useful and become belligerent, like you’re describing.
!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com definitely has some cases of power tripping
I agree with you.
But can we let the Karen thing go now? It’s been long enough
Sorry to all the lovely people I’ve met named karen during my life, no.
Not until we get another word for the same persona.
And for some reason we can’t use “bitch” anymore.
Well, that’s the problem.
Karen is just an excuse to call women something without having the guts to be up front about it.
Originally, it was about a specific kind of entitled behavior. But it turned into a generic misogynist term like bitch used to be.
Karens aren’t just women.
But if you disagree, can you let me know what word we use for men? I’m happy to use that for everybody.
If you trust this person to tell you, and everybody else here, how to speak, then either your speech is worthless to you or this conversation is worthless to you.
you trust this person to tell you… how to speak
We got a lot of content and vibe modding going on.
This is a classic suppression and steering tactic.
Do you think it’s a conscious plan to mindcontrol everybody or is it just a basement dweller treating his mod powers like the ultimate downvote?
Both… And sometimes together. Useful idiot is the best tool for any threat actor.
here, how to speak then
You missed a closing delimiter on the subclause. Is that still acceptable speech for you?
Actually it ain’t. Good, catch
Most conversations on the internet are worthless or I would even attribute negative value to many of them.
Most? Well not my conversations.
Maybe it’s a smalltalk vs “largetalk” thing. Maybe most conversations are smalltalk. Talk that’s just friendly noise or whatever.
That is a territory with which I am pretty unfamiliar.
But ya, 2 totally different kinds of talk.
Maybe trolling constitutes a 3rd variety.
I don’t think there is much swaying of opinion in online conversations so most conversations is just bluster or time sinks. If anything of value is ever being discussed it is almost certain that astroturfers have infiltrated the conversation and diffused any real action that may have come of it.
Think of reddit. Think of the top 2-3 comments. There are a mountain of comments under those that just fade into obscurity. Their could be someone on reddit posting the “meaning of everything” on every post that hits r/all and it’s been virtually censored by just the sheer amount of garbage spam that thoses post will receive. Gaurenteed the posts with the most engagement have been artificially boosted.
I do this constantly and get challenged a lot. The people challenging my ideas and thoughts arent trying to convince me of anything. They are trying to wear me down, that’s the strategy. If that’s what we are up against then nothing good will ever come out of these spaces.
“The ultimate test of a society’s freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens; it’s how it treats its dissidents.” - Glenn Greenwald
Okay, sure, but Greenwald’s an absolute fascist-apologist piece of shit who only hides behind a liberal-libertarian veneer when it is convenient.
Past that, the problem you run into with dissent is that it is heavily predicated on whether you are willing to endorse the dissenters. The more alien a community’s political views and activities, the less tolerant admins become. The cause of Luigi Mangione is the most notable one, as certain communities seem to reveal in cannonizing his image while others furiously scrub out anything but the most derogatory mention of his name.
How do you distinguish between the dissident Freedom Fighter and the dissident Terrorist? What do you perceive as the limit of tolerance towards the intolerant? What kind of advocacy is constructive and what is merely provocative or trollish?
When you’ve got a guy like Glenn paling around with Tucker Carlson and bemoaning the Woke Antifa Left one minute, then crying over their own community of MAGA Truthers getting deep sixed by the Deep State, it seems the very idea of legitimate “dissent” is predicated on whether you align with it or not.
In his own words:
Independent, Unencumbered Analysis and Investigative Reporting, Captive to No Dogma or Faction.
He criticizes the duopoly and the oligarchy, but I know those loyal to the duopoly tend to become tribal if people don’t outright support one side and hate the other.
Glenn has proven himself as a journalist with his reporting of Edward Snowden and much more.
He does not fall into simplistic political groups, so I understand the frustration some political factions have with people like him.
Which people do you recommend if Glenn Greenwald does not meet your standards?
In his own words:
Glenn has proven himself as a journalist with his reporting of Edward Snowden and much more.
Snowden provided his doisser to a wide range of journalists and was published in a litany of different venues, from CNBC to Reuters. Greenwald worked with Snowden alongside Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman and Ewen MacAskill to build up the PRISM story, then defected to The Intercept when he wasn’t getting the kind of personal publicity he wanted. Then left the Intercept because he - once again - wasn’t getting the personal publicity he wanted. But he’s long since exhausted his journalistic bona fides. Now he’s just a pundit.
The other big story he was involved in - Operation Car Wash - ended up itself being an effort at regime change intended to destabilize the Brazilian govenrment and install a fascist dictatorship via Jar Bolsonaro.
Which people do you recommend if Glenn Greenwald does not meet your standards?
Stick with The Intercept, the magazine he left behind, if you’re interested in the machinations of American politicians. Ken Klippenstein is sold and has a good DC beat.
But otherwise? David J. Roth at the Defector is always a good read for East Coast local news. Derek Davison, at the Nation and Foreign Exchange, is a sold source of international news. Max Read does great work covering Silicon Valley.
You’ve got plenty of options who are more relevant and more interesting than Tucker Carlson’s Best Friend.
They give em bob haircuts, setup em up in a SUV, and groan when they see them and their stack of expired cupons.
Well, this is how they should operate…
But these volunteers also require that you understand they are human beings too.* and, like all humans, they sometimes make mistakes.
Please be patient, especially during busy times of the year.
And like many human beings, they often refuse to admit their mistakes out of pride and anger.
It almost sounds like you’re saying people don’t think customer service representatives are people. If that’s the case, woosh.
They’re volunteers providing a public service for free around here, not employees.
Probably.
If the currency is influence, they’re getting paid.
And if your aunt was a man, she’d be your uncle.
If I create a community and it gets 1k members I’m not a businessman.
If elon musk can be a “business man” so can you.
Influence, narrative-control, hurting the other tribe, control over a little domain. Those are good pay for some people.
Disregarding the power of “influence” in the modern day is so absurd, honestly.
Removed by mod
Did you just call me stupid! O_o you heartless beast.
Communities are not owned by moderators. They are built by those that participate. The primary fallacy I see is the idea that anyone can start a different community and that size and momentum are meaningless. That is simply not the case.
An authoritarian or very active mod, in any community with public participation is actively abusing those users when they act in opposition to the interests of the community. A visible mod is a bad mod. The job of mod is as a janitor acting in the interests of the community. If you care about authority or steering, you shouldn’t be a mod or admin.
Nothing about being a mod is hard. You don’t need to read every post or comment. All you do is setup the basic guidelines and trust the community to vote and flag bad stuff. The community will always flag the bad stuff. The only part that really matters is that you set yourself aside and really look into any flagged issue while giving the benefit of the doubt in absolutely every possible way one can imagine while never allowing bigotry type abuse. This is how to be a good mod, to be an invisible mod. The job is only to herd bad bots and sort the flags from others.
It’s not that hard if you prioritize being objective and fair. Though maybe I’m just based.
Man, I’m only at the “Company Ethos” question (at the very beginning) and I already don’t like the choices it’s giving me.
That’s by design
Cute game
Suddenly ended when one of my mods mislabeled 1 post despite basically all of my stats being in the green
So, you know, totally realistic and all
Thanks, that game was amazing, I loved and hated it :)
No, not really. What is this?
Moderation plays a big part in shaping the community. Are community guidlines not set by the mods? If there are people participating not following the guidlines they get squelched because they weren’t following the rules agreed to by everyone participating in that community.
Guidelines are not rigid. The Hippocrates aphorism “first, do no harm” is key in principal and practice. A visible mod is always a bad mod.
Mods aren’t taking the hippocraric oath.
But it’s a very good guideline for people who, like moderators, have power and imperfect understanding. It’s saying, “when in doubt, err on the side of least possible harm”. So that’s a good guide. Right?
Generally yes, but I feel a lot of people will assume their grievance is some sort of gray area that needs this type of consideration when it’s most likely not.
Well there is no clean connection between the rule and reality (short of forbidden word lists anyway). It’s always a matter of somebody’s interpretation.
Some communities have rules like “don’t be a dick”, which seems implied.
Maybe rules are inappropriate here. At best a justification.
So you want to shape us.
How about just letting us talk?
I’m not a mod
But you uttered an opinion about moderation. So address my point.
… how dare I utter an opinion
But if they’re saying the wrong stuff then I get to hit them with my modhammer. Right?
Those were a lot of different points. I think they’re important and I respect your view.
I‘m not sure though if I see it exactly the same:
ownership
i think this assumes a lot. You could of course start more communities and I did so. But of course your goal can be different.
authority
I agree, authority should not be important.
modding is easy
I dont think that is the case. Modding - especially good modding - is very hard, as you mentioned yourself. A mod needs enough restraint to take their ego out of the equation and needs to see when the community rules get broken and act accordingly. A lot of bad mods are too eager or too lax with bigotry.
only flagged content needs looking at
It needs to be looked at first and the rest is optional, yes. But a mod should definitely trust their gut and be an active part in the community they mod. Ideally under a different name though so to divide between mod stuff and non.
I think it’s ok to be somewhat active in my community that way people at least see that there’s a mod present and didn’t abandon the community. I haven’t had to ban anyone yet, but I did give two people a gentle warning because they had started to get off topic and argue, which is outside the scope of the group.
Same with the communities I mod. No bans at all so far. But tbf they‘re smaller. The larger communities might be different.
What if they got off topic. What would happen?
Also, do you think that you understand their conversation better than they do? All of them?
be in the community but secretly …
Oh that will work out just fine.
Bigotry
That is a very popular word lately
I just try and make a percentage of my post anti corporate.
Clearly, have not thought properly about the Holy profit, boy
I think for the most part they’re trying to protect themselves, their communities and their servers.
That said, I left world for other places and found some of the stuff that was defederated to be interesting and provide a little balance.
There’s certainly nothing going on here even close to the crap that was going on at Reddit.
