TL;DR: We tried to move the community because of moderatorial concerns, but fumbled how we went about doing so.
First and Foremost:
We’d like to formally apologize for springing this on you all out of nowhere, and for taking so long to respond to the backlash. With retrospect, we understand that we should have notified you all beforehand to create an opportunity to give us feedback. We understand that a lot of respect and trust was lost, and we expect it’ll take a lot of work and a lot of time before we can earn it back, but we would be grateful if y’all gave us that chance.
What happened, and why?
The primary issue that incited this was because we don’t fully agree with the admin’s moderation policies. By and large they do a great job and align with us on mod actions, but there have been several cases where we strongly disagreed, and our choices were overruled.
For example, 2 months ago, Kolanaki reached out to us via email and said they were banned from 196 for “playing the victim” and asked us why we banned him, but we didn’t. Moss talked to them and realized that the ban was unjust after reviewing the comment he was banned for. If he had never contacted us, we wouldn’t have known about the ban, and they would have still thought we banned them.
There were a few similar events in a short time frame, leading to a few posts/comments in the community about the heavier modding policies. It’s possible some posts/comments were misunderstood by Ada, or she interpreted things differently than we would have, but it led to some bans that we felt were indeed heavy-handed, and would not violate our rules in even the most uncharitable of interpretations. We have found that this is an ongoing trend when it comes to moderation of our community from the Admins. We oppose this because it leads to many users who otherwise mean well ending up alienated and removed for reasons that are frankly completely unfair. This is, in our opinion, counter to what we set out to build in our community.
It was made clear to us that it was their instance, and that we didn’t have a say in who would be banned and what would be removed. This is, of course, perfectly valid. It’s their instance, therefore it’s up to them to decide what goes, but we no longer wanted to be the ones seen as accountable for moderation actions we have no control over. For this reason, we wanted to transfer out of lemmy.blahaj.zone. As much as we wanted to stay in the LGBTQ instance, we couldn’t come to an agreement with Ada, so we talked to her about transferring out and got her blessing.
How we messed up
The most major failing on our part is, of course, that we didn’t announce the migration beforehand. Besides that, we also didn’t explain why we made the choices we made and only gave very vague answers. We avoided sharing the justification for our actions because we didn’t want to cause drama and/or exacerbate the situation, but this lack of substantiating our actions only caused the situation to worsen.
Going forward (if we may), we won’t make the same mistakes again. From now on, we will attempt to be as transparent as possible.
FAQ
Why we chose lemmy.world
Many people have been asking about why we moved to lemmy.world. It already hosts the majority of large communities and besides this uncomfortable level of centralization, it has also been somewhat controversial as of late. Despite that, we still chose lemmy.world due to the following reasons:
- Moss’s communication with the admins, and their agreement to let us moderate the community as we see fit. Ruud, after looking over our rules, agreed to abstain from taking admin action to curate or otherwise moderate our community, unless absolutely necessary.
- The instance is large enough to support traffic without performance issues (other instances like lemm.ee, sh.itjust.works, and lemmy.dbzer0.com would have been fine too), and the instance has a certain degree of guaranteed longevity.
- Moss was given a list that was kindly made by the lemmy.world people as a part of our transfer detailing those who are banned on Blahaj.zone, but not on Lemmy.world, making moderation discrepancies much easier to clean up post-transfer.
- Our agreement with Ruud predated the now-rescinded policy changes
- It was, to the best of our knowledge, the most federated-with instance. We have come to understand that this is not necessarily the case.
Why not have another team take over the original 196?
This is a similar situation with what happened over on Reddit. 196 mods didn’t agree with admins and were eventually replaced (difference here is that we were not forced out, but chose to leave). As Lemmy was a large gathering spot for people fleeing Reddit, we felt it was better to try to keep the community together and move together. Having another team take over splits the community. The more fragmentation there is, the less longevity and volume of community each skew will have.
What about the possibility of more trolls, neoliberals, bad actors, sealions, and transphobes on Lemmy.world?
Another huge issue was that the mods and the community were not on the same page regarding lemmy.world, their admins, and their policies. We understand the concern about trolls/bad-actors/transphobes, but we feel well-equipped to handle these issues. In addition, we’ve been in contact with the lemmy.world admins for a while now, and they’ve assured us that they’d allow us to moderate our community however we saw fit. All this being said, we still failed to communicate that to the community before taking action, which has undermined any assurances that we have given after the fact. We cannot apologize enough for that.
What about the people who are using instances that are defederated from lemmy.world (e.g. Beehaw)
This is an unfortunate issue that we were not aware of at the time of transfer. We’re not sure what the solution is, but want to make our community as accessible as possible. Community solutions are welcome.
Did you migrate because of X? (addressing speculation)
- We didn’t migrate due to anything related to neopronouns
- We didn’t migrate due to us supposedly not wanting to use blahaj.zone lemmy accounts
- We didn’t migrate due to us having friends who were banned from lemmy.blahaj.zone
- We didn’t migrate due to us wanting to make the space less queer/leftist/etc
- We didn’t migrate due to us getting secretly ousted by the Blahaj admin team
What now?
Well, we’re not sure. We could go back on our decision and stay on blahaj.zone, continue on lemmy.world, do both, or try something else. Truth be told, we don’t know what to do. For now, we will leave the comments open to civil community discourse, and choose our course of action from there.
Sincerely, Qaz, Rmbp, Greembow, A_Very_big_Fan, Peachy, and Moss.
my honest opinion on the whole matter, and this is as someone who really doesn’t care either way. You should give up on the community here. I don’t mean that in a mean way, I mean you chose to do a decision that was drastically unfavorable to the majority of the current community on this instance it seems.
Regardless of intentions, your long past the turning point of being able to backtrack on your choice and re-enter the community just reading the comments here tells you that honestly your best bet is probably to just continue with your plan at this point, even if you did decide to unlock the community here it’s clear that you’ve lost all trust in the majority of the users that are still participating on this post, so they’ll just stay in the new community instead of returning.
In the words of Kenny Rogers, You have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away and know when to run.
This is a clear “know when to run” instance. There is no favorable outcome for you on this community you won’t gain that trust back and there are far too many people still pissed about this issue, you are better off continuing the plan on LW and just let the people who didn’t agree with it stay on the new community they made (or unlock the old community but you have already been pretty solid on that one)
Thats just my input as a lurking third party.
edit: looks like my feed was outdated, I just got the unlocked post, I still stand firm on my opinion on it though.
edit 2: shouldn’t have second guessed myself, guess I had the name right the first time lmao
That’s not a Johnny Cash song. “The gambler” by Kenny Rogers
I had Kenny Rogers originally, but when i second guessed myself and google searched it both names came up, they both sang it it seems. I used Johnny Cash cause figured the name might be easier to recognize XD I went ahead and changed it back again.
I’m not very involved in the community either, but I would say though that community trust isn’t a binary thing, and all people, even leaders, are allowed to make mistakes. From a pure political perspective, I don’t think there will be enough of a hostile response form the users to start any significant fragmentation of the community, which is the main concern when leaders lose trust from the community.
I only saw one other person mention the post that’s supposedly a good example of your disagreements with adas moderation but that makes it even more clear you need to resign and leave ada was right for removing that comment it’s the typical “oh woe is me I just asked innocent questions and the angry trans people try to paint me as the bad guy” trans people don’t get annoyed if you ask them a genuinely innocent question about their experience but they will get annoyed if you ask them “just innocent questions” where it’s very clear what your real views are and what you’re really doing adas just reading between the lines and that’s a good thing that’s how you avoid the sealioning that .world would’ve brought along and you say oh they reversed that decision and you would be allowed to ban sealions and you can mod how you like and .world won’t interfere but it makes it very clear you wouldn’t ban them anyway you agree with the .world admins anyway just leave you clearly don’t represent the community in the slightest and have completely different views of how this community should be run hand over the moderation to the onehundredninetysix mod team and go do whatever you want on .world
Yeah they didn’t show previous comments (the actually relevant context), just the one where the user bargains.
Yeah, the lack of context on that is rather telling, I think, and a sign that the mods don’t understand what it’s like to be persistently deligitimised or why that could be the final straw. Go Ada, you’re a great and caring admin.
I was thinking the same. If this is their best example of Ada going over the mod team’s heads, how could this possibly justify an instance move?
Agreed especially on the comment as a showcase of „mod differences“.
I think this just rather corroborates Ada‘s statement of how there were multiple reports the mods did not follow up on and how Ada had to eventually always do it.
So even with a good faith reading I do not see how this is a problematic ban and not just a common recurring topic which this instance has always protected us from, which is the whole reason I am on this instance.
While I understand that the „modding differences“ were the reason you aimed to migrate, I as a user do not remotely see the benefits of a move when it was Ada that stepped up to do moderation. Especially if as Ada mentioned our community had reported these instances, a move would just signify a deterioration of our experience.
I have to reiterate that I have always appreciated Ada‘s decisions. The stepping up and sheltering many of us on the Reddit exodus and providing me with one of the few places nowadays I can go to and expect a civil, homely and communal experience.
I think you should leave this community to a new team and leave for lw ✌️
to be honest, I never trusted the mod team much for many minor things and now I dont trust u at all for this huge thing that u’ve been hiding for months apparently, if this community is coming back Id personally still prefer a different mod team
We could go back on our decision and stay on blahaj.zone, continue on lemmy.world, do both, or try something else.
I guess u could moderate the .world comm for the people that prefer that instance since there seems to be people that do including u, and the people that were going to mod the onehundredninetysix comm would mod this one
why not open the original blahaj zone 196, and let ada appoint new mods? if yall want to move and have your heart set on that, thats fine, but its clear that there are many people who would lose access to their favorite community if the original 196 remains locked. having multiple instances of the same community is by no means a bad thing, it simply gives more reach for our communities, and more options for every user.
the whole point of the fediverse is that us users can make experiences we like for eachother. its very clear that many people like the way things are, yall dont have to, but we do. its a community because of everybody who participates, lets try and build communities where our queer and trans friends can feel safe and at home. nothing is lost if we have two communities, only gained. let the nature of the fediverse and federation decide how things play out, not a small group of moderators making unilateral decisions for everybody.
There are considering unlocking it: https://lemmy.world/comment/14570102
Thanks for the info. When I got online today, I was very confused at what had gone down; I appreciate people such as yourself who have made it easier to follow current events in this tiny corner of the internet
Re: let Ada appoint new mods
Because the problem was the admins, not the mods. Ada was banning users without telling the mods. Read the post linked that got a ban.
Ada was banning users without telling the mods.
I was banning users from the whole instance, not specifically from 196. Instance bans doesn’t get pre-approved by community mods. Which is how every admin on every lemmy instance works, including lemmy.world.
Also just for the record. I think Kolanki deserved it for being an ass and playing the victim. You absolutely need to earn allyship, you can’t just self-proclaim to be an Ally when you don’t actually support queer people in any way.
@moss@lemmy.blahaj.zone @moss@lemmy.world Yes I would’ve banned him if I were in Ada’s position too.
no need to ping me. I disagree.
I would probably also consider this whole fiasco and pushback against Kolanki’s very justified ban an act of bigot apologia, something else that is utterly unacceptable.
that’s ridiculous
likewise.
But the community doesn’t have a problem with the admin, the mods have a problem.
And instead of leaving, they thought they could take the whole community with them without asking
this is a quote from ada
“I have asked 196 for years now to have an active blahaj.zone mod so that someone can deal with the blahaj.zone reports that constantly come through and build up, but still, the best we got were mods with alt accounts that get checked every couple of days, leaving me to deal with the build up of reports on 196. Sometimes they would hang around there for days while I waited for a 196 mod to log in and look at them. And because you don’t like the way I deal with them, you drag me over the coals for my moderation style, despite no one from 196 stepping up to deal with those reports on a regular basis.”
the issue is not ada banning users without telling mods, it was mods not doing their job and ada stepping in to take action when no one else would.
i read the post that was used as an example of adas supposed overreach, but that commenter was basically saying that cis people cant be allys because trans people arent nice enough to them, reeks of transphobia to me.
having multiple instances of the same community is by no means a bad thing
also theres already different 196s through the internet like on reddit, tumblr, here, etc all with their own differences and I think thats pretty cool :3
Quite a big point missing here
Apparently none of the 196 moderators were actively checking the modlog?
Meaning instance moderator could just see a modlog appearing, and no-one dealing with it.
Moss, I know you can do better than painting the picture one-sided. It’s probably pretty stressful now, and I very much understand it.
We all check the modlog regularly. I do it ~5 days a week, on top of reading literally every post and the majority of the comments while I’m at it. The problem is federation, because it prevents us from seeing a complete log of the reports from any given instance.
And you know what? Fun fact!! LBZ was one of the first instances I ever signed up for. So perhaps if LBZ was the right instance to check reports from, it would have been super helpful for both parties if they accepted my application. I’m still waiting two years later.
I’m sorry if I sound frustrated. It’s because I am. Not at you, I just don’t know where else to say my peace. Thanks for listening.
The problem is federation, because it prevents us from seeing a complete log of the reports from any given instance.
You don’t see any reports from a non-local account.
So perhaps if LBZ was the right instance to check reports from, it would have been super helpful for both parties if they accepted my application. I’m still waiting two years later.
You never bothered to ask for support on !main@lemmy.blahaj.zone ? Admins could have solved that in a few hours.
So you are telling us that even now you don’t have a functional Blahaj account?
Apparently none of the 196 moderators were actively checking the modlog
I actively checked for reports, but despite that, there have been 4 times since joining where Ada has sent a message in the 196 matrix chat because of outstanding reports. A large part of this was because resolving reports doesn’t federate. You can see a report, resolve it, send someone a DM for followup questions, and it will still show up as unresolved on blahaj.zone in the meantime. I log in with my blahaj account to ensure it’s marked as resolved there too, but not always immediately.
This is also what in confused about. If the mods didn’t know about admin mod actions, surely that meant they weren’t reading the mod log? I don’t know the first thing about being a mod but this seems like there’s a pretty clear solution.
Reports don’t federate, you need a local account to see them.
Seems like this mod never bothered setting one up.
:confused-cat:
Sorry, I should have given more context. I meant that the mods’ behaviour confuses me a lot.
Oh, it is confusing indeed
You goofed up and lost the community’s trust, own to it and step down.
Maybe touch some grass too.
The community isn’t something that fucking belongs to you.
What is a sealion in this context?
What about the possibility of more trolls, neoliberals, bad actors, sealions, and transphobes on Lemmy.world?
A sealion is a type of troll who will try to “debate” you simply to derail a conversation and/or wind you up. https://wondermark.com/c/1062 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
It is closely related to JAQing off. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Asking_Questions
Ahh thx, seen this many times in the wild
Yup. They’re very dangerous and lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, and lemm.ee are the three biggest hives for them. I get the impression that Ruud, thedude, and sunaurus aren’t themselves nazis, supportive of nazis, or even all that conservative, but all of them demonstrate a lack of understanding in running their instances of the realities of how a punk bar becomes a nazi bar. I will give thedude and sunaurus credit for demonstrating an ability to learn, meanwhile, Ruud has really only shown me an ability to make small adjustments to avoid consequence, which in a lot of ways, even if I think lemmy.world is a better instance overall than lemm.ee, is worse. I feel like a can trust sunaurus to conduct himself a particular way, and for thedude to listen, grow, and develop, but Ruud seems to always be waffling. I never know what lemmy.world, its users, or its communities are going to be like in 1, 3, 4, 6, or 12 months. I don’t know how the old mods of 196 are unaware of this, but also positive that they need to move instance, and that the best instance is that one.
It all leaves a bad taste in my mouth, even worse than the taste of this Liquid Death Dead Billionaire mixed with Liquid Death Lemon Lime electrolyte powder.
Any specific issues with Lemm.ee and SJW? I just know about !conservative@lemm.ee and !conservative@sh.itjust.works
sh.itjust.works is much improved, but their agora system can leave the instance dangerously non-responsive until all the protocols are followed. my beef (though not even really, they like their way of doing things, and that’s fine) with lemm.ee is that they tend to align with Free Speech Absolutists too much on what’s acceptable behavior. in other words lemm.ee is a favorite place for sealions because lemm.ee tends to leave blocking and curating to an individual level.
Got it. Yes, I now usually recommend sopuli.xyz for a European instance, they defederate more
sopuli was the first instance i ever tried to join. it’s currently probably the easiest to recommend general purpose instance
so this only gets undone once there is another community created on .LBZ that starts getting traction and your new community on .world risks becoming irrelevant, along with your relative power in the situation…
I refuse to believe that six individuals can be so enormously out of touch with the community they (used to) mod… what’s the real story?
I cannot stress enough how untrustworthy any of you moderators are now, because how do any of us know that in a few days or weeks or months you won’t just randomly close the community and decide you’re moving elsewhere. In short, I really don’t care if you continue to move over, or stay on .world, or do anything else, I don’t want any part of your community anymore. And I don’t see how anyone else would either, but that’s entirely their business
Rmbp
Is this supposed to be me? Sorry, but I don’t write a single word of this.__.
Not that I disagree, but I have not written or read anything before posting this. But nevertheless I thank you for the Update :D
The Feddit.de Instance and therefore my feddit.de Account is broken beyond repair. If anyone can just kick him out, this would be really nice since I can’t even log in anymore.
What happend to feddit.de?
The whole Feddit.de instance died under mysterious circumstances.
The owner of the instance left for a work trip to Southeast Asia and never came back—at least, he never came back online. Then the instance started having technical troubles, which we couldn’t fix without the owner. After continued degeneration, we moved all communities to feddit.org. I can’t even log into my Feddit.de account anymore because it’s so broken.
Even the domain Feddit.de is broken.
Damn, your arc keeps delivering
I’m suprised that this don’t got downvoted like my answers on the .world 196.
Perhaps because I’m not a Mod here?
I really tried to help over there and still got downvoted .__.
I think people’s interactions with you were coloured by the fact that you were one of about three people who were vocally supportive of the mod team’s move. That you’re (unknowingly at the time) a member of it probably didn’t help, but was likely secondary.
Could be. Let’s see if people still want my help :3
Blahaj doesn’t have downvotes. They’re disabled.
With my account I can’t downvote anything
Remember the current Lemmy community was made and populated by people who jumped ship from one site to another due to site drama so we uh, might be really easy to get going.
I understand two of you were mostly behind the move. Perhaps those two should step down and new mods be brought in. Kind of hard to trust you after all this.
Trust? For an internet forum? About shitposting? Where everyone’s anonymous?
WTF is wrong with people
Pseudonymous, not anonymous. And yes, trust is an important factor in any community, including one dedicated to shitposting.
Especially a community that aims to be a safe haven for queer people who may be marginalized elsewhere.
…what are u trying to say?
I want to abuse people
Usually what people who make a big deal about how community trust shouldn’t matter in anonymous/pseudonymous spaces want. It’s how 8chan came to be
Everyone’s anonymous? Uh yeah sure just because the username isn’t linked to your person doesn’t mean you are anonymous.
And yeah the trust has been eroded, the trust of keeping the community a safe place.
