this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
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50 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.
Posting Guidelines
All posts should follow this basic structure:
- Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
- What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
- Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
- Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
- Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions that you have received from a mod or admin.
- 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.
- If you are the accused PTB, while you are welcome to respond, please do so within the relevant post.
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.
YTPB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.
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.
- YDM new - You Deserved More: The commenter thinks you got off too lightly.
- 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 11 months ago
MODERATORS
It's not about who have the power. There are still mods on piefed with all the same power as lemmy mods.
But with the downvoting penalty people get an opportunity to banish people they do not agree with to the shadow realm in a way that's not possible in Lemmy. It's not the power of the people it's the power of a furious mob against anyone out of the mob.
You say "hideous user" I say any user who disagrees on the slightest with the mob ideas. And as the echo chamber closes smaller and smaller divergences will get punished until people will literally just be an echo of the allowed discourse.
I do think those piefed feature are a great mistake. People still have all the power via blocking users or instances here. But the "extra power" to the people is not really that, is just a net of authoritarianism in disguise. Heavy punishments to anyone disagreeing with authority, it doesn't matter that much if authority comes from a King, an aristocracy or a Soviet (assembly of people) it's still authoritarianism. And that's what I think will happen with any piefed instance that enables these features.
We all know that no only "hideous users" get downvoted, and that "hideous users" not always get downvoted. We all know that even the platform says to not use the downvote as a "I disagree button" people use it for this.
I'm more on the opposite side of the spectrum on this matter. And more and more I think it's better to completely get rid of the downvote button. If you really don't like something block it for you, there's no need for people to have tools that greatly affect other people. For instance if you downvoted some comment of a third user and that comment gets hidden. I may like that comment but now I don't see it because you were given a tool that gives you power over me. A tool like that is great for majorities to oppress minorities. As part of several minorities I've always been wary of those.
Yep! I wish all Lemmy instances would get rid of the downvote button. So many drive-by serial downvoters would have to find a different hobby.
wrong
How so? Are you defending serial downvoters?
no, just that they would comment negativity instead
Nah, the types of people who do that don't have the balls to comment. For them, the dopamine rush comes from pushing a button and moving on. They love that it doesn't take any time for them to try to affect the conversation.
See, they don't wanna be hard, the just don't want YOU to be heard if they disagree with you.
I prefer negative comments to serial downvoters. Serial downvoters are cowards.