First off... I just wanted to again say thank you to everyone who responded to the help post that I recently made. The outpouring of support was genuinely kind of insane and I never expected it. I'm going to make a different post elsewhere on that but like... I cannot thank you enough.
But for the post itself, this is in reference to this post that I made on September 17th about Jordan Lund's behavior as a lead moderator on Lemmy.World. His behavior beyond the realm of questionable and into active hostility and misinformation. A user commented on that post and @'d Ruud, the head admin of Lemmy.World.
Which, you know, totally fair and valid. Who would want that person reflecting the instance? Especially when a term was used about the Canadian government that Jordan wasn't aware of and instead of asking for clarification, or doing a simple google, he just banned Canadians and doubled down repeatedly. But in that same thread, another Admin clarified they had talked to Jordan about this specific thing and told him it was unacceptable.
Yet 3 and a half hours later, Jordan reaffirms his stance and insists that his half-baked understanding of Canadian politics is correct. For the comment and then an immediate explanation of how he is both an idiot and a liar, check here.
This all happened nearly 10 days ago. The head Admin saying that he publicly doesn't want Jordan to be the face of the instance, another Admin saying his behavior is unacceptable. What has happened? From a public perspective? Effectively nothing. The only thing that has changed is Jordan is down two communities under his moderation belt. One of those was a dead community that was never used and the other was the Community Spotlight team.
Now there's a thousand reasons to dislike Jordans behavior but as a Canadian? His stubborn refusal of acceptance that he doesn't know a thing and stubborn refusal to even acknowledge when someone has proven him wrong has pushed me over the edge. As far as I'm concerned, the United States declared war on Canada when it threatened to use economic force to coerce us into becoming a part of that country. So the idea of an American in control of World News who seems to subscribe to this type of American Exceptionalism? Or at least is too narcissistic to admit fault? I can't stomach it.
But for the Admins to publicly say that they've told him his behavior is unacceptable but then refuse to enforce that? Even when Jordan is flaunting it in the exact same thread and ignoring everything the admins said? Either no one ever talked to Jordan to say that it was unacceptable or someone did talk to Jordan but he just doesn't care. Evidently neither do the admins to enforce their own position on the matter. It has been nearly 10 days and if anything is being done then the movement is a breakneck glacial pace.
I can't in good conscience ever give another second of traffic to Lemmy.World. I moved over from Startrek.Website because of a particular person way back when. One admin on the team who was a friend of mine and had encouraged me to join there when I was looking for another instance. He doesn't even have any involvement in LW anymore and neither do pretty much anyone that I originally knew from the team. It isn't the same site that I started on. Maybe I never paid enough attention when signing up to make a better and more informed decision, who knows.
What I do know is I've moved to Dbzer0. Db0 has been offering a spot on the instance for over a year at this point and after careful consideration of a variety of instances... Dbzer0 is also the one that I would probably fit best with. So if there's anyone out there who hates me and had @Stamets@lemmy.world blocked, here's your cue to block this account now too. Because with a new account comes a very small number of posts. That @Stamets@lemmy.world is #44 on the amount of posts made by any Lemmy account.
I've got some catching up to do.
To all my friends on the LW team, I love you and support you. To the admins who had a say in this? I'm just deeply disappointed. I've seen the speed moved on certain things. A week and a half when y'all admitted you were talking about him before I even made that post? Come on.
The dbzer0 people commented on the other thread I linked in that comment.
The main dbzer0 admin:
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/21526306
That whole episode was quite something, there's a detailed post about it if you want: https://aussie.zone/post/24299113?scrollToComments=true
My comment there was this one: https://aussie.zone/post/24299113/18642086
Basically, PugJesus was keeping using one comment from a dbzer0 admin, when that same admin made another comment just after that clarified their stance.
There was a lot of antagonism at the time, now things to have calmed down for a bit.
And if you want to see actual admin abuse, let me show you this comment, with a SJW admin calling me an "energy vampire": https://aussie.zone/post/17029239/14339689
I never reached out to the other SJW admins about that chain of comments, that admin doesn't seem that active anymore, but just to say that no admins are perfect, I try to not hold grudges to other instances if another admin stepped in and correct the wrongdoing of another one.
Edit: just had a look again, the SJW admin was defending the power trip of the !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone mods.
Wow, the SJW admin was mad at you documenting shit. More proof to never make an account there.
Still find it interesting that Zag hasn't responded to this info. Almost like they have a hate boner for db0...
I'm not going to pretend db0 is perfect but the admin team is miles better than .world, SJW, and .ml
Edit: hey I was right!
I've discussed with @Zagorath@aussie.zone several times before, they've always been nice. Let's not forget that there was indeed a power tripping action that db0 corrected.
Things are more nuanced than "this person has a hate boner"
lol wtf is wrong with that person? I assume the person you're responding to has to be a troll, because that's genuinely the only way their comment makes sense. They're accusing me of having a "hate boner" because...I didn't read a thousand words in the timeframe they would like? Fuck off dickhead.
Yeah Eugene is known to be overtly defensive about dbzer0, while again, in this case there was a mod decision that was overruled, but there was still a power tripping decision at the beginning.
People can make mistakes, the most important part is about correcting them.
Yeah, I admit fault there.
Edit: I was basically right, judging by their reactions in this thread.
Zagorath also admitted fault
https://aussie.zone/comment/19104611
lol, what happened to "I will assume good faith and intelligence until proven otherwise."
Well seeing as you just freaked out over our admins having a username, claiming a comment being removed as a ban, and you made yourself look like a troll the entire time...
Aww sweetums, I see those silent downvotes. Can't take some genuine criticism? Grow up, troll.
Yikes. Even I'm not this petty.
There's a lot there, and I'm certainly not reading every single comment and every single link posted. But from the post itself, and the screenshots contained therein, db0 comes away looking really bad.
All this talk about Uyghurs is, frankly, not especially interesting to me in this context. It's a distraction from the main mod abuse that concerns me. I myself was banned by one of their mods. Another mod overruled them, but I never received an apology or explanation from the mod responsible. As long as that remains true, and the mod responsible is still a mod, I absolutely maintain my original stance.
It comes looking bad because the whole post was kind of a smear campaign about the instance.
Interesting enough, I just had a look at the comment in the thread you mentioned
https://aussie.zone/comment/18622436
Unruffled never received that ping, their username is @Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com
I'm going to try something to kind of settle that issue, it might not work, but at least I will have tried.
@Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com , could you please provide some details about this mod decision?
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/52333434/21106378
The details are that I removed this comment towards davel which seemed like nothing but a random insult that had nothing whatsoever to do with the post topic and seemed likely to just derail the conversation. I should maybe have noted it as off topic rather than just being needlessly abusive.
Urgh what? Custom display names is the worst feature of Lemmy, and users who abuse that to give the appearance of a completely different name suck.
People who use the software as intended are abusing the software and suck? Gotcha. I didn't realise I wasn't allowed to use that feature, my bad I guess. Thanks for offering your considered opinion on my username, it really added a lot to the discussion.
This person got mad at me because I said they had a hate boner for db0.
But according to them, removing one comment is a ban, using features of the platform is making us weird, and they had to ping the admins for no reason.
But I'm the weirdo.
Still waiting for an apology for your mod abuse, that @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com overturned, but seems to be otherwise unbothered by.
Your username having no bearing on your display name directly led to confusion as shown by this thread. People who use it to display their username in funny fonts, or to append pronouns, are using it in a way that I do not take issue with. People who make it look like they're somebody else just lead to confusion. It added to the discussion because that's what this conversation was about.
I guess you'll be waiting a while. Honestly I'm getting pretty tired of folks like you jumping into our communities to froth at the mouth over tankies simply for existing, whether real (as in this case) or imagined (as in my case). It's nothing but shit-stirring and pointless drama.
For the record, I fundamentally disagree with tankies on their mostly uncritical support for AES / former AES states. And I've always had that position. It hasn't changed, no matter how bad faith trolls try to paint that narrative. Anti-authoritarianism is a fundamental principle of anarchism and it's one I live by. It's ridiculous I even have to make disclaimer like these, but with the amount of bad faith takes going on lately I guess I've got to keep saying it.
But having said that, you don't need to bring that shit into every single interaction with someone. That's just toxic behaviour intended to derail a conversation and bait a response, so no, I don't apologize for removing your comment.
I also disagree with a lot of libs on their governments' mostly uncritical support for Israel. The Dems are currently upset with our instance because they get the same treatment all the other authoritarian supporters get, so they are trying to spin this as us "being tankie". Just because their own party consistently votes for imperial wars and genocides doesn't mean they are bad as the tankies for supporting genocide right? And we all have to go along with their asinine electoralism to vote for the "lesser evil" or we're obviously working for the Russians or the Chinese or whatever other boogeyman US politics has decided to scapegoat for the abject harms of neoliberal economics right? And if we just keep voting for the lesser evil party they'll stop dropping/supplying bombs to kill brown people eventually, right? Well, no. I call bullshit on all of that. Anarchists see this with clear eyes. Campist takes are as bad coming from the Dems as they are coming from the ML instances.
And it's ironic that mouth-foaming haters like PugJesus are blind to the fact they are part of drumming up the exact same "red peril" scare that McCarthy was guilty of - a notorious time in US politics when Republican politicians were in full witch-hunt mode. But he's "vaguely leftist" so its ok right? And since he will no doubt read this because he's seemingly completely obsessed with me, no Senator Pug McJesus - I haven't done a 180 on tankies. When I say we have more in common with instances like ml and hexbear, I mean in terms of political theory: we all believe that capitalism, especially the neo-liberal form of unfettered corporate greed, is fundamentally incompatible with social, economic, and political equity. As anarchists, we do of course differ on details of how achieve the objective of a truly socialist economy, and whether or not nation states are required, but one thing we can agree upon is that capitalism and corporate greed are directly responsible for millions of preventable deaths each year, and vastly more misery and suffering because of totally unnecessary poverty that exists only because of the greed of rich capitalists. The Real Violent Extremists Are The Freaks Who Run The US Empire.
And he's doing it right now on MeanwhileOnGrad, more out of context screenshots, more making up context.
He really can't go touch grass can he? Foaming at the mouth at anarchists online, actively hating anything leftist, but if you voted in an election you're still evil.
That thread is quite something
Good work on what you can there. My blood pressure can't handle such bullshit as often as you do. God speed.
Before I respond to the specific points you raised, I want to respond to the general vibes of it. Because genuinely, aside from the specific bits aimed personally at me (which mostly seem made out of ignorance), I liked it. I'll take this comment as equivalent to the apology, because it's at least a decent shot at an explanation for your actions I was asking for. I suspect that if you and I were to meet and discuss politics IRL, we'd get along pretty well. I hate tankies, but outside of Lemmy I rarely give them any thought. Zionists are a far bigger issue. Not least because my own government aids Israel's genocide, and because the immediate intensity of that genocide is so much greater than anything China is doing. I am far more concerned with what Israel is doing to Palestinians right now than anything China is doing...with the exception that because I have some very good friends from Taiwan, every bit of news about China's actions around Taiwan are concerning, even if so far it has not amounted to anything concrete.
I would not label myself an anarchist per se, but I lean that way. I'm strongly in favour of decision-making being devolved to be made by more local communities, empowered to feel genuine ownership over decisions. I don't know quite how you balance that with NIMBY instincts, but hopefully being included in a genuinely deliberative process would reduce alienation and help lead to more thoughtful, less reactive NIMBY-style opinions. And more and more over recent years I have become disillusioned by the very top-down approach that is common in many representative democracies.
The very existence of billionaires is anathema to healthy society, but they're a natural product of the capitalist economic system. And therefore the capitalist economic system is anathema to healthy society.
and
Did you see the comment that started my thread? All I did was politely point out that according to the already expressed beliefs of the OP, they were already acknowledging the Uyghur genocide in all but name. That is, they expressed that they believe human rights abuses with the aim of erasing a culture were happening (an act that is per se tantamount to genocide, under the original definition of the term), even though they were reticent to use the G word itself. It was, I thought, a fairly amicable conversation between people who basically agree on the facts, if not the conclusions you should draw from those facts.
Then the actual tankie jumped into it to talk genocide denialist bullshit. This isn't "frothing at the mouth over tankies simply for existing". It isn't me "bringing that shit into every single interaction". It's me criticising tankies for expressing some of the worst examples of their beliefs when they were the ones who brought the conversation to you. And a few other tankies also joined in the fun. One of whom seems to have gotten away scott-free with a comment that adds literally nothing to the conversation by saying just one word: "dumb". The toxic derailing behaviour was not from me, it was from tankies. But I can understand the error; it was a complicated thread, there was a lot going on. It's understandable for a mod to lose track of every single comment's context.
But as I said, fundamentally, this comment of yours has gone a long way towards reassuring me of your intent.
Thanks for being level headed about this
You are right that some of what I said and doesn't apply to you in particular, but was more of a general sentiment about what I felt was going on in the post and in general lately. Having read the thread again more closely I can see that I probably read you a bit wrong. So I will say sorry for making some bad faith assumptions.
I'm glad we could clear the air. There's been a bit of a disinfo campaign being waged against our instance lately by a few trolls with an axe to grind, so that probably colored my reaction a little. Every other political thread seems to end with people yelling "tankie" or "fascist" to each other like it's ever gonna achieve anything. No war but class war has got to be the best way forward. Personally I'm done with leftist infighting for now. Marxists aren't the real threat anyway.
Now that we see that the decision was a comment removal and not a ban, I'm not sure if you should expect apologies, removing a comment that has since then been restored seems like a much minor event than an actual ban
Since you're pinging me: Your comment was flamebaiting and toxic. It shouldn't have been removed as "harassment", but it's definitely skirting the edge of what's acceptable and is definitely off-topic. I don't think you deserve an apology for your behaviour, even if I disagreed with the decision.
Sorry, my comment was flamebaiting, but the sealioning by the other guy wasn't? Dude started it by saying my sources were bad and claiming that his source (which was a search page on Lemmy) refuted it. All from a user who is well-known to be a very prominent tankie on this platform. I don't see how pointing that fact out is any sort of borderline.
Great, so you were both acting out. The mod acted probably more strictly than they should, at the most obvious of those acts, during a heated period, which is why I reverted it. Still doesn't deserve an apology. FFS, it's just a reverted comment deletion. Stop acting like your integrity was wounded or something.
And then they got mad at me claiming they didn't like db0 for no reason, claiming they were bad faith about this.
No, I didn't "act out", I pointed out a bad actor for what they were, as a small part of a comment refuting them. (Heck, if you wanted to level the "acting out" accusation at me, my more recent comment in this thread where a different one of your users was and still is being a bad faith troll and I actually did lower myself to their level would have been one to point to.)
But anyway, as far as I'm concerned flatworm's response to me closes out the matter.
My username was randomly generated. It's not some conspiracy. You can always use @unruffled@anarchist.nexus is that's easier to remember.
Also reading that comment again, I double checked but it was just a comment removal, not a ban, right?
https://aussie.zone/modlog?userId=76535
Oh yes, looks like it was. My bad. Well that's certainly better than my last run-in with Lund.
The fact that the admins have demoted Lund, but not actually taken away the powers that he was abusing. 🤦♂️
Yes it's an ongoing show