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Lemmy is a worse platform for women than Reddit was
(lemmy.cafe)
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this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
297 points (72.5% liked)
Unpopular Opinion
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MODERATORS
I am a cis male mod of multiple communities here on Lemmy and all I can say is that I try to moderate as fairly and equitably as I can, but I also don't have time to read every single comment on every single post in the communities I moderate, so you have to flag posts you find violate community rules. Every community I moderate has a civility rule, and shouting down or harassing women who are telling personal stories would be against those rules.
But I may not know that it's happening unless it's getting flagged.
You can't moderate women's perspectives getting constantly downvoted while men's get upvoted. I doubt any of the comments OP mentioned actually violate any rules but getting ten comments ignorantly telling you you're wrong whenever you share your perspective tends to make one feel unwelcome even if the comments are all technically civil.
Good insight. While there definitely was quite a bit of rule-breaking comments (largely now acted on as of today), the consistent wall of "technically respectful" disrespect did not help and provided a level of camouflage for the very bad actors to get by.
How exactly are you determining/validating people’s gender identity on an anonymous text based forum?
In the case of the bear discourse, most comments self-identified either explicitly or implicitly.
It doesn’t matter friend, nothing is enough because the bottom line is they what Lemmy to be better than Reddit and that’s a problem because that’s impossible in that Lemmy is a decentralized system of instances and there will never be a single standard across them all when it comes to moderation for topics like this post.
All you can do is try your best to find/maintain good instances that reflect your values
🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻 guess you can't handle a fucking emoji
https://theangryblackwoman.com/2008/02/12/the-privilege-of-politeness/
politeness is a social construct that disenfranchises the rightfully pissed. idk who is moderating here but they are clearly dumb as a box of brix if they think they're helping anything by blocking my comments that are clearly constructive as well as profane
Well excuse me for trying to be helpful.
Also, when did I say anything about politeness?
You mention the civility rules, excuse me I had to rewrite this damn comment like three times lol
Yes, mods in most communities expect discussions not to descend into people hurling insults at each other because that turns the community into chaos and also does not make it a safe place for marginalized groups and why you would be against such a policy to the point of being so rude to me, I'm not sure. But if you feel that you need a place where you can be as insulting towards people as you like, may I suggest 4chan?
How is "may I suggest 4chan", a notoriously transphobic website, directed at someone from the Trans Lemmy, not supposed to be an insult?
How is "fuck you" an insult? It doesn't attack you in any way whatsoever it just shows disrespect. I'm allowed to not respect you. Didn't say anything about you or even call you an asshole.
You're not protecting marginalized groups, you're enforcing a standard of civility that is usually used to tell minorities "shut up, why are you so angry"
If protecting minorities was the goal, the rule would be against racism, sexism, etc... but that's not the rule.
I already explained several times why I'm against the policy but idk I guess you can't read that well? Really the only explanation I have here.
That is stated explicitly in the communities I moderate.
Examples-
World News:
Ten Forward:
Lemmy Shitpost:
I don't know what you are entitled to do in this community in terms of moderation, but you are not entitled to make up your own so-called facts unchallenged.
Okay, if the civility rule is in place to protect minorities as you say, than why would we need a civility rule? That's my point. We already have rules against bigotry.
You totally missed my point 🙄 and then you get all snooty about "facts unchallenged". When really you just continually misunderstand or ignore my very clearly spelled out argument against this dumbass civility rule. Is this civility? You're just ignoring all my points and posting useless screenshots.
Your words:
I showed that this was a false claim.
So you can say I missed your point, but your point was based on a false claim. And now you're moving the goalposts.
I said "that's not the rule", not "that's not a rule". As in, that's not the rule you're talking about. You're literally just misunderstanding me, probably deliberately, and ignoring all my points to focus on pedantics! This is why you suck so bad dude!
You're ignoring the topic at hand to focus on something that you misinterpreted. Embarassing for you. Can't believe you're trying to turn this discussion into a grammar lesson, rather than the fact that your enforcement of civility rules is a shit thing to do.
So back to the topic, if civility rules exist to defend minorities, which is what you claimed ... why do we need them if we already have rules against bigotry and hate speech?!?!
And also back to the topic, how is continuing to ignore the conversation to rudely insist on your incorrect interpretation of my clear words... even after I clarified ... how is that civil lmao
I'm still not understanding why it's a shitty thing to stop people from having shouting matches and being bigots, which is what the civility rules are for, and you keep being rude rather than explaining it.
But it seems like you are not a fan of the 'no shouting matches' part, which seems to be the problem. And, again, I would suggest 4Chan if you want endless shouting matches.
I've explained multiple times, and if you had bothered to engage with my points rather than ignore them completely you would understand. Another poster also wrote out several paragraphs explaining why. You are PRETENDING to not have seen these explanations I wrote out.
Civility rules focus on the tone rather than the content, which is highly problematic because marginalized groups are often rightfully pissed the fuck off. That's probably like, the fifth time I've written out a version of that.
You are bringing up 4chan again after I already told you that that's fucked up since it's an extremely transphobic site, and I am a trans person. That's not civil lmao. You can continually insult me by telling me to go to 4chan, but if I say "fuck you" I gety posts taken down. Make that make sense. Nah, you won't because you get off on the power trip.
I have seen how you operate multiple times. You get into arguments with people, nitpick over dumb shit, and then when someone gets frustrated and uses meanie-poopoo-head language you take out your moderation powers. You have done this to me and I've seen you do this in other threads to other users. You really suck dude.
Then feel free to flag my post for violating incivility rules. Maybe I'll be banned. You seem to think I'm a moderator in this community when I'm not.
lmao just saw your post history and literally one of your last post is FLAUNTING your mod power, literally just proving my point. You think being a mod gives you social weight, which it does, and the other mods also believe. And you can't see how incivility rules are enforced unfairly??? You are just pretending not to understand this.
What are you even talking about now? Are you talking about this post? Where I said that they were welcome to ignore me or block me even if I'm a mod? That's a weird definition of 'flaunting.'
https://lemmy.world/comment/10079373
Again, if I have done anything to violate the rules in this community, do something about it. Flag my post.
You KNOW that you are being a polite asshole and won't get your comment taken down. That is the entire point of my contention with you and the inequitable civility rule. You are IGNORING all of my points.
You bragged about how you're such a good guy because you're a mod. You just keep pretending to miss the point! It's really obvious!
You have literally not addressed anything I have said and have perpetually deflected. I think the only reason you are continuing to respond is you are hoping I'll get frustrated and say something that a mod will ban me over. This is exactly why these civility rules suck. This is why you suck. You have no response to any of my explanations and then lie and say I haven't explained myself. Every time I see you comment, my day gets worse, because you're always doing the same thing in every discussion I've seen you in.
And not once have you said "my bad" or "I'm wrong" even though you have been mistaken or presumptive multiple times. 🙄
I never bragged about being "such a good guy." Why are you lying again?
engage with the content of my post challenge level: impossible.
you are doing the same thing you always do and trying to bring this into a semantic argument.
you are scum defending these stupid civility rules when the way you engage with other people is just like, mind bogglingly obtuse and assholeish.
Insulting me will not make your lie true.
Once again, you ignore anything of actual substance. The civility rules are inequitable. Enforcing them makes you a shit person. You have no rebuttal or defense for this so you try to focus on other things, but I think at this point you just know I'm right.
Once again, insulting me will not make your lie true.
Enforcing shitty rules makes you a shit person. That's an accurate description. You continue to admit through your silence on the matter that the rules are unfair, and you benefit from them.
You're not engaging on the topic because you know I'm right.
And yet it is still a lie that I bragged about being “such a good guy.”
No amount of aggression, insults or berating posts will make that true. You can say whatever you like to me and that still won't be true. It's a lie. It's not my fault you lied.
I never quoted you, I am pulling out the substance of your argument here:
This is definitely flaunting, and definitely using your mod status to make you out to be a good person.
I fucking hate you for going into this stupid pedantic argument. This is what you always do. Literally always. I won't be continuing with this line anymore, I have quoted you directly and there is nothing more to say. Fucking tool.
You have nothing to say about civility rules? You can't defend yourself at all? You are okay with knowing you are upholding rules that silence minority opinions and rightfully angry individuals? How long can you ignore the topic?
Not once have you meaningfuly engaged with what I have been telling you. You are unable to because it threatens your sense of power.
No it isn't. Both of those things are lies. I will not address anything else you have to say while you continue to lie about me.
I do not, and have never claimed to be, a good person. That is not my call. My only claim is that I do my job as a moderator well enough that I keep being asked to moderate more channels, so maybe I'm not as bad a moderator as they claim.
Again for the people in the back row:
I do not, and have never claimed to be, a good person.
Now, are you going to stop lying? Because until you do, I will not address anything you said.
lmao you're so lost in the sauce you're just like , "yeah I'm not a good person". okay.
So you still won't acknowledge that it's a lie that I bragged about being a "really good person." Even though when I explicitly say twice that it is nothing I have ever claimed to be in my entire life.
I guess you don't want me to discuss your points after all. Weird that you keep complaining that I won't discuss them.
You just admitted you're not a good person, what more is there to say? My whole argument was that you're a shitty person for enforcing these civility rules.
Okay, fine. I'm a shitty person. Like I said, it's not my call.
All I know is that I came in here and told the OP that I would like to help them and let them know how to get in touch with me if there's a problem and you felt that was absolutely unacceptable of me.
If that makes me a shitty person, I accept that.
🤔🤔 hmmm was that the part of the comment I was talking about? Or are you disingenuously pretending? 🤔🤔🤔 let me find the nearest kindergartner to help you out with this.
Yes, I know, you are objecting to my using the word 'civility' by taking it entirely out of the context of the post.
Here is the context including why I said it to the OP:
OP: "All of that changed with the recent “bear vs man” debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes."
Me: Every community I moderate has a civility rule, and shouting down or harassing women who are telling personal stories would be against those rules.
You: 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻
So yeah, I get that you are objecting to my using a single word when, taken out of context, means that I expect people to be polite all the time and not speak up when there's some injustice. Of course, I didn't mean that, as you can tell from what I literally said, or my comment history which you claimed to have read when I myself do that frequently, but you would much rather argue with something I never said or intended to say or even implied.
And your "proof" was me telling someone who was specifically telling me how I was a bad moderator that other people didn't seem to agree which meant I was bragging about being a really good person, something you still refuse to acknowledge is not true.
Honestly, it seems like you just wanted to get angry at someone and I was an available target.
So, again, fine, I'm a shitty person.
I'm also a shitty person who's going to keep a very close eye on you if you post in communities that I moderate in from now on because you just lie and lie and lie and I will not tolerate that where I moderate.
And that is my last post in this conversation.
And now you are abusing your power because you are calling me a "liar"
You do realize this is exactly what I am talking about with the civility rules and the inherent power imbalance?
I am objecting to the enforcement of civility rules, which are unnecessary given existing bigotry rules. You know that, but you're pretending that's not what I am saying. My proof was several well thought out arguments, and even some outside resources on the topic of civility and politeness rules being oppressive.
You ignored all of this.
Of course, the moment you start attempting to address the actual topic, you say "oh yah I won't respond" 🙄 I have seen you do that before so I'm not surprised. I fucking knew you would do that if I addressed your pedantic assholery.
You'll respond indefinitely to pedantics, but won't engage in anything of substance, and then act self righteous and also... only clip the part of my comments that are 🖕🏻🖕🏻, ignoring the point I actually made. 🙄
I know you're not a mod here 🙄 but that still gives you weight. You won't be taken down for civility because, as I have explained several times, the rules are enforced selectively and unfairly. You have more power in any community because of your status as a mod in other large communities, and because your style of incivility is assholeish condescension which is easy to pretend is polite. You are literally ignoring all my points, again, because you can't dispute what I say, and you benefit from the rules.
If you are not willing to follow the rules of this community clearly outlined in the sidebar, moderation action will be taken as necessary.
Your original comment, which was removed by another moderator, was a very clear attack towards the OC; Do note that attacks directed towards other users are not allowed in this community.
You are free to share your views in this community as long as they adhere to the community and this instance's rules. However, if your views on "civility/politeness" means you are complicit in attacking other users here, you are free to contribute elsewhere on the internet.
What did I say that was an attack? "fuck you"? is that an attack lmao ? these rules are arbitrarily enforced because I have seen people say that all the time, or say "fuck you" just in more words that they think are clever. the only reason I didn't put that in this post was I just forgot to lol
We are volunteers, with full-time jobs. We don't watch all the comments in our communities. We tend to only act on reported infractions. For example, you are reported often for rule violations (rule 2, mostly).
Okay, and can you see how this is messed up? People most often report "incivility" when someone is expressing a minority opinion. 🙄🙄
The point is that if you see things, report them. That's how we keep the community civil
That is how you keep a community peaceful, not civil.
In order to keep a community civil you have to understand when conflict is needed and also what types of people are usually silenced either by trolls or by selective enforcement of rules or community guidelines.
My point is that civility rules are oppressive. Allow people to be justifiably upset. The civility rules will always favor majority held opinions. Read the article I linked, do some of your own research. You're upholding a dumbass rule that will inevitably, and has been, inconsistently used.
another source
https://youtu.be/ezQa9MzJiBg?si=fkXKddpsGfuvxN4X
Hey fren, I may have mixed up my words but I was agreeing with you.
I guess I should have just said “no justice no peace” because that about sums it up right?
The absence of chaos does not equal civility or peace, order and uniformity imposed upon a living history of injustices, prejudices and systematic inequality does not create civility, this is why moderators need to be diverse and understand the context of the conversations they are moderating. There is no neutral, a moderation system is like a suspension system in car, it cannot eliminate the bumps in the road, it cannot eliminate the impulse from the car hitting those bumps, it can only react and moderate the resulting acceleration of the car’s chassis.
Car suspension is tuned to ideally behave like a critically damped system, the impulse hits, discomfort happens, but the springs provide a moderating force that returns the vehicle back to its normal ride height as quickly as possible without wild oscillations from underdamping but also crucially without overly suppressing the impulse either and causing overdampening where an impulse is never really resolved, or processed and the car doesn’t really return to its normal ride height for a long time.
No moderation creates wildly underdamped systems, but “everybody is equal and subject to the same precise rules no matter the context” moderation creates overdamped systems where pre-existing injustices and systematic prejudices are encoded into the dynamics of the system, departures from a stable norm are preserved and enlarged and while the suspension system may appear to behaving normally from the outside (no wild oscillations) it isn’t really functioning.
It isn’t easy, but I don’t think it is worth lamenting how hard moderation of communities is. It will until the end of time be one of the most difficult problems to solve long after we have spaceships and unlimited healthcare and cold fusion. That is just the way it is, and we have to do our best and we also have to be willing to say it how it is.
Which is all to say if a black person comes onto the fediverse and starts calling this white af space racist and isn’t being polite about it… well we should think long and hard before silencing that person shouldn’t we? People have a right to be upset when they have been hurt, and we don’t have a right to expect them to be polite about it after a certain point.
We do have a responsibility to understand the context though, and that can lead to understanding how someone who is very outwardly angry and confrontational is actually participating in harm reduction in a community by confronting the overdamped inequalities locking the system into an unnaturally depressed state.
Yes I heard your agreement the first time!! 💖 But this is extremely well articulated and I hope the moderation team reads it. These civility rules uphold some nasty power dynamics.
I have, as a trans person, experienced being on the blunt end of these civility rules for being "impolite" about my disagreement. Passion is not a crime, and at the end of the day, being called an asshole isn't really going to hurt anyone.
We should definitely moderate for slurs, but we don't even do that consistently. I remember seeing a thread filled with heavily upvoted sexist slurs against Hillary Clinton. She does suck, but when you're gleefully using words like "cunt" and "bitch" to articulate that, you're creating an environment that's kinda scary for women.