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.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
134 points (77.0% liked)
Showerthoughts
30149 readers
1324 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Avoid politics
- 3.1) NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
- 3.2) Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
- 3.3) Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
And like many human beings, they often refuse to admit their mistakes out of pride and anger.
They're volunteers providing a public service for free around here, not employees.
Probably.
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.
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.
load more comments
(4 replies)
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.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
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 ~~before~~ prefer (edit - damn predictive) to read a truth I disliked than to continue believing erroneous information; but that’s just me.
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.