Contact the admins of the existing instance showing the mod not following the community rules or the instance TOS
Complain about it on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Create a new community on a different instance.
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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Man goes to the doctor "doctor, I'm depressed because I was banned by a power tripping bastard"
Doctor says "treatment is simple. Go to db0's community and complain"
Man says "but doctor, I was banned by db0"
Complain about it on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com
You can only complain about mods that instance owner disagrees with...
There's entire instances that you can't complain about any of the mod activity.
what when the admin is the prat?
Move to a new instance
I love the fediverse
"fact"
where proof?
Our instance-admin db0 was (is?) also the mod for r/piracy
But IMO they are a good mod
Well tbh, I started /c/piracy and lemmy.dbzer0.com specifically because I wanted to move /r/piracy away from reddit ;)
Was reddit censoring you guys? They are under pressure, search engines removed most such links.
I should join that one I need to start sailing the seas more. Cannot easily find stuff now.
It was back in protest against the API changes.
Oh jeez I summoned the admin. :o
Lol, of course they are a reddit mod on a major sub...
Had the instance blocked for a long time, but that makes complete sense.
The big brain simplistic view of "every X is Y". Every mod is a dick. Every linux user is intelligent. Every windows user is stupid. Every Indian smells. Every African is poor. My logic is always sound.
What?
I made zero assumptions, just commented on how the additional I formation about that person, explains their behavior.
When you hear someone's lack of surprise an ICE agent is a Nazi, do you make "snarky" comments too?
I don't have the time to list every instance of this happening, but here is 2 examples:
What are you providing here as proof? Those are two communities (incorrectly linked btw, but I don't know if that's fedia's fault). What's with them?
I had a progressive sub, facepalm, permaban me for disagreeing with the group and demonstrating with a propublica link, that living next to cell towers is unhealthy.
They are so weak minded they are shown dumb conspiracies and taught to associate the entire subject with tinfoil hattery.
Ironically the same thing that is done with them on the right to make normal people all hate them. As I said weak minded. I told the mod propublica is a reliable source and got permabanned for backsass.
I'm surprised to learn that. It seems a lot less restrictive here than reddit.
As with anything, contemptible people eventually get themselves into positions of power, and once they're there, it's nigh impossible to get rid of them without starting over completely.
Everyone in an organization backs up their peers. Be it government, business, to mod teams or site wide admins. They all cover for each other naturally.
Which is why we need clear rules, and appeals all the way to jury trials of members online.
So we have the good mods here and not ones like that LSF nutjob?
It's impossible to be sure. There are usually some red flags when mods end up out of touch or alignment with a community, but a sufficiently crafty mod team have the power to hide many of their transgressions where regular posters don't. Quick edit: In the Fediverse, this is slightly harder to hide because the mod logs are public. But someone would still have to comb through them.
Whether the problem ultimately turns out to be the mod or the community (or a subset thereof) is a difficult question.
Sometimes it's clearly one or the other. Sometimes it's possible for both mod team and community to be out of order in completely different ways, and there are no winners in the court of morality. But the mods will win through sheer power.
Ever watched shows about nightmare landlords and nightmare tenants? Same kind of deal.
It is more that there are fewer people who are more like-minded.
If Lemmy were to get larger, moderation would become more required.
It's probably better curated since Lemmy instance runners aren't corporations.
I am curious to see a true anarchic community purely governed by votes. My assumption is a total fucking dysfunctional shitshow that nobody is even remotely happy with but who knows
I always thought that mods should be what you subscribe to. Don't like a mod? Unsubscribe and all posts they've dropped come back.
How do you think potentially illegal/ deplorable posted content should be handled then? What about the banning and removing of users?
Without mods and rules, anyone is free to write a script that downvotes every post of another user below the threshold where it gets removed.
So everyone has the power to silence everyone else. This is the opposite of anarchy. It's a nuclear war.
You wouldn't end up with a community that regulates itself. You'd end up in a place where either the most vile users push through their own views, one entirely controlled by bots, or one that's completely disfunctional due to trolling.
Everyone who doesn't abuse the system leaves, and the abusers then get bored for a lack of victims, leaving behind a dead space.
I wouldn't say no rules. I would say no hierarchy of users. I do think your assessment of what would happen is accurate. I'm pretty sure that's how all anarchic systems evolve tbh
Wasn’t that called 4chan?
I think clear mod rules, then challenges to mod acts, appealed to a jury trial of users online.
We are too small for it to be a big issue here.
In all honestly, just try to talk to people. It does not always work. Some fuckwits are mods for the narcissistic idiocy. Be the change you want to see, and then push your way into the cultural discussion.
Like 90% of the time, sending a PM is more than adequate to curb behavior. Every mod action is harmful without exception, as proven by the prisoner's dilemma in game theory. Negative feedback is incapable of producing positive outcomes. Adding as little negative feedback as possible creates the best environment for everyone.
If you want to be a mod, that means sorting out flags by reading into the situation from both sides. I will not tolerate bigotry or personal attacks of any kind. However, every individual has a right to all information, a right to skepticism, a right to error, and a right to protest in nonviolent forms aka the right to offend others. No one has a right to infringe on these same rights of others.
My personal feelings are irrelevant as a mod. I will not take actions against someone if I am participating in the conversation. I will flag the issue and PM another mod. I try to remember to sign my mod log messages because I have nothing to hide and despise any coward that lacks full transparency from a position of authority. I am the janitor. I clean up the messes. I read into the details of every flag. I am just as likely to take actions against the person that flagged the issue. I usually contact both parties in a PM too.
I have experienced many bad mods, but that is my catalyst. Everyone is valid, even if unpopular. Everyone has a right to error because that is a primary way that we learn. The only scope that I will bias heavily is any issue with diversity and especially any transgender negativity because the Fediverse is a safe heaven in that regard.
Dichotomous logic is a sign of stupidity and something to avoid with self awareness. If you are unwilling to reach out and take as little action as required, you a doing it for the wrong reasons and ultimately harmful. Immediate emotional reactions are harmful. Think stuff through from all perspectives and give every benefit of the doubt as possible. Everyone has a right to have a bad day too. Don't let some halfwit reaction make their bad day worse even if you disagree strongly as a person. A good judge always separates their emotions from cognitive logic. Being a mod is not hard at all. One just has to care. The community is self regulating with flags that indicate when action is needed. Micromanagement is a mental disorder. The best communities are often those with inactive mods.
(this account)
I believe that "older" mods can remove other mods, same as on Reddit, though I've never tried. So mods that show up higher on the list of mods in the right-hand sidebar in the Lemmy Web UI for the community.
Or instance admins on the instance where the community lives. They probably won't get involved unless the mod is violating the rules they've set for their instance. Your idea of what constitutes acceptable behavior for the mod and their idea may or may not be the same.
You'd have to talk to either those "more senior" mods or the instance admins and convince one of them that the mod shouldn't be a mod for that community.
Only alternative is going and creating some alternative community elsewhere and drawing users away.
You don't need one. Just make a new community without that mod.
Learning from Reddit, creating new community and attracting users to it is super hard. It almost would never work in practice.
I think most people are interested in helping the fediverse grow and fragmentation here is a good thing. Also subscriber count doesn’t always mean activity and engagement.
Reddit is much harder to clone communities because you can't take the url and there's no on-site function to meaningfully advertise. Because of the fediverse being defederated, you can spin up an alternative and advertise it much easier on here.
I can't speak for anyone else, but if they're anything like Reddit mods I'm in favour of the trebuchet.
Just make a fork on a different instance. If users like you better, they’ll migrate.
It depends on the instance admins.
Also, you've had mod abuse, now you can have admin abuse here.