5mo ago

If you don't want EVERYONE to participate in your community, then you should really make it private.

I just got permanently banned from a community for making a single harmless remark on a single post that was right there in the main feed. It's not a community I'm super active in so it's not like devastating, but it is annoying

If your precious little community is full of so many delicate sensitive people who can't even be reminded that another viewpoint even exists, then you should really protect them by defederating and having everyone join your private website

The mod has literally removed like 75% of the comments and banned everyone lol

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have time to read every rule for every community that pops up when I'm in view all

203 comments

I defended @beaver@lemmy.ca when a comment of theirs was reported.
I was just given context on this. Looking at their comments in that light, I have decided to ban them from !unpopularopinion@lemmy.world for all their bad faith arguments. Banning people for "bad faith" voting is bullshit. Coming here to defend that horrible action will not be tolerated.
- Thank you and good riddance to @beaver@lemmy.ca, when you look at the amount of subs she is modding, it's quite worrying. It makes me wonder if she does anything else with her time.

We all know it's the vegan community. I got banned for simply voting on comments.
Now they're also spamming posts to fill up everyone's feeds.
- Same here lmfao, the utter sensitivity.
  Edit: Also, it's mostly that one power-mod spamming vitriolic posts. I just blocked them and my feed is a lot nicer. Dude's checking the database and just banning everyone who downvotes him.
  
  Is that something regular moderators can do...?
  Not that I particularly care, but I moderate three communities on here and none of the tools available to me show who downvoted what. Exposing that type of info with that type of granularity feels like a bad idea to me; the sort of thing that is just begging to invite some sort of abuse.
- It was indeed! The post in question was particularly smarmy and my response was pretty tame in comparison. Why even have a community if you don't want anyone to have a conversation?
  
  Vegans are a relative minority group that a lot of people like to antagonise. That's not to say you were doing that, I haven't looked at what you got banned over. Just that a lot of people do go out of their way to try to annoy vegans, and because there are relatively few vegans those people can quickly drown out any attempt to discuss, like, vegan recipes and such
  
  It's tribalism. We're unfortunately all guilty of it in one way or another and it has become more serious with the increase of social media use
  I like this explanation in particular: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-school-walls/202304/tribalism-in-the-age-of-social-media
  Edit: to add, I am suspecting that I'm still getting brigaded by a group I pissed off last week. It really doesn't bother me if they are doing that, but there are people that take their internet points more serious than I do so there are definitely people in the fediverse that will do that to you
- That explains why I'm banned from there. I saw a post from there pop up on all that I actually agreed with and when I tried to comment I learned I was banned.
- I missed this whole thing. I've had them blocked for as long as I can remember.
- Block them can't you?
  
  How about we try to keep everything less shitty?
- Could have been lemmy.ml!
  
  Nope.
- I have a cousin on FB who's like that, spamming feeds with a lot of stuff promoting a diet that works around her particular allergies and needs and trying to proselytize it to anyone who appears to be listening. The volume was actually really high, and for stuff that isn't family stuff like I usually use that account to just see.
  So, blocked. It's like her and a rabid anti-gov/vax/tax nutjob blocked, and I dunno whether that's right.

I got banned for downvoting. Kind of hard to take people seriously when they’re so sensitive to criticism that the equivalent of a thumbs down emoji gets you banned.
- Pretty sure I just got banned from c/vegan because I downvoted "wrong". Haven't interacted in any other way, so not sure what else it could be. Also recently got banned from c/imageai for downvoting "too much"? This is a weird trend that seems like a bad path for Lemmy to go down if it's starting to become the norm.
  *Also, what's up with not being able to block a community you're banned from? They don't want you there but you're forced to view their content? That makes no sense.
  
  I see a lot of comments about a particular vegan community. Sounds like people here need something like c/chillVegans where you don’t get kicked out unless you’re a total menace.
  
  Also, what's up with not being able to block a community you're banned from?
  I'd like a setting that automatically hides communities where I can't participate. If I have to be a member of some club, hit some threshold of something, whatever; I just don't want to see it, then.
  
  Also recently got banned from c/imageai for downvoting “too much”?
  My guess is it's because there are a bunch of people who hate AI in general, and they want votes to instead reflect which images people like or don't like for what they are instead of every post having a negative score.
  
  Also, what's up with not being able to block a community you're banned from?
  Wait, really? I'm gonna have to check on that. Curious if that's an API limitation or a frontend bug. What frontend did you use? Lemmy-UI?
- Yeah same. I don't downvote indescriminately, but a post had factory farmed fish : 0 not factory farmed. Like no shit. Whatever, that supermod was going off the deep end with their comments lately.
  
  I have zero clue who/what you're talking about, and I feel I'm better off for that.
- Is "agreement" a rule? That's too incongruous to believe -- only because loyalty requirements are a far right thing, not the rules for a group typically skewing left.

I never care about these posts unless you share what you posted.
Too Many times the "it was just a little joke bro" turns out they called someone's dog the N word or something and understand why they got banned.
"What it wasn't like I said it about a person, just a ***** dog"
So, have fun OP, but making this post makes me doubt you more than them if you're not going to recount any details at all.
- Feel free to check the modlog.
  Butthurt Beaver has also been banning anyone who dares vote incorrectly.
  
  how

Not to be all "not like the other girls" about veganism, but I kind of hate the general vegan communities. They always end up turning into a who can hate meat eaters the most contest and the less extreme members usually leave. It's also really frustrating because the goal should be to get more people eating plant based, and their methods just push people away. Yeah, of course I believe people should stop eating meat, and I struggle to understand how someone can acknowledge the cruelty of factory farming and turn around and eat a burger, but shouting them down isn't accomplishing anything. I'm not going to engage with the people who show up just to talk shit, but I'm down to talk to anyone actually open to a conversation.
That said, there are a lot of people who think it's suuuuper funny to seek out vegan communities to make the same tired ass comments that lead to vegans becoming angrier and more insular, so I really don't want to make this a Vegans Bad comment. I get the desire to tell people to fuck off. It's exhausting to try to talk about a news article and be constantly drowned out by trolls.
OP, I don't know what your comment said, but you know whether or not you were engaging in good faith. Maybe you deserved the ban, maybe not. I just think maybe sometimes we could all stand to keep scrolling.
- I struggle to understand how someone can acknowledge the cruelty of factory farming and turn around and eat a burger,
  Because cruelty is inherent to food production in most places in the west, to one degree or another. Even for non-factory farmed meat, there's going to be some cruelty at the very end of an animal's life, since event he most compassionate slaughter is still slaughter. But even going past that, to plant-based foods. in the US at least we rely on labor abuses in order to have groceries that are affordable. The migrants that pick oranges in Florida (or, picked; DeSantis is trying to eliminate undocumented immigrants, and the result is that farmers are having a very hard time finding labor) work in terrible conditions for horrible pay, conditions that no person protected by labor laws would ever accept. But we, as a society, are aware of this, and accept that this cruelty is necessary for us, because we won't--or can't--pay for produce that comes from co-op farms.
  We--all of us--pick and choose where we put our energy.
- You are now banned from c/vegan
- THANK YOU ! I was feeling like I was alone with this point of view...
- Was I voting on comments on bad faith?
  
  Well let's not pretend people don't routinely use the downvote as a disagree button. And you'll notice I never said the mod in question was 100% right or wrong, just that I can see how people on both sides end up angry.
- It’s also really frustrating because the goal should be to get more people eating plant based, and their methods just push people away.
  Why should that be the goal of the c/vegan community? Why can't it just be for vegans to vent, and exchange advice/news about vegan food?
  This expectation that vegans need to always be positive and welcoming towards meat eaters barging into their vegan communities is exhausting and kind of ridiculous.
  
  It's a fairly common tactic of evangelical religious groups to send young people out to proselytize; they say that they're called to spread the religion to the whole world, and that the proselytizing is to save people by converting them. The tactics that the young people are taught are often antagonistic. An extreme example is the Westboro Baptist Church, but all evangelical religions use similar tactics. Unsurprisingly, very few people convert. The true purpose of antagonistic proselytizing is to reinforce in/out group status; the youth are rejected by outside people, while being praised by people within their own group. That reinforces their feelings of comfort and safety within their group, and makes it more difficult for them to leave. Leaving the safety of the group means that they're severing their most intimate social connections, and that cost is too high for most people.
  This was my experience as a Mormon; this has been the experience of many Mormons, and of all people that have left high-demand evangelical religions.
  IF they really cared about getting more people to join their religion, they would be opening and welcoming to people, even people that were antagonistic to them. When you think about it from a PR standpoint, it should be clear that acting antagonistically towards people that simply don't believe the same things--not people that are being antagonistic themselves--works counter to the purpose of persuasion.
  
  Oh I don't feel like I need to be welcoming to people who have no intention of listening and are just there to be dicks. I just don't want to push away anyone who might be open to the idea of changing their diet by immediately telling them what a terrible person they are for not doing it already. It's important to me not just to reduce the harm I do, but to try to minimize it elsewhere if I can.

Vegans will talk mad shit and then get so mad when their thread reaches nonvegan feeds.
Can't stand the heat, which is why they eat salad.
- Rip roast veggies
- Fuck I would give this comment Reddit gold if I could. You just made me snort soda.

Ahhhhh... feels just like Reddit! It's like we never left!
- Perhaps that would be a better home for that community?
- I can’t wait to see you guys on c/fedilore!

So, like, if I organize a block party where everyone's invited, and someone drops a deuce in the punch bowl, I shouldn't ask them to leave?
- I'd say it's more like I went to a party where the host invited the entire block but only wants people there wearing funny hats, but didn't tell anyone they had to wear a funny hat and then called the police to complain that their house is full of people who aren't wearing funny hats.
  I'd take the ban without question if I was acting like an ass on there, but all I did was make a comment that didn't specifically agree with them that everyone who isn't vegan is apparently a horrible person who persecutes vegans constantly lol
  
  but didn't tell anyone they had to wear a funny hat
  FYI, I don't know the specific case here, just being generic.
  The rules are right there in the sidebar in pretty much all clients, though it varies on mobile depending on app/web UI. Most communities here have rules. Society has rules. Ignorance of those rules, whether accidental or willful, is never a valid excuse for breaking them. "I'm sorry, officer, I didn't know I couldn't do that" isn't a valid legal strategy.
  To return to the analogy: it would be like showing up to the event without a funny hat despite the invitation clearly stating that a funny hat is required and then being asked to leave. It's on the attendee to read the details on the invitation and be aware of any requirements.
  "Calling the police" would be more akin to escalating to a site admin to have you banned for that which, I agree, would be extreme unless the person decided to be an ass and make a scene on the way out (not throwing shade with that, just using an actual party example I've had to deal with).
- Yeah, I don't really get it either.
  You don't have to comment on everything you see. Seems more logical to focus on a few communities you know, and pay more attention when you browse All.
  Even if you comment, it's okay to be banned. Move on. Why make a post to complain about it if you don't care?

I’ve never come across a friendly vegan community. I’m not exactly looking for one but the ones that make themselves known tend to have extreme takes. There’s nothing wrong being vegan but their online community sure feels they’re going about it the wrong way, being overly dismissive and defensive rather than open and helpful.
- You are now banned from c/vegan
- It can depend on how one interacts with the community as those who are open-minded are often welcomed and taught the ethical ways of doing things.
  
  lol. “If you agree with us, you can stay.”

Seriously these mods ban you for literally nothing. I think they're worse on here than they ever were on Reddit. Bunch of fucking children I swear to God.
edit Oh hey now I'm banned from c/vegan too. I wasn't even talking about them. They're even worse I guess.
- Wait, did you post there, or did you get banned there, for this post HERE?
  
  I have no idea when I was banned from there. I assume it was this post, cuz I don't think I've ever posted there before. I just noticed when I tried to upvote a thread earlier it wouldn't let me so I assume this is where it came from.
  
  Oohh let’s try an experiment. I have never been to c/vegan even though my stepson and his wife are vegan so I guess I might have a reason to … sorta.
  Anyway here goes. … Hey c/vegan, the one mod over there is a completely douchebag and should just stop being a right cunt. Please ban me until they fuck off.
  How do you find out if your banned?

Nah, a ton of people say the same thing.
They're wrong, and so are the immediate bans (the bans are asshole moves, but you don't just jump into a C/ without checking the vibe a little), but it's too common a complaint to call unpopular.

Was it on the vegan community? I bet it was on the vegan community.
Their echo chambers are lined with the same material the tankies use in their communities.

Just leave the rabid vegans alone. They are showing you who they are. Believe them and don’t waste your time trying to be rational with them.

We're talking about u/beaver aren't we?
One of the things I disliked about Reddit was the self righteous power mods that turned the site in to an echo chamber.
If you can't handle a counter point that's been made in good faith, then get off of the soapbox.
- Meat eaters engage in the 300+ logical fallacies more often than enough in my experiences.

Some people get the tiniest shred of a hint of a... concept of a plan... of power and it turns them into tiny tinpot tyrants. Sometimes they're on HOAs, sometimes they're middle management, and sometimes they moderate communities or forums online. You can't reason with them, and it's out of your ability to destroy them, so you're better off just shrugging your shoulders, giving them the finger, and then doing something else.
- You have been permanently banned from c/ConservativeCatRecipes.

IMO this is mainly only a problem because Lemmy is small enough that everyone is browsing all and there's no realistic natural separation of users. Going private is an extreme solution with high likelihood of it just dying as a result.
- Going private is an extreme solution with high likelihood of it just dying as a result.
  Okay, and...?
  That doesn't negate the point: if they don't want anyone else that isn't already part of their group interacting with their instance or posts, why be federated, and why leave things public?
  
  Because what they want is more likely to stop people with values incompatible with their group interacting with it, while still being visible enough that people who may have compatible values could become aware of it.
  Maybe the way they go about pursuing that causes a mild annoyance for many other people, but I think it's a legitimate thing to want.
- Then perish.
- This is a significant problem on Reddit as well.
  There needed to be resources and admin actions devoted to keeping disagreeing groups separate for the respective health of their communities.
  Even then, it is a common practice to outright ban people from some subs if they participated in other subs as participation in one sub likely meant they would be disruptive in the other sub.
  
  Even then, it is a common practice to outright ban people from some subs if they participated in other subs as participation in one sub likely meant they would be disruptive in the other sub.
  And then we all get to live in echo chambers or get banned for ban evasion because we didnt know we were banned. I hate this.

Looks like it's just a temp ban, not permanent:
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=1271184
- I appreciate that, but I already blocked the mod and the community. There's no point in even trying to deal with someone like that for a community I'm not super active in. I honestly can't imagine that even vegan people will want to stay there much longer if it's gotten this bad
  
  Isn't blocking them essentially you banning them from your posts and comments? Why is that different?

Upvoted as unpopular. I don't know if I agree with this or not (on general grounds), it's extremely complicated.
In theory it's completely OK to have a community for a restricted but non-private demographic, and often it's how you avoid a crowd of "excuuuuse me, I'm going to debate the same stale points over and over, and I expect you to waste your time with me".
In practice we know that there's a high chance that the community evolves into an echo chamber, of the dumbest type - that claps to convenient idiocy, but ridicules inconvenient truth.
If it's sensible to have a community like this, as well as the outcome of having it like this, depends mostly on the sanity of whoever is in charge of the comm.
[Edited for subtle rewording. No change on discourse.]

I feel like the Internet doesn't have that fuzzy but between public and private spaces like real life does. Some people want their public space to be like a Marxist book store on a side street to a Main/High Street. Sure, people can come in to read the literature and talk about the books there. However, if someone comes in wanting to discuss the merits of Ayn Rand, they are probably going to be kicked out.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t have time to read every rule for every community that pops up when I’m in view all
This is exactly what made subreddits turn into an indistinguishable mush once they start reaching the front page. A way to not have your community show up in All would be nice, or to make posts read-only unless you're subscribed.
- Absolutely agreed. Unlike reddit, there's nothing between "private" and "everyone". Reddit had a feature that subs could avoid the front page no matter how popular a post got, but Lemmy doesn't have that, so every post shows up on everyone's all.
- That would be nice

I don't think this opinion is really all that unpopular, but I get that this sub is often used to air grievances and somewhat popular opinions, so I won't judge too harshly.
Pretty impressive modlog rap sheet you got there OP! I had my last account for over a year and I don't think I got banned or had a comment removed once, so seeing an account with dozens of entries is eye opening to say the least. This account is new enough that I've managed to stay off the modlogs so far with it as far as I'm aware. Maybe I should go into a random sub and say something racist and/or toxic! Are there any dog specific communities where I can request dog meat recipes?

You're gonna see that a lot on Lemmy unless you fall in line and don't say anything they wanna call a "dog whistle".
- Man... Mods just make shit up when they ban mostly.
  Reviewing modlog is very telling. Reddit mod culture is svery strong here but at least now we have reciepts.
  News and politics subs are just DNC shill ops at this point. Block and don't give them engagement.
  I understand that we are pro kamala here but a shill op is a shill op. I expect people here to know better.
  
  You'd have loved to s see the mod log for r/Artisanvideos. So many people thought it was the ideal place to plug their shit with high traffic and low post count. I was not polite about banning them. Especially stupid goddamn Gruyere cheese. I had to blacklist their YouTube channel.

They are echo bunkers. They only want comments and identity validating upvotes that whole throatedly support the orthodoxy of the echo bunker but they want to spread their extremist message by commenting on and brigading posts that they don't like in other communities to try to bully, shame, and harass others into adopting their extremist quasi-religion and join their echo bunker.
- ☝️what this person said. Sums uo entire "culture"
  Tankies going around in pacts copy pasting same fucking shiti arguments and links with a bridgade for upvotes and downvotes.
  News and politics subs same thing.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I just got banned from that community and I've literally never posted in it. I've downvoted some posts, but they're all pretty antagonistic, so what else else am i gonna do when it shows up in my feed?
- so what else else am i gonna do when it shows up in my feed?
  Block it?
  
  I guess I could, but I don't feel the need to turn my feed into an echo chamber. I'm not going to go to the community to pick a fight, but I'm not going to hide from content I don't agree with. I'll just downvote it and move on. Besides, the OP is right; if the mods don't want their community to get downvoted, it's their responsibility to make their community private, not my responsibility to block their shitty content.

I love the Lemmy vegan community - they are the second greatest shitposters around (fuckcars have the edge due to their expert ragebaiting).
- Nah. Perhaps the third.
  The greatest shitposters are the people talking about AI and large language models.
  inb4 "to criticise them or to embrace them?" - yes.

I actually really wish we could flag communities or posts as "excluded from the main feed."
There have been several posts I've made or that my bot has made (from community specific RSS feeds) that get down votes seemingly from people completely outside of the community.
For instance, I had a post about a heavy Standard Notes discount ... pretty relevant to Standard Notes users; down voted like crazy in the early days of lemmy.world.
Similarly, the other day Bungie made several post about Destiny around the same time. The bot faithfully posted all of them, but several got down voted, almost definitely because someone who didn't care about Destiny down voted the "spam" since several posts were about Destiny around the same time in the "main feed" (and they were probably sorting by "New").
My retort/unpopular opinion: There's no recommendation algorithm, if it's not a community you're subscribed to, and you don't care about it ... what the heck are you doing engaging with it? Move on to the next post or block the community.
Alternatively, we should be able to block interactions from people who haven't subscribed to the community without limiting federation or making it moderator only.
When you down vote a post of a community you're not a part of you're actively hurting its surfacing in the feeds of people in that community that use feed algorithms other than "New" or "Controversial".
- My retort/unpopular opinion: There’s no recommendation algorithm, if it’s not a community you’re subscribed to, and you don’t care about it … what the heck are you doing engaging with it? Move on to the next post or block the community.
  Agreed
  Alternatively, we should be able to block interactions from people who haven’t subscribed to the community without limiting federation or making it moderator only
  At the moment, the only option is to ban them

I moderated a left wing community at one point, so by your logic I should allow Liberals to flood the community until its no longer left wing? Im not saying Liberals aren't allowed but its stated clearly in the sidebar that they shouldn't talk over the intended audience (left wingers).

I'm sorry to report that I've down voted you, as I think this is a popular opinion. But I 100% agree with you. If you don't want outside voices, don't allow outsiders in.

woke nazis along side the conservative ones.
same shit different pile and those in the middle are stuck.

If you need to be in control of community policies then go start one so that you can be in charge of it.
Otherwise have a nice day!

If people do not want to engage with c/vegan in good faith or follow the rules then it’s best to move on.
- Voting on content that is in the Lemmy feed is engaging in good faith. That's what the voting system is for.
  What is not good faith is suppressing anyone who doesn't 100% agree with what your community is for
  
  Shouldn't votes be about how good it fits the community, instead of how good it fits All? ...maybe those two types of votes should be counted separately, All votes for how high it should rank on All and subscriber votes for everywhere else.
- Did you just ban me from the community because I downvoted one of your comments?
  All I ever did in the community was downvote you and now I can’t post or vote there 😂
- You're ignoring the rules for your own temper tantrums.
- I’d love to know what my “Rule 5” violation was for
- This has been reported. I may not agree with all they say, but I do agree on following the rules. This is why I don't engage with the vegan community.
  
  I appreciate that approach however if the Lemmy World admins want to use heavy handed tactics on a misunderstood minority community protecting their users once again the whole fediverse will be watching and will have further documented evidence of admin misconduct. c/vegan believes in the protection of animal and human rights.
- If you can't handle good faith arguments then you should get off of your soapbox.
- it’s best to move on.
  Indeed. That community is not breaking any instance rule, why are people so obsessed with it
  
  I have no obsession with the community. It just draws attention when people start getting bans for “rule violations” they didn’t commit.
  
  Because it’s obnoxious.
  And while it may not break rules, it goes against the spirit of online forums and discussion to ban people and prevent discussion just because they respectfully disagree with you.
  Also, Lemmy has an issue if a post can gain traction because mods just block anyone who downvotes, preventing them from voting on further posts.
  
  Veganism in general goes against what the average person was taught when they were growing up. As people mistakenly believe that by going vegan they’re giving up delicious foods and a happy life.

203 comments