AtomicPoet has deleted the piefed.social communities where he was the sole moderator (!movies@piefed.social being the exception). Content is still available, details in the linked post
https://atomicpoet.org/@atomicpoet/posts/AyVP1erbZe8tUJAPNg
Edit: previous post: https://lemmy.world/post/36281965
The reason is simple: building on a server where I don’t have final control carries risk, and I don’t want to keep investing in spaces that could be removed from me at any moment.
I don't like this look AP, just say you didn't like being called out and leave it at that not go down this authoritarian path, makes you look even stranger in my eyes bro.
Owning his own instance would probably work better for him, so removing himself from the communities where he was the sole contributor seems like a good decision.
Thank you so much for the well wishes.
For me, this really is the best path forward. Writing takes a lot of effort, and I like having full ownership of the stack where my work lives. Part of that ownership also means deciding how I want to interact with others—including having the option to de-federate if needed.
I know my approach to community management is a little different from most here. Even though I was on Reddit for 18 years, I’ve always felt somewhat anti-Reddit. My focus isn’t really on freedom of speech so much as freedom of association.
That’s why I don’t believe every community has to—or should—be open to everyone. Some people are a natural fit, and some are not—and I tend to be more careful about where I draw that line.
Probably a net positive for the threadiverse that he won't be moderating communities. He seemed to take it way too seriously.
This is not the case. I will still be moderating communities. The difference is, I will be owning the servers as well.
Talk about taking your toys and going home.
Bro crashed out
Okay, bye Felicia.
"If there is anyone else in the world who might be able to keep me in check if I do something unreasonable, I can't handle that. I need to be the ultimate authority over the little hapless users in my domain, period, end of story."
(Edit: Jesus Christ man. I know nothing about this guy other than downvotegate, but he sounds like a nimrod. IDK, I take it back, he seems fine. I talked with him and he just has strong feelings about this one issue and he's making a point. I still think the way he's trying to make the point is going to have trouble getting received, in the way he's doing it, but whatever, he seems well intentioned, I don't think he is any sort of bad way about it having heard him out on it.)
I keep saying: The whole moderation model where it is moderators setting up a mandatory override over content within "their place," and any users who don't like it are forced to beg for change or complain about the unfairness to others, is simply inferior to the model where it is users deciding which moderators they want to allow to override their content.
It's a hard pill as a mod but you have to swallow it. People are going to do things you don't like and say things you don't like. You have to be okay with that. You will not get an echochamber of people who agree with you 100%. The choice is you can either become okay with that and apply some rules that are reasonable - or you can remove everything you disagree with pushing people away.
Look at me. I run a few communities here (and a few elsewhere), but one of them here is !taylorswift@poptalk.scrubbles.tech . I personally am a swiftie and there are dozens of us here on the fediverse. That being said, if I banned anyone for simply downvoting a post or saying something negative about her then I'd have to defederate every instance there is. Instead, I can let my own users do that for me and let people get downvoted to hell in the community, and sometimes out of those bad comments comes some real good discussion. If anything actually comes out that is against the rules, like true hate or bigotry or personal attacks then sure thing I'll swoop in and remove it, but even for a Swiftie community in the least likely space, that happens extremely infrequently.
I keep saying: The whole moderation model where it is moderators setting up a mandatory override over content within “their place,” and any users who don’t like it are forced to beg for change or complain about the unfairness to others, is simply inferior to the model where it is users deciding which moderators they want to allow to override their content.
What model would you be calling for? How would this work in practice?
Bluesky does it by letting people (or automated systems) publish lists of content and users that that publisher is recommending that people block, and then part of your user config is enabling which of those sources you want to apply to your own feed.
I don't really know how you could apply that to Lemmy since the model is just different. Mostly I am just talking philosophy and stuff that irritates me about Lemmy's model. A simplistic approach though could be just to have each user settings include a "mod ignore" list or something alongside the blocks and etc, the list of moderators whose comment deletion and user ban settings you don't want to respect. So you can still see and interact with content that comes from any users those specific mods have attempted to block.
It would be a little bit messy, it might be better to take a step back and reengineer things to be more user-centric instead of that, but that would be compatible with existing stuff, just easy harm reduction when specific mods are widely recognized by the community to be bums. I also think just the threat of it (and the corresponding loss of credibility and control for the mod) would be a useful check on people who currently feel that lack of credibility in the community means literally nothing to them, and don't bother to try to maintain it.
(Hey @jordanlund@lemmy.world -- remember a week ago when people were talking about your moderation on LW and asked you this and this, and then you just fell silent and still like a frozen bunny waiting for the predator to leave, instead of addressing those reasonable questions?)
(Edit:
Jesus Christ man. I know nothing about this guy other than downvotegate, but he sounds like a nimrod.IDK, I take it back, he seems fine. I talked with him and he just has strong feelings about this one issue and he's making a point. I still think the way he's trying to make the point is going to have trouble getting received, in the way he's doing it, but whatever, he seems well intentioned, I don't think he is any sort of bad way about it having heard him out on it.)
Nice edit
Okay, but here’s the thing: you’re not entitled to every community that exists. People can decide for themselves who they want to associate with. And if an admin is the one footing the bill for the infrastructure, their word is final on who gets through the door.
If you don’t want mods or admins overruling you, then you need to run your own server. That’s the price of control. I already do this with two Fediverse servers, and I fully intend to do the same with a federated forum server.
That stance becomes problematic when a community really grows & becomes more than the sum is it's parts.
\
(I mean at bigger sizes than a few thousand active users.)
It's a complex issue, but at some point "your" infrastructure becomes a community that itself should* be respected.
(*should isn't the same as needs to, but I think that morally)
I am starting to feel sincerely like it would be a good idea for YPTB to adopt a new rule: If you come in with the point of view "THE MODS ARE GODS THEIR DECISIONS MAY NOT BE QUESTIONED", they get banned instantly, with a short reply from the moderator saying "Can do! My decisions may not be questioned."
(Temp banned obviously. I'm not a monster.)
Obviously the admins can do what they want with their server, and mods likewise within their communities. What we're set up to discuss in this community is whether or not they've used that control -- which they're obviously able to wield -- in a manner that makes them a twatrocket.
There's a whole philosophy of cooperative endeavor involved here. I just recently got a temp ban that was 100% justified, I'm fine with that. Lots of mods use their mod powers in a way that's perfectly reasonable and legitimate, and part of a healthy society is that people in whom is vested some level of control over the surroundings, we can talk about whether they're being reasonable with it. Almost everyone is, and sometimes there are reasonable discussions to be had about if they unintentionally stepped over a line or offended someone or something. This whole model where it's little warring fiefdoms, and I'm going to be a screaming unrestrained dickhead if I want to when you're in my fiefdom and if you don't like it, go somewhere else, is one that people are able to adopt. I don't think it is a good one. I feel like ignoring the feedback you get, if you do decide that's your MO, is going to lead to a bad engagement with the rest of the community and a lack of success for your new instance. It's a give and take, people can talk, sometimes when people are telling you you're out of line, they're just kind of looking out for you and letting you know they take offense and probably others do too, you know?
I'm not entitled to or interested in a community you run, but this is really cringe and implies a lot of really awful shit about you.
You get how that looks, right? Wanting 'total control' of a community?
bro couldn't handle being questioned
Bro
Bro!
Even if the mod was too intense, it's sad to see communities go when they have a following. Can they be revived with their communities intact to continue on under new leadership?
None of them had a large following. The one potential exception could be !fediversenews@piefed.social, but it wasn't that active since @Sunshine@piefed.ca switched to !fediverse@piefed.social
This is one thing that gives me less hope about the fediverse. If a community gets large and this happens, I feel they fracture when they move.
He wasn't moderating any large communities.
The difference here is that if this was Reddit, an out-of-control community moderator would be untouchable and they'd have a monopoly on the community name. This doesn't happen on the Fediverse.
If a community gets large and this happens, I feel they fracture when they move.
They don't, what fractures communities is having similar communities active at the same time.
!television@piefed.social is the only single active community about television, it is much more active than !movies@piefed.social as !movies@lemmy.world is still open, giving https://lawsofux.com/choice-overload/ to posters, commenters and subscribers
I'll buy that.
That happens on centralized social media too though
If you want absolute control over the content, you don't want a community, you want a blog.
You certainly don't build a community by packing up your stuff from a major instance and do your stuff on your own small turf.
Anyway just my 2¢.