this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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Actual Discussion
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Are you tired of going into controversial threads and having people not discuss things, circlejerking, or using emotional responses in place of logic? Us too.
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We’re back! Instead of putting a neutral topic in the introduction, I'm placing a bit of opinion on an issue to see if it helps spur discussion. We are also actively seeking moderators and people who enjoy discussion (and understand that being wrong is an important part of being a better person)! Send me a message if you’d like to help out.
This week, I'd like to discuss something that's been a bit of an issue for me personally.
Lemmy (and Reddit before it) appears to have a problem with overly-aggressive bannings for perceived slights. In the topic linked above there were people permanently banning users from multiple communities (any they moderate - dozens in some cases) for single downvotes, 4 downvotes across a ten-month period, and bannings because a moderator thought they maybe sorta kinda read that a user may have had a negative thought about their pet issue.
I've personally been banned from Communities (and sent some pretty vile PMs) for posting in our weekly threads here playing devil's advocate where I state hard questions that I do not necessarily feel are correct. They think they've discovered some secret agenda by finding posts I've made here and use them as "receipts" in order to dismiss anything they think they're reading that may be contrary to their opinion. Any context provided for the post falls on deaf ears.
I'm someone who operates on the idea of "If you can not defend an opinion from scrutiny, you should probably not hold that opinion."
To quote myself:
It’s pretty tragic that people can't handle opposing opinions. I think the activist nature of Lemmy is kind of a self-destructive spiral and people need to learn how to live with each other again. But I guess that’s the issue with modern social media as a whole… Nobody has any idea how to convince anyone else, only to yell at them louder.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Are niche Communities correct for banning anyone who downvotes?
- Do downvotes represent a "disagree" button for you (this Community notwithstanding)?
- Most importantly, what would it take to change this?
- Does it help build the Community? What about the platform as a whole?
- Is there a way to build a "safe space" without building an echo chamber online? Is that even a valuable thing to build?
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IMHO, if you want an echo chamber then make a private community. Public spaces should be open to all, and banning used as a last resort - and even then only as a tool to force a "cooling off" period, so temporary bannings only (at least at first). People can just create another login to harass your group anyway, so permanent bans seem stupid & pointless. If someone just won't stop even after multiple month-long bans, then permaban if you wish, but they'll be back under another name out of resentment and anger.
Maybe Lemmy could use a "controversial commenter" flag - not sure if should be set by mods or voting history - which people could use to block threads from those types of people if they don't want to deal with such. This would allow those who want to debate to do so, and those who don't to choose to be oblivious of such discussion.
This has been an off the cuff response, so not thought out much. I expect to be destroyed for such stupid ideas, but hope they'll prompt some useful discussion.
I hadn't heard of a controversial tag. They have them for threads, so it could be cool to get one for users as well. It would solve a lot of issues for sure if it was implemented well! Though on Lemmy, it may wind up applying to most users as everyone seems to have an opinion or two that's controversial to like... everyone.