Actual Discussion

I understand you being protective of the communities you manage and that it's a delicate task to begin with. And an effort that so often goes unrecognised and unappreciated.

But please, don't feel accused or worse, insulted, because I oppose banning. My opposition to it is not a personal stance against you or anyone else.

In relation to upvotes/downvotes, I use them to generate a quick dislplay of engagement in the communities I follow. But even though I do it, I still find that it is always a lazy form of engagement that is both unappealing and uninteresting and on top of it all it is a system that lacks clarity and it's easy to hijack with bots and brigade hits. And it is that way because it requires very little effort and time to do so. So I always found that we could do without that system and I would much prefer it.

In relation to banning, I think it is possible to devise other methods of guiding online spaces. I never like when I see a comment or a post removed. Never. I would much prefer that in the case of mods, a system of different flags used for flagging different circumstances was set in place. Like one for trolling, another one for spam, a different one for toxic and insulting use of language, and especially the one for the ban that upsets me the most out of all the banning choices, the off topic one. As I've said in another comment in this thread, I've never been banned from any community in any platform. But I have had comments removed where I was merely responding to other people and a new branch of conversation emerges amongst a few of us, only for our comments to be removed and our conversation ended with total disregard or respect for the conversation we were having. This is insulting to everyone involved, as any good conversation can lead us anywhere and these are not in person or broadcast events running on a clock. People can respond at their own leisure, and anyone who is not interested can just collapse the comment branch and move to the next branch within the thread. This way of fencing topics is a community killer and I've left quite a few communities over the years because of this type of moderation alone and not the community itself. It is not of my interest to be in a space where people are shut down, especially when everyone involved is being respectful and we're doing what these platforms were really intended for, which is to take in different perspectives from all types of people from anywhere in the world. If not for that, I have a life and this is of no interest to me to waste my time on if I'm not reaching and accessing people and realities that are not my own.

But this is my opinion. And by definition I'm a commenter not a poster. And I've never been interested in moderating. Because I like the equalitarianism of being amongst others sharing ideas without any disparity to differentiate us. Which is another reason as to why we could do without the lazy upvote/downvote system which interferes without engaging.

But I am going to repeat what I said at the beginning... I understand you being protective of the communities you manage and it's a really delicate task to begin with. And it truly is an effort that so often goes unrecognised and unappreciated.

So, regardless of what our differences of opinion might be, I'm still grateful for your efforts and I'm glad that there's still people around that care enough to try a hand at what is a hard bargain from the get go.