this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards

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This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.

Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.


Posting Guidelines

All posts should follow this basic structure:

  1. Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
  2. What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
  3. Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
  4. Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
  5. Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.

Rules


Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.

Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.

YTPB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.


Some acronyms you might see.


Relevant comms

founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
 

I don't troll. At all. What I do is post various comments encouraging a community to not get angry as hell about a change but to make the best out of it. That's what happened when 196 decided to port over from blahaj.zone to lemmy.world. I made a bunch of fairly long comments that were talking about how people shouldn't be angry and just leaving toxic comments but fueling a better community, whether that be here or elsewhere. Comments went fairly well and all was fine and left up for a while but a couple of days after being posted they were removed along with everything else that I had posted to that community. The mods list the reason in the modlog for my permanent ban as "trolling". There are many things I do, but trolling isn't one of them. Especially when the comment sections are left in a state here showing that I wasn't trolling.

I went through everything that I did with that community and cannot find a singular thing with the exception of a memory.

I had posted a meme a couple of weeks ago. I don't remember exactly what it was but I remember a moderator saying on it an hour or two after posting that it should be marked as NSFW. I disagreed with this assessment. I left a comment in response saying that I disagreed that it should be marked and that I would refuse to mark it as NSFW. However, I also respect that it is their community and their rules so I settled for something different. I didn't add an NSFW tag, I just deleted it wholesale. I didn't want to add a tag to something that I didn't feel was applicable and instead of having to sit with that tag on the post, I just deleted the post entirely.

So this only leaves two options from the mods of 196.

Either they banned me for posting comments that were supportive of the community itself and not directly supportive of them or they banned me for deleting a post.

In either case? The moderators of !196@lemmy.world are no better than reddit moderators who just lash out for their own ego. Blanket bans for disagreements.

And perhaps unsurprisingly and perfectly fitting of every single accusation that has been levied so far against them and their abusive practices, the last moderator to interact with me was @moss@lemmy.world.

I find it fucking hysterical how the mods over there are so vehemently Anti-Trump (and should be given the userbase and content) but act no better than someone in his administration.

Edit: I found the post about it being NSFW after going through Moss' profile but unsurprisingly Moss had to go ahead and suppress my comment there as well. It's remarkable how much of their profile is just whining about being treated unfairly while they're going ahead and treating people unfairly. But of course, Moss (being a redditor) had to go ahead and downvote before the removal of the post. Fragile... jesus.

As for how I feel it should be remedied, Moss should step down or at least be removed as a mod on Lemmy.world. They've done nothing for the community that hasn't been insanely divisive as of late. They seem to be remarkably tonedeaf and just openly abusing their position.

Update

@Kolanaki@pawb.social went to the community and straight up asked why I was banned. For the record I didn't ask for this or anything and was completely blindsided when I got a notification in my inbox. But a mod over there did respond with this:

So I'm unbanned from the community because a mod could find no reason that made sense why I was banned.

Tell me how that doesn't unilaterally prove that Moss was indeed just banning people over petty ass reasons?

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[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 88 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (17 children)

Those mods are just lost. The whole debacle when they tried to move the community to LW was a mess. !fediverselore@lemmy.ca for people interested.

Long live !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Oh absolutely. You and I were the ones talking in that first thread about how moving over to the other community was happening. You had said something that I disagreed with the wording of, not sure if you remember. But would you have constituted that conversation we had about the community as trolling?

Moss is a pureblood redditor. They came to Lemmy hoping they could continue the same nonsense over from reddit. I dunno if they had power there originally or if they just saw it and wanted it here, but they're fucking insane. A power-hungry little redditor.

And very much all the props to our new home. I didn't even realize I was banned from the old one because I had just been posting to the new. And I mean, it's not like I post a lot or anything...

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But would you have constituted that conversation we had about the community as trolling?

Definitely not. IIRC we disagreed on a few things, agreed on others, it was respectful.

Moss is a pureblood redditor. They came to Lemmy hoping they could continue the same nonsense over from reddit. I dunno if they had power there originally or if they just saw it and wanted it here, but they’re fucking insane. A power-hungry little redditor.

If that's the case, good to see how well the community managed to move.

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Definitely not. IIRC we disagreed on a few things, agreed on others, it was respectful.

That is how I took it as well. I disagreed on a couple of points, felt marred by one and we both addressed that and moved on like adults. So if those comments were what constituted the trolling ban then it wasn't my behavior but my content. Content that was just supportive of a community doing what it felt best, whether that was staying there or moving elsewhere. Sus.

If that’s the case, good to see how well the community managed to move.

Yeah it was sorely needed. I do not interact with mods often, surprisingly. You'd think maybe I would with how much I used to post and have been starting to again lately (Gotta get on today) but honestly it is pretty rare. I talk way more with admins (of mulitple instances) than I talk with moderators. I mean I'm friends with some mods here but they're of communities I don't interact with. The few times I do engage with a moderator have been pretty respectful overall. A polite request and either I disagree and delete the post instead (that has happened numerous times in the past with no issue) or do what they ask because it makes total sense. The fact that my only interaction with /c/196 mods has been them acting petty and underselling their own community?

Not a good look.

I've been posting to !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone for weeks and so far haven't bumped into a mod. Maybe in comments or something but not that I'm aware of. That's generally how you know the community is well moderated. You never see them doing anything other than engaging with the community. Like we've got NegativeNull over on TenForward who is fuckin awesome for that. I mean so is everyone else but I wanted to give a shout out to my Nully boy.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 19 points 2 weeks ago

Definitely not. IIRC we disagreed on a few things, agreed on others, it was respectful.

That is how I took it as well. I disagreed on a couple of points, felt marred by one and we both addressed that and moved on like adults.

In my experience, almost everyone on the internet behaves this way. There's a reputation that internet people are toxic, angry, unreasonable, and insulting, and there need to be strict controls or the whole thing will turn into a shit show. But my observation is that even if you look at one of those big shit-show threads, it will be a tiny minority of the people that are creating all the personal insults and drama. I think the key factor is that one unhinged person can amp a bunch of other people up, and the unhinged people also tend to be very persistent in starting drama with anyone who will interact with them, and so their influence is outsized.

But check it out sometime: Look at one of those angerfest threads, and I bet it will be less than 3 people who are instigating all of the anger. Of course, there will be other people who get roped into it, but it's usually pretty easy to identify the source, and once you see that, it'll become clear that almost everyone when they're talking amongst each other is perfectly reasonable, whether or not they agree about the stuff they're talking about.

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[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 34 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

i am positively tickled at the shining example of all the users to just pick up and move due to shitty moderation, proving the process and idealism behind the fediverse. mods only have the power users as a community allow them to.

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 35 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

For real. We did the exact same thing at !tenforward@lemmy.world. Shitty moderators of Risa compounded with outright personal harassment and abuse from the admins of Startrek.website forced my hand in making TenForward. It took a week for everyone to leave Risa and come over to us. I went back to look at Startrek.website earlier today and now it's effectively a fucking ghost town. Insanely low engagement. Christ, I made a happy birthday post to TenForward 14 hours ago that has 7 times as many upvotes as an Admin post on Startrek.website saying they have a new logo and new emojis that was posted 3 days ago.

Fediverse is wonderful.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

So long as fediverse regulars get used to abandoning toxic comms and restarting them in other instances, we'll have a very good mentality

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[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Too bad it was moved to lemmy.world.

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (13 children)

I know the admins on lemmy.world and had discussions with them ahead of time. It was the better instance for me and for what I was going with for /c/TenForward. Db0 was a close second.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 19 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Fwiw, choosing LW a year ago was quite a different choice than today - and not merely bc of hindsight I mean.

I would say it was a right call for back then, with everything moving towards centralization to help with the Rexodus as people got used to the idea of federation in general and the apps and such. People went to LW, then from that base, branched out and discovered more of the wider world beyond it.

Now, if such a migration had to be done TODAY, I would absolutely recommend against it. Yet !tenforward@lemmy.world literally helped the entire Threadiverse grow! 🪴 And now it's grandfathered in, so it should be new communities not established ones to find new homes, e.g. !lotrmemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com rather than !lotr@lemmy.world, and we put new communities elsewhere e.g. !AskUSA@discuss.online and !fedimemes@feddit.uk, etc. to help spread the load.

It's all good.:-) So long as LW admins don't start requiring you to allow flat earth comments - which they came super close to doing but at the last moment rescinded. I guess we'll see what the future holds.:-)

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh I openly criticized their decision to remove comments about Jury Nullification in the wake of the Luigi shooting too. Said that I would refuse to remove any comments from TenForward if any popped up and I stand by that.

If the admins want to remove me and the community, then they're allowed. That's their prerogative. But Star Trek stands for something quite specific and I fully back it. I am not allowing misinformation or censorship and I'll toss in a couple Trek quotes to back me up.

Villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves with good deeds are well camouflaged. -Picard

There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. -Picard

The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based, and if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform. -Picard

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[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 30 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

i straight up blocked moss. they need someone to sit down and talk to them IRL about how to be a human before i'm willing to interact with them online

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I'm not a religious person by any means but I was always taught "The Golden Rule" as a kid. Honestly I use that a lot in my life. I don't like the biblical phrasing but treat people how you want to be treated. It's as simple as that. I don't know if Moss learned that. I'm not gonna hate on them more than I already have in calling them a redditor (one of the biggest insults I can think of) but I just don't understand it.

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Honestly I feel like Moss is a bit of a cheat when it comes to that. It's like a game of house-rigged slots. 9 times out of 10 it's gonna be PTB.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Didn't know that mod before the /196 brouhaha tbh. They're certainly not beating the allegations...

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Due to my level of posting shit, I tend to get hints of rumors occasionally. I kept fuckin hearing the name Moss on 196 and had no idea who it was until this debacle. Apparently they were well known for being... well I was trying to think of a more diplomatic term than a power-hungry narcissist but I'm completely drawing a blank.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 16 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

They practically called themselves landed gentry during that whole fiasco, haha:-).

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 22 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Ironic, considering 196 moving to LW was because Ada is a power tripping admin. I was interacting with Moss after getting banned on Blahaj, and they just... Went silent. Then about a week later, they moved the community. I honestly don't think they're an asshole, but I get the feeling the dude doesn't know how to effectively moderate or talk to community members.

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (21 children)

I don't know a single thing about the move other than the fact that it was completely left field and offered zero proof of power tripping at the time. It was just Moss saying "Trust us". No screenshots or detailed conversations or anything. Felt like a hollow accusation at the time. I've still not seen proof of Ada being a power tripper. Then again, I haven't been looking for it.

Edit: Oh you are playing with fire today, huh?

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

They got mad at Ada for simply going through the mod queue when it would pile up and they didn't enjoy her enforcing rules for the instance.

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[–] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

FWIW this is the exact reason I joined the mod team, and Qaz has been doing a good job with calling her out when it happens too.

She seems to have been logged out of Discord for a while now, so there's not much we can do in terms of holding her feet to the fire. But rest assured we are trying to do something about it.

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

She seems to have been logged out of Discord for a while now, so there’s not much we can do in terms of holding her feet to the fire. But rest assured we are trying to do something about it.

I'm going to be real, that is the least assuring thing I've ever heard. That mods need to hold the lead mods 'feet to the fire' and that there's 'not much they can do about it'.

/c/196@lemmy.world is far more screwed than I thought it was.

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She did this to me too because I was questioning their motives for moving and avoiding lemmy.blahaj.zone "censorship", though she only did a temp ban. I guess I got lucky, but good to know that the others there are more level headed. So I would definitely say this seems like power-tripping, PTB? That's how you say it right (I'm new to this community).

[–] dditty@lemm.ee 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Just found out I was still subbed to the previous 196 community and unsubbed. I thought I had unsubbed back when the move happened but must've missed unsubbing at that time.

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[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

@moss@lemmy.world, this looks like a bad call on the face of it. Have anything to add?

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[–] peregrin5@lemm.ee 14 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

People who have the amount of free time and level of terminal online-ness to feel the desire to mod for free are generally going to have a common personality type that makes them go on power-trips. It doesn't matter if they are on Reddit or Lemmy. Terminally online is terminally online and mods are always going to suck.

That said, they're not paid so you get what you pay for.

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