this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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I was going through the modlog today and found that this comment posted to lemmy.ml was simply removed for being "reactionary".

Removed Comment What reform of France's educational establishment would satisfy you? Should they move their weekends to Mondays and Tuesdays in order to avoid accidentally aligning with any religious practice's day of rest? This is a ridiculous standard to hold any societal institution to. Because France's dominant culture has been Christian for many years, its secular institutions of course have echoes of Christian practice within them - but this is not proof that they are Christian institutions. Education is good. Education should be given to every single person in society, and every person in it should have a right to receive a full secular education regardless of their parents' opinion on the matter. And during the course of that education, class, ethnic, and religious differences between children should be minimized in order to socialize children into being tolerant, metropolitan citizens. reason: reactionary

That sounds like a perfectly respectable position to have, even if it may be a little controversial, but it is more constructive than divisive. I really like lemmy's transparency in showing what was removed and why, but for the first time I'm seeing what looks like a summary removal of an urbane comment.

Am I the only one who is worried by that? Am I missing something here?

By the way, I'm not interested in debating the subject, there is plenty of debate in the original post, what I want to know is how any of you would frame this as decisively reactionary enough to throw out of a healthy debate when comparing with the flood of shitposting we see every day that doesn't get struck down.

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[–] Kolossos@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mods are humans. Humans are flawed. What does this have to do with Lemmy?

[–] Gsus4 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One of the advantages of lemmy is the transparent modlog, where I see a) lots of thankless work mods perform I assume for free b) 99.99% bullshit that is not constructive in a public forum. I'm adjusting my expectations about the false positive removal rate considering how much useless comments get through.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where can the average user see the mod log for an instance? There’s a particular instance I’d be interested in reviewing.

[–] Gsus4 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Usually I just go to the instance e.g. feddit.nl and write feddit.nl/modlog, but when a comment gets removed from a thread, I assume that only the moderator from that thread has that power, so it will be in that thread's instances' modlog, but I'll admit that I'm not 100% sure that's what modlogs show. If somebody reports a comment from another instance, who does the removing?

PS: I can't access lemmy.ml actually and when I get the fediverse link of that discussion it turns out to be a lemmy.zip instance, but each post seems to point to the poster's instance, so I'm confused :D

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wanted to check the original post but I'm getting a bad gateway error.

Out of context, there is nothing wrong with the comment. If I were the mod in charge, I probably wouldn't have removed it. However there is a chance maybe it is overreacting to the previous reply, or that the user is looking for controversial discussions all over the post just to upset people.

Or perhaps the mod really is at fault here, silencing an exchange of opinions because they have a strong stance on one side of the argument.

[–] Gsus4 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Added context: the removed comment is from a hexbear, which I find even more ironic, because it was one of the more level-headed ones :)

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 13 points 1 year ago

If they were being reactionary on a lot of other comments in the post then removing all of their comments in the post can be understandable as a means to stop that user from interacting any further. I'm not saying that was exactly the case, but that is sometimes a reason mods remove comments that have nothing reproachable.

[–] Blamemeta@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

A hexbear? Mod was probably on a hair trigger. Almost nothing from them is good. Even the stuff in good faith is horrible.

I can definitely imagine being a tad prejudiced against hexbears, hell I am too.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 11 points 1 year ago

Eh. I got banned from a community on Beehaw because I said as a Chinese, I didn't have any opinions on Jews one way or another. Apparently that was antisemitic πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

[–] Scew@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Basically nothing as the other user said. Mods here are just as they were on Reddit. Petty tyrants if you say something that doesn't jive with their brainwashing.

[–] neoney@lemmy.neoney.dev 4 points 1 year ago
[–] Navarian@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I only run a small community surrounding my home country, but I only plan on removing things that aren't directly related to the country or at least adjacent to. As well as anything that is largely irrelevant which I suspect of being spam.

Rest is fine, discussion is healthy. I don't need to agree with everyone, that isn't what this is about.

[–] JoYo@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

modlog entries should become their own thread and then mods can modlog the modlog.

[–] Ado@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Welcome to Bob loblaws modlog

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

"Lawless mods mob modlog; mod wrong" lobs non-mod

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago
[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Anyone can become a mod. The admins watch all mods closely. If an abnormal pattern arises, they will remove the mod. The benefit of the doubt will go to the person willing to be a mod in most instances until a pattern develops.

To anyone making negative statements about mods. Mods are full spectrum just like any group. Don't be an ass just because someone is a mod.

I am a mod in two communities. My policy is simple, mods should be invisible. I'll try to mediate if a flag is raised, but I'm basically only here to delete porn and dick pill ads. This is not reddit, most communities do not require any mod intervention. In reality one admin with nothing better to do could moderate all of .world easily. They know this, and will handle problem mods once a pattern is obvious. The admin get all of the flags too.

[–] sparklepower@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

it seems like a reasonable comment to me. i guess i feel a bit uncomfortable about the reasoning of removing a comment as "reactionary". i'm not familiar with lemmy.ml rules, but is being reactionary something that is rule-breaking and deserves to be removed from the discussion? are all reactionary comments removed? what about this specific comment makes it reactionary? who decides what is/is not reactionary enough to be removed?

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 2 points 1 year ago

The devs have said there isn't an issue with how a community mods itself as the corrective action is for users to leave a sub if the moderators don't moderate to their liking.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 year ago

If they can't respond to the argument or it makes them look bad it's removed.

[–] FfaerieOxide@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What do you do if you see a perfectly reasonable comment in the modlog?

Start your own instance?

Am I missing something here?

By the way, I’m not interested in debating the subject

Well now which is it?

[–] Gsus4 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I want to know what reactionary stands for when summarily dismissing a comment like that. At least looking at a dictionary this is not a reactionary comment, particularly in the context of such a debate.

Also starting my own instance would not help anyway, because the comment was removed from a discussion in another instance from mine, right? Any conversation started in an instance is completely at the unappealable mercy of that instance's moderators.

[–] FfaerieOxide@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not sure how to do that while also not discussing the issue at hand.

[–] Gsus4 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What is a reactionary, according to you? (if you agree with the decision)

Also: am I crazy for not thinking this is a reactionary comment that deserves to be removed in a public debate while e.g. "death to america" is still there? I won't argue back, I just want to hear if I'm the minority here.

[–] Mudface@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Mods are just losers, you’d probably have to be as much of a loser as they are to understand their reasonings.