So after a run in with a moderator yesterday I’ve had some thoughts I felt I wanted to share.
I won’t name them here, you are welcome to look at my comment history and make up your own mind.
In this instance a user posted some misinformation. I don’t think they intended to, they merely perpetuated a myth, they clearly simply knew no better.
I tried to respond diplomatically, they doubled down, other users piled on, the downvotes are plenty and then I responded with an article citing evidence supporting my assertions.
I also stated that the burden of proof lies with the claimant and asked for some context on why they seemed dead set on the lie they were aping back, asking if they subscribe to other myth based beliefs, religions, etc. That post was unceremoniously deleted with no notice to me and no reasons given… until the user pointed out in another post that they are the sole mod of the community and warned me that they were “not afraid to ban” me should I “cross the line” in a very *‘I’m the sheriff of this here town’ *tone. Which gave me a chuckle.
That’s my side of the story, it’s all there if you want to draw your own conclusions. It really doesn’t matter who is right or wrong in a ‘someone is wrong on the internet’ spat but I did spot a chink in the fediverse through this incident.
The real point here is that this kind of behaviour is one of things that made Reddit fucking awful and I’d hate to see it flourish here in the fediverse.
I don’t have the solutions just some suggestions that I’d be keen to hear others opinions on:
- No moderation without representation. IOW: mods should be democratically elected.
- Mod elections should be annual and no mod should enjoy that status for life.
- There should be a mechanism for inducing a ‘no confidence’ mode election at any time otherwise the communities are likely to splinter into “real_” communities just as they did on Reddit which no community in the fediverse can currently afford.
What say you my brothers and sisters and everything in between? Is there a way to safeguard against cronyism, corruption and other frailties of the human ego?
that sounds like high turnaround in your mod department, youre going to have problems finding quality personnel… regularly
No. That’s not how federated networks work.
That said, if you’re a reader, try out the sci fi novel “The Prefect” by Reynolds. There’s a hyperdemocratic microvoting system in that one, with the main characters being detectives. Plot is fun too. But it’s a nice little thought experiment is extreme democracy.
asking if they subscribe to other myth based beliefs, religions, etc
What you actually said:
Out of interest are you religious or subject to some other form of mythical belief system? I ask because clearly you lack motivation for the truth, preferring hearsay and urban legend that I must assume supports a wider world view. by @Hackerman_uwu
My thought: this kind of behaviour is one of things that made Reddit fucking awful and I’d hate to see it flourish here in the fediverse.
Yeah wtf, the OP is just an asshole Thanks for catching that, and kudos for the “power drunk mod” for not bending
The real point here is that this kind of behaviour is one of things that made Reddit fucking awful and I’d hate to see it flourish here in the fediverse.
Too late, I’m afraid, it already does.
No moderation without representation. IOW: mods should be democratically elected.
Mod elections should be annual and no mod should enjoy that status for life.
There should be a mechanism for inducing a ‘no confidence’ mode election at any time otherwise the communities are likely to splinter into “real_” communities just as they did on Reddit which no community in the fediverse can currently afford.
How do you enforce this? You would need the admin’s cooperation. What if the instance admin is also the mod? If someone starts a community, is it fair to take it away from them, if you don’t agree with their moderation?
There really isn’t any way to prevent all this, it would have to be built into the platform itself and it’s too late to do that now. Furthermore, there are very few communities large enough for people to even want to vote for mods.
but I did spot a chink in the fediverse
Bruh what
I dunno man, does this have anything to do other than with your own fragile ego?
No.
you sound like someone who enjoys having arguments, when you have arguments with people sometimes they don’t want to talk to you anymore. It’s the cost of your personality.
Attacking someone’s position as mythical, religious, is combative… and wont be welcome in every community. Even if your right, being combative isn’t going to help convince people your right.
Everything up until your actual suggestion is not on-topic for this community, IMO. This feels like a post that was created mainly to vent about the run-in you mentioned.
Your suggestions will run into the same issues as democracy in the real world, and then some. For one, you’d need to ensure that each human person only gets to cast a vote once, and not multiple times through alt accounts.
Additionally, not everyone might be interested in the mod election campaigns that such a system will undoubtedly incur, but for the purpose of upholding democracy they’d have to be.
Okay, then make your own instance where mods are democratically elected, I unironically would be interested to see how it’d play out.
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Exactly. Shitty mods have been a thing since newsgroups, AOL chatrooms and good old internet forums. Probably BBSes too.
If you consider the basic concept, they’ve been a thing since we started grouping together as communities. There have always been people who power trip. The internet just made them less effectual.
