1. Mod of !anarchism@slrpnk.net posts a great Greta Thunberg quote, but then tries to use it to justify not voting in the upcoming US election
  2. Multiple people point out that’s very clearly not what she meant
  3. Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed by mod

Using your mod powers to decide who is allowed and not allowed to speak is not very anarchist of you, @mambabasa@slrpnk.net

  • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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    1 day ago

    You are mixing up different things here. I was also not so happy about the high number of low quality memes they posted in a short period of time inciting nothing but anger shortly before a very emotionally loaded election. I mentioned to the mod privately that I found this quite trollish at this exact point in time and they agreed to stop.

    The specific post in question was maybe one of the less bad ones (Greta’s take is pretty sensible IMHO) and due to the high number of upvotes it had the usual drive-by comments by non-community members that were mostly off-topic, did nothing but stoke the flames and were also partially offensive*. Maybe the mod overacted somewhat with deleting most of them, but locking the thread was absolutely the right call after it derailed and handing out a temporary (!) community ban to a very argumentative drive-by poster is IMHO good practice to defuse the situation.

    *I agree with the mod that you can vote for your lesser evil or strategically whatever, but there is no need to provide lengthy ideological justifications to convince yourself and others that it was something other than a lesser evil vote.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
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      1 day ago

      Repeated explicitly political memes spamming the community = “not so happy”

      This election is hugely important and, however shit some Democratic policies are when compared against what we actually need, Trump is clearly dangerous as fuck on a whole other level. That applies to the Mideast just as firmly as it does on climate change. Personally I agree with 100% of what she has to say here, both the first and second parts.

      = “nothing but stoke the flames and were also partially offensive” “no need to provide lengthy ideological justifications to convince yourself and others that is was something other than a lesser evil vote”, 10 day ban

      What a crock of shit. You’re buying word for word the mod’s revisionist history about “ideological justifications” where I don’t think those ever existed in any of the messages they deleted. Definitely not in mine. See for yourself:

      https://ponder.cat/comment/791878

      I’m not a troll. I don’t make bad-faith arguments, create political spam, or inflame things to no purpose. This person does, and you’re giving them authority and booting me from the community.

      I’m not trying to reopen the discussion by saying this. It’s been and gone, and I’ve moved on from !anarchism@slrpnk.net. I think this person has learned how to manipulate the Slrpnk admins to their liking for their own political ends. Have fun with them.

      • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        No one said you were intentionally trolling or making bad faith arguments. What you did was randomly enter a post you disagreed with and started an off-topic argument with the OP using emotionally loaded language to justify something that is in the end just a very mundane lesser evil decision. I am old enough to have seen this spiel out many times during every other election cycle and I find it quite offensive to be exposed to such arguments lacking even the slightest bit of self-reflection, especially in what is supposed to be an Anarchist community.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
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          I find it quite offensive to be exposed to such arguments lacking even the slightest bit of self-reflection

          Here. I’m just going to paste what I said elsewhere in these comments:

          But please, tell me why anarchists should tolerate anti-anarchism, liberalism, and ideological cover for genocide in their space. I’m sure it’s enlightening.

          Because talking with people who don’t agree with you is a valuable thing to do.

          If I’m wrong, and you take some time to talk with me, maybe I’ll absorb what you are saying, and take it on as a good idea. Probably not the first time, but it does happen over time. It’s good to be able to talk with other humans. If as soon as I’m wrong, you ban me, then I’ll never have that opportunity, and I’ll just go on being wrong and getting banned from places, indefinitely.

          If you’re wrong, or what you’re saying is applicable sometimes but it’s not a good idea in some other situations, letting me say what I’ve got to say might show you a new perspective. Or, even if you’re completely set in your way, it’s still valuable for the people watching the conversation to be able to see both sides expressed, and decide for themselves.

          I think it’s universally agreed that the places on Reddit and Lemmy that aggressively remove “the wrong viewpoint” are laughingstocks. A lot of the time, they’re doing that because they don’t have a good answer for questions people are asking or points they’re making. You’ve chosen to make !anarchism@slrpnk.net into one of them, in this one particular instance. Well done.

          You’ve asked over and over why I am supporting genocide. I explained over and over that what I’m saying is an attempt to prevent genocide, and calmly explained how. That pattern eventually starts to sink in, for people watching the conversation, even if it never does for you, and impacts what they take away from the conversation. I think it would be better for you to reassess your way of approaching conversation with people who don’t agree with you, but you do you.

          See how good this is? We don’t agree on things, and we’re talking to each other. It’s normal, it’s healthy. Like I said, if you’re insistent on making “your” community into one where that can’t happen, that’s on you, but I think it’s a bad idea.

          I think, if I’m being honest, that the lack of time and moderation resources is at the root of a lot of this. You made a separate comment about that under Blaze’s comment. I think that’s the real issue. I think if someone could wave a magic wand, and have moderation of !anarchism without giving god-power to any given person who’s also an active participant in an argument in the discussion, a lot of these issues would go away. I made a whole post somewhere talking about how mods being an underappreciated volunteer position I think leads inevitably to the “mods are power tripping” perception and pattern, whether or not it’s accurate in any given case.

          You’re able to run your instance however you want to run it. Good luck.

          • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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            1 day ago

            There are certainly many things that could be improved about Lemmy’s moderation tools and general setup, I agree.

            However the core argument is not about “talking with people who don’t agree with you is a valuable thing to do”. There was no real disagreement about any topic where an exchange of ideas would be beneficial to both sides. Unless you have infinite patience, there is no point in arguing with people that don’t even realize how hypocritical their position is, in fact usually doing so only results in them digging in their heels and arguing even stronger as you are likely challenging some of their deeply held believes. I believe this is what happened, and your reaction in the original post itself and even more so in making this new thread to complain about someone not having infinite patience with you pretty much proves that.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
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              We have two very different opinions about what the purpose of moderation is. Among some other things.

              There’s a huge difference between “not having infinite patience” to talk with someone, and deleting comments from several different people who are trying to have a discussion with each another about how they disagree with your point of view, thus driving the conversation to some other location where people come to a broad consensus that you’re out of line. Honestly, that’s part of why I posted here, to serve as a check to make sure I wasn’t the one being awful. There seemed to be a broad consensus formed after all the discussion, which I’m happy with. The slrpnk authorities as a group plus db0, seem to have their own consensus, which of course they’ve got a right to do.

              If you’ve read some of my comments and exchanges and you’ve decided that talking with me would take infinite patience, then okay. If you’ve read Mambabasa’s comments and think they deserve a position of authority, then okay. I don’t seem to have any issues talking and interacting with a bunch of anarchists, and presumably a wide variety of people, in these comments. Probably I will continue to do so. Slrpnk can do what it likes.

      • punkisundead [they/them]@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        I think this person has learned how to manipulate the Slrpnk admins to their liking for their own political ends.

        I dont know why you would need such conspiracy theories when there is a much simpler way to explain it, which was confirmed by most folks(mods and admins alike): We are fine with the moderation actions taken, we dont need to be manipulated for this.

        Its quite something to make up a conspiracy after writing this just a few sentences earlier:

        I’m not a troll. I don’t make bad-faith arguments, […] or inflame things to no purpose.

        • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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          I haven’t seen evidence of a strong majority being fine with the decision.

          Among slrpnk commenters on this post I believe the split was 3-3, or possibly 3-2-1.

          Taking into account the comments from dbzer0 folks, it goes to 5-5 or 5-4-1.

          Self-proclaimed anarchists from other instances represent, by my accounting, 1 more “for” and 4 more “against.”

          The other comments from users who may or may not identify as anarchists appear to slant towards against by about the same margin.

          It could be that one or both of us carries a bias in how we perceive support that aligns with what we already believe. I tried to be cognizant of that when I scrolled through to count, but I’m fallible. If I’ve misrepresented, it wasn’t on purpose. That said, I think at best there’s a somewhat even split. I don’t think you can claim that as “most folks” being fine with the actions taken.

          Additionally, the way the mod conducted themselves in these comments doesn’t inspire much confidence that they moderated in good faith

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
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          Mambabasa’s posting history at the time I looked at it started with:

          • Kamala Harris = genocide
          • Kamala Harris = genocide
          • Democrats = party of genocide
          • Kamala Harris = genocide
          • Democrats = genocide
          • Greta Thunberg quote
          • “Elect the Democrats” satire
          • “Vote Democrat” satire
          • “Vote Democrat” satire
          • “Vote Democrat” satire
          • “Don’t think, just vote” satire
          • “Vote Democrat” satire
          • “Don’t think, just vote” satire

          I don’t think it’s inflammatory or a conspiracy theory to say that there’s a visible pattern there which points to a very un-anti-electoral goal for their participation. If I was doing half the spamminess of participation that their history evinces, or done half as much inflammatory participation as they’ve done in these comments, I’d leave the platform on my own, feeling bad that I’d done that much to bring badness to the platform.

          We are fine with the moderation actions taken

          Clearly. Like I said, have fun with it.

          • Five@slrpnk.net
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            SLRPNK is an intentionally both an international instance, as well as an ideologically diverse instance. We give a lot of autonomy to moderators. Despite being administered by anarchists and having a significant membership that identifies as anarchist, we expect our anti-fascist moderators to follow the politics of their conscience rather than toe a particular anarchist line. Solarpunk is an internationalist movement, and should not be dominated by any one country or culture.

            These two goals sometimes create tension. A significant portion of our international audience is from the United States, and some SLRPNK moderators have filled their community feeds with Democratic Party propaganda. I guarantee @mambabasa does not want Trump to win, and criticizing the hypocrisy of liberal politicians and the losing proposition of elevating electoral politics above direct action is not an endorsement of fascism.

            Mambabasa’s posting history at the time I looked at it started with:

            His meme posts exist in the context of a local feed full of United States election centered news in what is supposed to be a haven for internationalists and anarchists. They’re a reminder that anarchists are not edgy Democrats, and if that idea is offensive, you can unsubscribe and block !anarchism and !notvoting@slrpnk.net. Other people existing who don’t share your politics and have their own spaces should not be so threatening to someone with confidence in their own ideology.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
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              some SLRPNK moderators have filled their community feeds with Democratic Party propaganda

              Do you have an example of this? Which community?

                • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
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                  I wasn’t asking that as a sarcastic question. It was serious.

                  I don’t think there are communities on Slrpnk that are brimming with Democratic propaganda. There’s some kind of weird backwards-ism going on here, where Mambabasa constantly spamming stuff about Harris and the Democrats counts as some kind of innocent anarchism, and I’m dogpiling partisan propaganda on him when I say that actually it sounds pretty clear to me that Greta Thunberg is saying Trump and specifically Trump is a terrible threat. I think you’re exaggerating events into this caricature, and then telling me straight-faced that the caricature is what’s going on. But, maybe not. Maybe I’m wrong. So, I asked about the Democratic propaganda on Slrpnk that you’re saying is happening.

                  I think the bulk of Lemmy, anarchist and not, sees it the same way I do here. You can look up and down in these comments if you want. You and the other Slrpnk admins are not required to see it the same, of course, or to give me a serious response. You can say whatever you like. But it was a serious question.

                  • Five@slrpnk.net
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                    I didn’t think you were asking sarcastically. But I don’t think you’re serious.

                    You’re attacking SLRPNK for being covert Republican operatives when you’re simultaneously commenting in another YPTB thread that’s calling us out for being covert Democrats. I should not have to do this much hand-holding with someone who genuinely wants information. The answers are right under your nose, but it benefits your grandstanding victim complex not to see them.