So, I saw a report from one of my users. They reported:
https://ponder.cat/post/1594852/1813842
For the reason:
Unreasonable fighting with everyone in every simple post
I think that’s ridiculous, so I talked with them about it. Posting private communications is frowned upon I guess, but long story short, they weren’t receptive. I’ve decided to ban the account.
IMO the general culture on Lemmy is that users are entitled to their free account and everyone needs to be careful and circumspect about limiting that entitlement in any way, but I don’t see it that way. I don’t think it’s a requirement for me to provide hosting space for anyone who wants to use my stuff as a jumping-off point for abuse of Lemmy’s systems, and isn’t apologetic or receptive when I talk with them about not doing that. The fact that it’s in service of harassing FlyingSquid in particular is just icing on the cake, since my perception is that people like to harass him apparently for no legitimate reason at all (with this as an example).
AITA?
Don’t know that I would’ve banned someone for a single report, even if it was nonsensical. Sometimes, people have a bad day, and aren’t thinking clearly.
Generally I’m quick with the banhammer about positions (ie genocide deniers o u t), but reluctant about attitudes. As someone who is miserable and tetchy myself, I know all about what it’s like to snap - even at someone I don’t like - and overstep the boundaries of good taste, norms, or constructive participation in a community.
BPR, I guess? I probably would’ve told them to fuck off, but a ban might’ve been an overreaction.
At the same time, operating on your gut to keep a place clean is often necessary to maintain your sanity. There are only so many hours in the day, and only so much energy you can spend reasoning or enduring people.
I dunno, man.
Yeah, I can see that. That’s why I posted here.
Everyone draws their lines in slightly different places. I’m actually probably a lot more tolerant than most about “banned” points of view, or someone just being abrasive one day, since I do the same (on both counts). As long as at the end of the day they’re open for some form of open communication about it. Explicitly rejecting the social contract or using Lemmy’s buttons in a way they’re not designed for, taking up moderators’ time for frivolous stuff and refusing to stop when asked, explicitly rejecting the idea of backing up your reason for attacking someone when asked, I have a lot shorter fuse for.
I wouldn’t have banned if they were at all receptive to the DM conversation about it, but as it is, I just didn’t think I was doing anybody including them any favors by saying “Oh okay, keep doing what you’re doing, you are welcome to a place on this network after a short time-out.”
It sounds like most of the conversation we cannot see here, so we’re only seeing your side here. Therefore take what I say with that grain of salt that we cannot evaluate what we do not see.
I would have offered them a warning first. Which, in the DMs, you did?
At that point, don’t worry about it. I will bend over backwards to explain something to someone who’s honestly trying, but if you are correct that they are not merely ignorant but rather obstinate, then I think it was the right call.
The fact that you are willing to be so transparent (with your own side of the conversation at least, which is all that you “own” so please don’t think I’m mocking you here, I respect that) and also to receive correction yourself seals the deal, imho. You thereby protect people from abuse and in turn allow freedom to have discussions when toxic people are kept out of the room - it’s like trying to discuss something when toddlers are screaming underfoot, it just isn’t going to happen, yet it requires effort to carve out those spaces to remain welcoming to have discussions.
The rest is just details: FlyingSquid really can be quite abusive himself at times, though this may not have been one of them, and he is often quite fun to talk to (unless he gets triggered), plus a single report is not itself abuse, etc. I mentioned more in a response to Blaze.
After learning about everything that happened here, personally I would feel more rather than less comfortable making a post or even account on ponder.cat, if that phrasing helps explain what I mean. By keeping toxic people out, you allow space for people to post who otherwise would hesitate to, for fear of the toxicity that so very often results from doing so.
I won’t analyze this case, but: Abusing the report button is an issue. This forces you to do work to check it, clear it and so on. I can handle the reports in my communities (there are a few), but if I would be getting hundreds of reports every week, I would burn out quickly. People like to shit on mods, but most people don’t know how many batshit insane people there are on the internet and that the best way to have a nice community is to keep them away.
In this case, you were not the target of the reports, it was the community mods I guess?
But if the purposes of the account was trolling and even stalking of a single other account, that would rise to instance admin jurisdiction?
Good point
Precisely. I know it’s a lot to ask since everyone’s volunteers, but I wish more instance admins would do something to address the issue when their users are openly being a pain in the ass. It’s not reasonable to ask every mod to click away an unlimited number of frivolous reports, every user to block every unapologetic asshole, every mod to individually figure out the complete list of who the fight-pickers are, and so on.
Correct. I have nothing to do with the community, or the person being reported or the people handling the reports. I just saw the report because it originated from my instance.
Yeah, sounds like you’re the bastard.
I understand abuse of reporting to apply for repeated frivolous reporting, sending spam, or similar.
This report could simply be ignored until something else happens.
A user reporting something doesn’t know how the mods decide. Mods will always receive reports, where they don’t think taking action is necessary.
Think what‘s your definition of abuse of report button?
So: PTB
Think what‘s your definition of abuse of report button?
I probably have a little different view of the social contract and responsibility of communication than other people. Again, not trying to repost someone’s private communication, but when I asked them more or less “What’s the justification for this report?” they weren’t open to trying to justify it, just told me to do my own research. More or less. To me, probably more than other people, that’s a huge sin. You need to have reasons for what you say, you need to be open to defending it if someone semi-politely asks you to, especially when your statement is calling for sanctions from authority or anything like that. It’s part of being responsible with your communication and building a good community to be a part of.
Like I said, it helps that my perception is that there is “repeated” harassment of FlyingSquid in various forms. It means that any single report, even if it comes from an account that hasn’t been doing any of it, forms part of a pattern of spam like you’re talking about. But, I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, and talk to the person and see if they were open to saying “That’s a fair thing to ask me, I take it seriously, here is my defense of what I did / what I said.” Again that’s just my view on integrity of communication. I might disagree or agree with the defense, and either one is mostly fine, but if someone’s like “it’s not my responsibility, I just spew statements into the world and it’s your problem to figure out if they are bullshit or not, without my help,” they instantly go to the bottom of my shit-list. And, if they’re already on thin ice because we’re having the conversation because they’re using my volunteer hardware to violate Lemmy’s norms and that’s why we’re having the conversation in the first place…
Like I said, it helps that my perception is that there is “repeated” harassment of FlyingSquid in various forms. It means that any single report, even if it comes from an account that hasn’t been doing any of it, forms part of a pattern of spam like you’re talking about.
So, in your view, FlyingSquid is a superior class of user that cannot be interacted with negatively without being banned for it? I was lightly on the PTB side before, but I guess you’re just straight up authoritarian and favoring specific users.
Having read through some of the comments that the user you banned posted lately, yeah I don’t blame you. Their replies are often needlessly rude and holier than thou, especially when replying to squid.
One report is not report abuse. And I do often see FS arguing up and down a thread about nothing at all, so the report isn’t off base either. If you think FS’s behavior is inappropriate, you can remove the comments or ban him. If you think it’s appropriate, then you can explain that to the user who reported it. You’re not required to continue that thread, though.
If they continue reporting material that has been identified to them as non-rulebreaking, then that is report abuse and merits a ban.
So, YTPTB I guess?
The report on that comment was totally off base. It wasn’t in any way an argumentative comment. It was reporting a totally innocuous comment because “every” comment by FS is allegedly combative. And, they refused when I asked for some examples of this “every” behavior by FS.
So they knew it was non rulebreaking and reported it anyway. And then, I did explain that to them as you described, and they weren’t into hearing the explanation. Okay, sounds good, guess who else doesn’t have to care what you think, if we’re doing not-listening-to-each-other? This guy.
