cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35891683
I have changed the original title of this post, as it is imo, thanks largely to discussion in this thread, with a lemmyusa mod, unnecessarily incendiary.
Original Title:
"lemmyusa.com is engaging in vote manipulation, suggest defederating unless it is addressed"
Mod Abuse:
https://lemmy.world/modlog/1432313?page=1&actionType=All
The instance has 3 active subs, it's unlikely the admins are not also the mods engaging in this.
Banning anyone who downvotes is a clear attempt to foster a chilling effect on dissenting opinions. The mods and admins of this instance are putting their thumb on the scales in order to make their ideas appear more positively received than they actually are.
Thanks for your attention to this.
I realize that doing a cross post here is... unorthodox, and this doesn't drectly involve my own interactions, and I am technically breaking a number of the rules of this comm...
... but I think this is worth the discussion and consideration of, and potential further investigation from this comm, which essentially functions as a de facto place for discussing things like this.
Further context / info I have been able to gather:
Here is a direct link to their own modlog.
Their dedicated legal page:
Their described 'sidebar rules' appear to only be:
We're keeping it simple:
Be thoughtful, act responsibly, and treat others with respect.
No NSFW content.
Everything else seems to be in the Legal / TOS / Privacy Policy section.
My preliminary, most charitable interpretation of mod/admin activity here... is that they can and will essentially ban anyone who posts on their instance and is not a lemmyusa user, as any other user would not have agreed to their TOS.
???
Further, this instance appears to be hosting an account that is impersonating SatansMaggotyCumFart, a fairly well known, mostly parody/dedicated 'bit' account here on lemmy...
The profile description of their version of SMCF claims to be 'the only real profile!', and is using a clearly AI generated avatar/profile pic... and uh, to me at least, it seems very unlikely this is the actual SMCF.
UPDATE:
Ok.
After some conversation in this thread, I should add:
There is, and there was at the time this all started, a rule in the comm that much of these downvote bans took place in, which reads:
'No Serial Downvoting.'
Personally, I find this rather vague.
How many dowmvotes, in what timeframe, across how many comms/comments/posts, etc?
I am also still uncertain to what extent these actually are dedicated, persistent, serial downvoters, vs just a whole lot of randos seeing something on their feed and then downvoting it and moving on.
I get the intent behind trying to stem a mass wave of negativity, nobody likes a wave of mass downvotes and hostile comments...
But on the other hand, there should probably be a bit more clarity and specificity here, less heavy handed actions for less comitted and persistent behavior.
IMO, a balance has to be struck between allowing people to genuienly freely express their opinion via downvoting, but at the same time, there are clearly also cases where people or groups of people basically just downvote all comments or posts from a specific user or in a certain comm or pertaining to a certain topic, etc.
I myself am fairly confident I have managed to attract at least one person who downvotes all my posts/comments on their instance, simply because I am on their shitlist, apparently.
So ideally... we could maybe have a constructive conversation about that.
As to the SatansMaggotyCumFart profile on lemmyusa being an impersonatory account:
We've got one mod from lemmyusa here saying he really isn't sure, and personally blocked him, I think from his own user standpoint, not from the standpoint of himself as a mod.
IMO, the account still strikes me as likely another person, impersonating the actual user... I of course cannot be certain, but the profile still strikes me as very sus.
Finally, I am least personally going to strongly discourage any one reading this from popping in to lemmyusa and going out of your way to downvote every single thing on there simply because it is on that instance.
They are already in more or less lockdown mode, call that a win if you must.
I did not intend nor do I want this very post to act as an attack vector.
UPDATE 2
SatansMaggotyCumFart, the real one, has appeared in this thread and confirmed that the lemmyusa profile is indeed an impersonation, is not them.
Ok, after a good deal of conversation, I have ammended the actual post with a large section under UPDATE.
I have included that there is an actual rule that reads 'No Serial Downvoting', and more info, and more of my own thoughts.
thank you. I think the update is a good one. now tho is this even a good fit for this community? basicaly you are saying that someone does a bunch of stuff that you don't personally agree with but probably isn't something that shoudl be wiped from lemmy ro defederated orwhatever.
the vibe I'm getting from evryone here is that they think peole should just ignore shit they don't like and move on without the drama. i know you didn't name the post, but still the post is titled that and put in thsi forum. i just don't think it'sa. godo fit and i don't seeing anyone realy jumping up to defed it.
lemmy.world woudl def love this type of post. but dbzer0 seems to be a little bit more open when it comes to stuff like this. Dbzer0 attitudes are more like, 'fuck it, i don't care what assholes do, let them do their thing and lets move on" lol
Well... perhaps incredibly ironically...
I actually broke a bunch of this comm's rules by... making a cross post, having a post that is not directly me talking about an interaction I myself had with a specific mod or admin or community or instance.
Normally, there is a bit more of a solid framework going on in the posts in this comm.
But, that being said, it is totally normal for this comm to get posts where the poster, the person describing what they see as bad or absuive actions from a mod...
It does happen that people just say, no, dude, you were the one being an asshole, what the mod did was totally justified, YDI.
We have two fairly common acronyms:
PTB for Power Tripping Bastard, ie, a mod or admin is is way outta line.
YDI for You Deserved It, ie, the mod or admin was reasonably enforcing their own rules, their own rules are reasonable, stop being a little baby, lol.
There are others, we also have a sidebar here.
But the point here is that... normally, just being posted here, on its own... is not a call out, its not a shitlist.
Its a place for people to report things they have a problem with, and then everybody else talks about it.
I think I myself have an older post here somewhere where the consensus was mostly: no, stop whining, I was being ridiculous.
Often times... there is no strong, shared consenus in one way, every one kinda just mostly disagrees.
So, if it ends up being a false alarm, then ooops, I raised a false alarm and i eat shit on that, lol.
But, what I was going for, and what seems to have taken place at least a bit... was an actual conversation about this... event, I guess you'd say, and how rules should work, what should and should not be seen as generally acceprable behavior both from rando users, as well as mods and admins.
.........
Uh, as to the title being as it is...
Yeah I genuinely didnt't know if I should keep the title the same, so as to not change what the original person posted... or if I should change it, to editorialize it the way I would.
I will try to see if I can think of a better title... I am actually not even sure if I can change the title?
I think this might be the first time I have ever crossposted anything, I certainly don't do it often.
.......
But uh yeah, I would agree generally with your assesment of dbzero users:
We're anarchists.
Kind of a whole big thing for us is 'fuck you i wont do what you tell me', lol.
And the flip side of that is that our ideal world is one where people can coexist, without coercion, be weird in their own little ways, so long as it does not really harm other people, or force them to do things they don't want to, or perpetuate systems that harm everyone in direct or indirect, complex and subtle ways.