WE ARE MOVING TO LEMMY.WORLD!!
edit: As I'm seeing a lot of worry about the impact this will/could have on the community, please be assured we have the same mod team, and will be holding the community to the same standards. the same things that were always allowed will continue to be allowed and the same things that got things removed before will continue to get things removed before. Lemmy.world admins have agreed to allow us to run our community on our terms.
It is my pleasure to announce that effective immediately, we are transferring our community to Lemmy.world! This has been a few months in the making, so my entire mod team is already on board.
FAQ:
Why?
That's a complicated question with a long answer! The primary difference is moderatorial and ideologial differences between my team and Ada's excellent team of admins. We are on good terms with Ada and her team, and have gotten her consent to do this. In addition to this, we have had ongoing issues with federation and moderation that has caused a subpar experience for many people on other instances.
How does this work?
Currently, as there is not an easy way to transfer an entire community (trust me, we checked), we are locking the community as mod-only, and moving our focus to the 196 on lemmy.world. For you guys, functionally nothing has changed.
What about the posts?
Well, we tried to transfer them, but there was no real way to do so without absolutely destroying lemmy.world's federation. For this reason, we are simply archiving this community as mod-only. Everything is staying up, you just won't be able to post new content. Comments are still enabled, so we will continue to check our modlogs for some time after the transfer has settled.
As for the posts on lemmy.world's 196, we're leaving those up too. From this point onwards, all posts made to that community are beholden to the rules you are all used to, but anything pre-existing is getting grandfathered in.
IF YOU GUYS HAVE ANY OTHER QUESTIONS, PLEASE PUT THEM IN THE COMMENTS OF THIS POST, AND I'LL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER THEM.
Once again, here's the link to our new apartment of awesome. (universal: ![email protected])
I strongly disagree with this decision and the reasoning behind it. Blahaj is, in my opinion, the best place for this community specifically because of the strong moderation and policies of Ada and other admins here.
Lemmy.world is also the worst instance I can think of outside of the big three tankie instances. It contributes further to the centralization of Lemmy as a whole (since 196 has been one of the most active communities on the entire platform). In my opinion, the .world crowd's liberal and pro-colonialist/capitalist tendencies are a terrible fit for this community.
I'd have rather seen Blahaj defederate from .world than 196 move there, even if it meant less content and engagement. At least the cultural values of the community wouldn't have been compromised.
I haven't noticed this, personally. But even if that's true, the way I see it, having more explicitly left-leaning communities can only help remedy that issue.
The only thing that's changing is our location. Our moderation policies are staying the same and I don't expect any significant changes in the types of users coming into this community. And if we do get an influx of bad actors or trolls, we'll do what we've always done and remove them.
The only difference for you guys is going to be what's written after the @ symbol.
That's pretty rich, since the .world admins just very recently made a statement where they proudly wanted to force every mod to change their policies. Including the statement that mods would be forced to follow their new rules.
They rescinded that statement, which I think is a good sign. We gave them feedback and they listened.
The policy was obviously flawed, but I think the spirit of the post was valid. Instances like .ml have major censorship problems, and if they want to be the opposite of them then that's great.
I haven't interacted with the LW admins much, but I'm confident that they'll be more flexible than LBZ if they do end up taking issue with our mod actions. But I don't think it'll come to that anyways.
Good. Your community is giving you feedback now.
This is a pretty alarming sign for where lemmy.world/c/196 is headed tbh and it leads me to believe that what you're calling "heavy-handed" moderation on Ada's part is actually just her being able to notice shit that you don't.
I dislike most big .world communities and the centralization of Lemmy, but I'm glad you guys feel confident in your ability to cultivate the same community in a larger and less curated space.
Yeah, here come the shitlibs and sealions, I guess.
Genuinely clueless here: what are sealions in this context?
It's a term in online parlance that makes reference to a comic, and it means someone who intrudes into someone else's space and derails their conversations under the pretext of civil disagreement.
Thanks!
I never really liked this comic or the concept of sealioning because in this comic the ‘annoying’ entity is someone who is being outcasted based on their identity. In a comparison between bigots and marginalised groups, a marginalised group has more in common with the sea lion than the humans, and the bigots have more in common with the humans.
The comic is more logically read as bigots that are annoyed that the minority they’re discriminating against is defending their rights to exist.
While I understand and to some degree even share your feelings towards the original comic, the concept of sealioning that spawned from it is generally quite far divorced from that particular issue IME, which is why I focused my definition on the aspects of the behaviour that make it a PITA to deal with.
People who argue in bad faith while trying to maintain an aura of civility. The whole "I'm just asking questions" bs that tries to win by baiting you into getting angry.
It's a trolling technique.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Thanks!
Weren’t .world admins also banning references to jury nullification and jokes about Luigi Mangioni killing more CEO’s?
Hard agree, 100%. If they want to jump ship, fine, but scorched earthing the old 196 is bullshit.
So I made ![email protected]
We'll see how it goes!
Agreed, this is an awful decision
To be honest, I think a big part of the 196 identity is that it comes from blahaj. Maybe the move will prove me wrong, but I can't imagine the energy will be the same.
We did want to stay in LBZ, but Ada wasn't willing to compromise with us. Which is her right, and we respect it.
I don't think the energy will be any different, though.
Compromise on what? What's the issue?
The post doesn't really say anything spesific
Heavy-handed moderation, mostly. Don't get me wrong, we do love Ada and appreciate her work, but sometimes we'll see people getting banned or comments getting removed for relatively mild takes. We also often disagreed about the severity of the actions, like ban lengths being way too long considering the reason, or people getting banned over something that really should just be a removal.
To put it bluntly, (and I mean no disrespect, but) her mod actions often felt very vibes-based. Like her feelings heavily influenced her decisions. We want the rules to be enforced in a more objective fashion.
So we asked her to let us handle 196 if the content in question wasn't explicitly trans/queerphobic or illegal, etc.. She disagreed, and we respect her view, so we brought up the idea of moving and she gave us her blessing.
I thought this was meant to be on good terms? What about your post is fostering good will? It's nothing but trashing on me...
To be clear, every post and user I removed was due to queerphobia, transphobia, trolling or spam, issues that broke the instances rules. Some of that bigotry was was implicit rather than explicit, like dog whistles, tone policing etc. Some of it was the "just asking questions" transphobia that pervades most corporate owned social media spaces.
This is the way I have moderated this instance from before the time I handed this community to moss. When lemmy was just taking off, I asked for people to mod the 196 community after it was abandoned by its original creators, and passed it over to moss when she raised her hand.
So if the goal is for this to be civil, maybe don't paint me as the bad guy for moderating in a way I have done from before your community was created here. What feels like "moderating by vibes" to you, is lengthy experience with community development, and a decade navigating queer and gender diverse communities, and knowing what I want from them. As moss said, this is ideological differences in how low grade transphobia and queerphobia should be dealt with. moss is ok with community pushback for the low grade stuff rather than moderation, whereas I'll just remove it.
That's what I wouldn't compromise on, and that has been the way the instance has run for years now.
It feels like every time I extend 196 a hand, you bite it. I gave the community to moss and started this whole thing. I told another instance admin no when they asked 196 to remove their banner. moss then went and leaked the DMs from said admin, forcing me to remove the post, and then had a public complaint session about me for removing the post.
I have asked 196 for years now to have an active blahaj.zone mod so that someone can deal with the blahaj.zone reports that constantly come through and build up, but still, the best we got were mods with alt accounts that get checked every couple of days, leaving me to deal with the build up of reports on 196. Sometimes they would hang around there for days while I waited for a 196 mod to log in and look at them. And because you don't like the way I deal with them, you drag me over the coals for my moderation style, despite no one from 196 stepping up to deal with those reports on a regular basis.
I was told that you were thinking about moving to another instance. I offered my support if you decided to stay or to leave. And that was the last I heard of it, until one of your mods (possibly you if I remember correctly) told the community you were organising something with lemmy.world, and I had to hear that second hand. And then, when things were finalised and the decision to move was locked in, once more, I heard about it second hand, after your team made a public post, because no one from 196 could be bothered to tell me before posting.
So no, you don't get to paint me as the unreasonable admin who moderates by "vibes". If you want to point the finger at me, at least own your own mistakes, rather than asking for good will and civility and then dumping on me when the chance presents itself.
I really don't mean any ill will!
I agree, and that's all I'm trying to say. I didn't mean for any of that to be rude, but a lot of people are demanding an explanation and I'm just trying to be honest. We disagree about how to handle moderation and that's fine, I'm not trying to paint you as a bad mod.
And I'm sorry about not having an LBZ mod, I wasn't aware that we needed one. Federated communities are a new thing for me and I'm still learning.
I understand it may not seem like it, but we truly don't mean any ill will. There is none on our part, and I hope the same is true for you.
Then maybe when you are talking to people in the future about this, you can talk about the differences in moderation styles in an objective way, talking about the types of things we disagree on, without loading it with terms like "over moderation" and "moderating by vibes" etc.
My moderation style hasn't changed, and predates 196. If it doesn't gel with your team, you can say that without making it my fault.
i agree
Please, you did paint ada in a bad way and if that was truly unintentional then you should edit that comment and remove the unfounded accusations. I very much agree with ada’s moderating actions to make sure blahaj.zone is a safe space for trans people that don’t wish to constantly battle with transphobic or misogynistic dog whistles.
Wow, I already didn't agree with this move, but knowing they went behind your back makes this feel especially bad. I'll certainly not move then. I'm sorry to hear that, and I just want you to know that the community, for the most part, stands behind you <3
I, like many others I imagine, came to blahaj because of c/196, but stayed for the amazing safe space and community you've built here!
No no, they didn't go behind my back. I knew it was in the works. It's more that there was no clear communication about the plans, so I only found out specifics after they'd been made public.
Okay, that's good to hear. Still not happy with the situation, but I'm glad to hear you were at least somewhat in the loop
we only finalized pur plans a few days ago. This was essentially announced as soon as it materialized
Just let them “move” the community and have someone else moderate this community. I’m sure there are people standing in line to do it.
I for one repeatedly have enjoyed your community management and moderation style.
I am happy and glad to know that someone as experienced and resourceful has always been committed to create, foster and defend a safe space like blahaj.
The fact that moderation specifically is cited as a reason to switch instances is worrisome to me and feels like it will not be a place for me I want to frequent and I am sad that you are being painted in a bad light here.
I thank you for your continuous good work and hope that this move at least eventually will lead to fewer bad moments for you, because you do not deserve to be treated badly with the care you are giving this community.
How about you leave to .world, and transfer this community to someone who actually cares about it. It's not up to the few people on the mod team to make decisions for the entire community.
you should've put that in the post, it's not very clear.
also, while I can understand that, I feel like this should have been polled or something. I like that 196 comes from blahaj as it's pretty unique
This isn't my post, but I'll ask Moss to edit in a better explanation into the "why" part of the text.
I'll hope it still stays a similar space 🤞
I don't think this is entirely accurate, there were multiple factors at play
I'm gonna be honest, my first response to reading this headline & image, as well as the small snippet of the body visible from my app's home page, was "huh, bit early for an April Fool's Day joke". It would have been surprising enough if the move has been anywhere, but LW is the last non-tankie instance I would have expected, given the modding/admin drama they've been through recently.
I'm guessing LW was chosen because there's a pre-existing (if inactive) community there already?
I'm not familiar with this drama. Lemmy.world was chosen because they have the resources to support another major community, their rules (as far as I am aware) align with ours, and they agreed to let us moderate our community by our rules with minimal interference.
Instead of making a unilateral decision on behalf of all of the members of this community without any kind of consultation, why don't you move to L.W and allow people who do want to be here, who do want to be subject to the moderation rules of this instance, to step in and take the reins?
I say unlock the community and appoint a new mod team. Who said you could just close the whole community, just because you've volunteered to take out the trash?
We joined this community because its on blahaj.zone.
We're not moving
Seriously. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should leave the community, so ultimately this may be a good thing, so long as this community is kept here and passed to other people.
Lame move. The .world instance has been getting worse for a long while. Why not go elsewhere if it's really that important? 196 is one of the most active communities I've seen so the de-federation issue doesn't sound like one.
care to elaborate on this "worsening" ?
https://lemmy.world/c/lemmyworld
You can just browse through their announcements and see for yourself. I admire their dedication and how they've managed to accept us Reddit refugees but they keep making these strange missteps in their administration.
I personally wouldn't make a community in their instance as I don't trust the admins. They also don't mind de-federating other instances; see dbz0 (I can never remember the name right).
The first one looks like they're dealing with code of inconsistent quality from Lemmy developers, but the second one is weird. Everything is all crossed out.
it was crossed out because it was rescinded. it was rescinded because it was a bad decision.
I thought they'd but put some non crossed out text explaining this, but they crossed everything out.
For the love of god, leave this community here and just create a new mod team instead. This community being on Blåhaj specifically is a big plus for a lot of us
We won't be moving to world with you. We like blahaj and we like 196 being on blahaj. If you don't want to be here, you should instead just hand over your mod positions to people who do.
Absolutely foul decision. From the recent discussions i think it was very clear that the actual regular users and posters of 196 were opposed to moving to .world. What a clown show of a mod team.
Yeah, exactly, what the fuck?
A move that has been months in the making but only now is getting announced? Has it been announced previously and I missed it or something? I get the motivation for the move, but this feels like the kind of decision that the users of the 196 should have gotten more of a chance to at least give feedback on what other instance 196 should be migrating to.
Tbf I did try to bring it up a while ago but it upset Ada for some reason, even though I'm fairly certain I didn't say anything we weren't on the same page about... So I removed it.
You're right, though, we should have said something first. That's our bad.
while I am still confident this is the right choice of instance to transfer to, i do think you are most likely right. if I had a do over, I would have made a poll before anouncing this. unfortunately at this point, I feel like it's a little late in the game to do a 360.
Why are you not engaging with the large number of users suggesting simply leaving this community unlocked and allowing new mods to take over? It’s very obvious you are avoiding responding to those comments. As you have acknowledged, this was handled badly with zero community choice or involvement. Few, if any commenters agree with the move or support it.
Nobody is asking for a “360” on whatever the mod team planned, the community can’t hold you hostage and force you to moderate a community when you don’t want to. Locking the community however should not be your choice to make. If you want to leave, leave. If the mod team and new instance are so important as you suggest, you’ll have a flourishing community on lemmy.world in no time.
But locking out the community with no consultation or notice is just cruel.
This seems like prime material for ![email protected]
Seems like it's better suited for ![email protected] and indeed I see db0 mentioned as such on the ![email protected] post that was recently made. This is an interesting case study re the fediverse and communities:
Who could possibly have foreseen that the users of the community wouldn't like being told that it was closed and they'd have to move? Completely unpredictable behaviour, I'm sure
How about reopening the community, and allow a Blahaj admin to take over, asking for new mods and keep the community open?
Boo
u guys should mod a community on lemmy.world if they share ur values more but don't steal our community
we aren't stealing your community. the people who built and facilitated this community are the people who are migrating this community.
I thought we left that attitude on Reddit, that's a really disappointing and insulting take. The community is the community, not a handful of moderators. We're grateful for the work y'all are doing, but, and I really don't intend this as an insult, moderators are replaceable.
Setting aside what an awful & insulting response this (the community is the community, that’s why the word exists. Moderators are not the community)…
If you really believe this, then why lock the existing one? Obviously your well planned & executed move will be wildly successful, so there should be no need to lock the existing one. Unless of course 8 people who do caretaker duties on the community are in fact NOT the community, the people are and you need them, even if you don’t respect their opinions or contributions.
Yeah im sure 4.47k people subbed to the new community in a matter of 6 hours and its not just a bunch of bots used to validate this decision in the eyes of uninitiated bystanders. I mean the .world community is older than 6 hours, but it was completely dead for the last 3 months until yesterday.
This is the most reddit thing I've seen on Lemmy and that's saying a lot
They'll fit right in on LW.
Imagine believing that you "build and facilitate" a community by being a mod. What an asshole.
Yeah you are lmao because we can't post here anymore. Unlocking it would be a step towards "unstealing" it.
The answer in that case would be for some users with a history of good faith interaction who are interested in doing so to reach out to the blahaj admins and ask if they can take over the running of this Community.
Ada being a blahaj admin. If that is true then i wouldnt be too optimistic.
So the community never belonged to the users, it was only the mods' ?
In that case then why even announce anything? Apparently it's your community and you can do what you like with it, you take your ball and go home. I assume that means you'll be making and posting all the content there yourself?
By moving a queer community to an openly hostile network you are stealing a community
I don’t see why if you’re unhappy with moderation decisions why you can’t start your own 196 over on world and leave this one alone
so you own this shit?
if you're really going through with this, I dare you to call it 197
A community is not something you can "migrate". You are not migrating a community, you are migrating a community space and in doing so, you are alienating said community. If you are unwilling to provide a safe space for said community, the community will either find new space or take their space back.
I think for people who feel safe on blahaj but aren't guaranteed that safety on .world, it might feel like locking /c/196 on Blahaj and the moderators telling everyone to move to .world is a bit like stealing the community. Maybe /u/not_IO meant that 196 on Blahaj should remain unlocked so 196 can continue to exist on Blahaj, but obviously the question is who will moderate the community if the moderators all leave for .world?
I agree with most others that this is a huge mistake, if only for moving to .world. Another larger community being on that instance sounds like a bad idea for the lemmy ecosystem, even if you wanted to move from blahaj.zone. I will continue to post and browse on 196, but if I start to feel unwelcome there, I will make it known.
The problem is that you're creating more work for yourself, even if you're as on top of moderation as you were here. If you get the additional reach that you're hoping for, you'll have to work much quicker at removing shit content than you did here. Now that 196 isn't on the openly queer instance, more bigots will feel like they can interact. This could lead to the community becoming less accepting in the long run, as queer people feel less safe and welcomed.
I have thick skin and often run towards conflicts other people won't, but I know that many users here aren't like me. If I start to feel it weighing on me, be confident that things have gone too far for most people on this instance.
That's valid! But we are confident that we'll be able to stay on top of things. If there were any doubts, we wouldn't have made the switch.
Like I said, the perception of .world from people here is not good. I changed from .world because most conservative and transphobic nonsense came from there. You will lose a number of queer people in this move, whether you like it or not.
You couldn't even stay on top of it here. You're leaving over an instance rule.
Can you link me any examples? The report log is empty, and frankly I read every post most days of the week along with most of the comments, and I can't think of anything we haven't taken care of or wasn't taken care of swiftly.
This move is going to make the community a lot less welcoming to queer folk, by virtue of being on .world alone. I don't know what rift between Ada and you let to that decision, but I think it's a big mistake. It feels especially bad for us members of this community not being involved in the decision making process at all, all the more if this has truly been "months in the making".
With that said: I strongly implore you to not lock down the community, and instead let a new mod team take over. Not having centralized decisions and power tripping mods is one of the big hopes I had for the fediverse, and this... feels really bad. It's not a bad thing to have several similar communities on different instances! Please don't destroy this one over personal grievances
It’s pretty clear what the community consensus here is.
You can leave, and start a new 196 community wherever you like. Leave this one as is, and people can choose to follow one, both or neither.
Locking it here is very hostile to the community and a categorically bad move. I hope the instance admins can step in, remove the mods and unlock the community.
I would like to propose a solution that I think can make everyone happy. Transfer ownership of Blahaj 196 to a new mod team and make World 196 the alternate community. If anyone wishes to follow the original mod team into world they would be able to, meanwhile blahaj 196 would follow the values of Blahaj. I personally volunteer to either be the head or a moderator here.
I've seen a lot of talk about how this move changes the admins the community will be under, but very little about how this will change the randos that pass through. The mods keep saying this won't change anything, that the moderation will stay the same, etc, but the reason this community is the way it is is that there are a lot of locals that find it. When the new community shows up on l.w's local page, it will bring in a far different crowd. Their posts, comments, and up/down votes will change the community, and there's no amount of moderation that will fix that.
Mods, this is why people are mad you made this change without asking anyone. Many of us do not want an influx of .world users into this space because we know what kind of politics and biases they'll bring with them and that, even if you moderate the bigots, the normies will still likely overpower the queer voices this community is known for.
Well written.
The situation that you describe reminds me of this this comic:
Do we really need more centralisation? .world is already too big.
The combination of not involving the community in the decision, only providing a vague reason and locking the original community really rubs me the wrong way.
agh idk dog... the comment sections of lemmy.world are a bit of a cesspool. I'll miss the pro-trans good vibes
Moving out of LBZ doesn't mean we're not a pro-trans community anymore. As far as moderation goes, nothing is changing. If we see an influx of transphobes or bad actors, we'll do the same thing we've always done and simply ban them.
Dotworld's admins just brought in a policy that specifically requires mods to be permissive of a certain degree of concern trolling and/or sealioning. Can you be sure you'll be able to moderate the community to the satisfaction of its existing userbase?
I'm pretty sure we can, and they rescinded the policy anyways. I think they mainly wanted to combat censorship, so I think whatever they update it to will be reasonable.
The kind of content they were concerned about was respectful and well-meaning people, so I'm confident that if we continue to ban/remove people/comments as we have been doing, there will be no problems.
Well, good luck. I mean it. I just wish this didn't mean that the existing community gets locked down.
we have been given a large degree of freedom in how we run our community by lemmy.world admins, with an aggrement that we would be able to continue to moderate our community by our rules. I can guarantee we will not be expected to entertain trolls, as I ensured we would not have to before approving the transfer.
How are we supposed to square this with the rationale for the break being to get away from stricter moderating?
I'm saying our moderation isn't changing. Like, the rules page is word for word the same as it was in LBZ. We're still not tolerating MAGA shit, transphobes, tankie shit, etc.
This raises the question: is it your moderation that people like? Or do people only like it as much because of the extra layer of moderation you dislike?
Strong agree. Can't speak for anyone else, but here's me a few months ago thanking Ada specifically for this reason.
Just create a new one
I want to add my voice to the others asking for tranfering to a new mod team. You don't have to kill the community, let people who want it on blahaj.zone keep using it. The worst that can happen is the quality of posts being lower.
Exactly. Not letting the community have a say in what happens to the community is a dick move.
That why doesn't really answer much. Are we making 196 a safe space for transphobia or something?
Absolutely not. Our rules aren't changing and neither is the mod team. Our top priority is, and always will be, cultivating a community where queer people of all flavors feel welcome and safe.
You should know thst somewhat recently .world was in hot water because their admins have told their mods that they (the mods) are going to have to engage trolls in good faith. The statements were about forcing their mods to allow some "flat earth" comments to stay, to be unable to ban things like that.
I guess those ideological issues were the acceptance and safe space for queer people, but fuck us I guess. Don't worry, we won't hop on over to the shit show.
Maybe we can start a 197 like how 196 came from 195.
What a shitty fucking take from some power tripped mods.
very much agree! <3 but also >;(
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/20937206/12464713
looks like the main differences are about what counts as violations and how to deal with them:
196 mod said:
Ada's response:
So it's not as simple as queer acceptance vs not, but rather what counts as a violation and how severely those rules are enforced.
They could still transfer the existing community
Sorry, I'm just not sure what you mean by this or what it has to do with my comment.
While there are differences in moderation styles as you detailed in your post, that does not explain why they couldn’t just leave the Blahaj community open, potentially to Blahaj admins who would call for a new mod team rather than locking it down.
Yes, completely agree.
Yeah and it looks like the admins of blahaj are with the mod team on this, so i assume there wont be any reopening of 196 here. That means either 197 on blahaj or move to a different instance. I feel like the former would just lead to a repeat of the same story tho, if the instance admins here are ok with this kind of behaviour.
It would be a power move if they just purged all the .world people from this community with this move and then reopened the community without the old mods.
I have no idea why u thought people would be fine with any of this, this leaves 200% clear that u dont even know the community u moderate
If you don't want to get into it yourself, totally cool, but if anyone else does - what is this about?? Like, I don't understand the moderatorial and ideological differences referenced that justify bringing 196 to .world.
I loved having 196 on blahaj specifically, means more exposure to my trans and gender diverse homies and their memes because they feel safe here.
Edit: To those just joining us, who like me comment before reading the whole thread, this is a good place to start: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12464713
[Edit edit: Changed to a LBZ link, because having it be the lemmy.world link is the height of irony]
Imagine being such a pissbaby that you hold a community hostage instead of blocking someone that you struggle to engage with.
You don't have to imagine, just talk with these
modsclowns.I can only guess that this is about this instance's zero-tolerance policy for transphobia. This means there might be higher standards for removing transphobic content than the mods might be capable of meeting / willing to meet. This is just a guess, though - I would like some clarification as well, esp. since in the absence of clarity it just looks like 196 is moving because they don't want to be vigilant about removing transphobic content, which as nimble pointed out is not a good look. 🤷♀️
EDIT: found the answer
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/20937206/12464713
in response to the question:
We get this response:
so tl;dr disagreements about 1. what counts as violations, and 2. the severity of punishment for those violations (where Blahaj admins are perceived as too strict and 196 mods wish to be more lenient).
Thank you - asked the question in another place, and while I'd much prefer an offical comment from Ada and/or Moss or the other mods, I'm starting to form a picture.
If it's a capability thing I would hope there would've been a call for more mods to support the instance-wide rules...easy to say, of course, but I feel like there's so much love for this community they'd have some volunteers.
This sucks.
Edit: Start here, folks: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12464713
I agree it sucks, but I also want to resist the the urge to villainize the 196 mods in the absence of information. Maybe they are just being realistic, or maybe they really prefer to have more moderation autonomy to determine what they consider transphobic - it's not clear to me.
What prevents them to just transfer this community to other mods? Locking it down seems overreacting.
Agreed - putting rationale aside, locking the community and just saying "We are moving our community to .world, go there" without community consultation is a terrible move.
Man, haven't had to think this much about the relationships between instances, communities, and userbases re: 'ownership' for a while.
I pretty much agree. It seems more in the spirit of the fediverse to let blahaj 196 to continue with new mods that are more comfortable with the hard line blahaj takes about transphobia, and if the old mods wish to start a new 196 community on .world, there's nothing stopping them.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12464713
:(
.world is already way too centralized, and way less friendly. downhill we go I guess.
So I made a new community.
![email protected]
Banner and icon will follow, I'm literally out running errands right now!
Okay to have a backup, but I'm still hopeful we'll get this one unlocked
Same, I'd much rather not have a break in content continuity and I'm ambivalent on being a mod.
Hope the current one will be reopened. Also using letters rather than numbers make it more difficult to use
Agreed, getting this back is much more preferable. I tried 197-1 but the - was problematic.
@[email protected] did you consult even a single member of your community or did you just decide this was good for you, like on a personal level?
thanks for linking the new one it makes it easy to block.
very disappointed. :(
Bye then, I won't be following
OK, I think I see where you're coming from. But lemmy.world already has several meme, shitpost, and microblog repost communities. Why does lemmy.world need c/196? Up til now the fact that it was on blahaj.zone was what made it stand out.
it's less that lemmy.world needs 196, and more that we think it is an instance that is well suited to host 196. this community is not one that is defined by the instance it is located on
This is the meme community with the most queer memes. It very much is defined by its instance.
Apparently many people in this community disagree with that statement.
"We want to move to .world so we can be bigots"
This ain’t it.
Would you consider reconsidering?
How about no?
Wow this is disappointing. Lemmy world seems so massive already which kinda defeats the purpose of federating a bit I feel. Too centralized. I’m just waiting for the seemingly inevitable implosion of world haha.
I mean ultimately it’s whatever, it is what it is and I’ll follow 196 wherever it goes.
Good point, I even forgot about that
I think I sort of understand what they meant when they talked about narratives, although I interpret it as being extremely naïve. Sure, it's true that people often only defend one narrative because it's the only one they know, and haven't been exposed to other ones (or at least in a way where they actually thought critically about it and haven't just refuted the "new" perspective on first sight). But it's extremely unrealistic to think that people will change their opinion due to a couple of comments on the Internet (specially when people have joked for years that disscussions on the Internet never go anywhere). Not just that, but by saying that you want people to be able to voice other narratives and not specifying if those include things like hate speech (even if you thought of not including those), you're scaring the shit out of marginalized communities that use the platform, which get a lot of hate every day and just want places in the Internet where they can chill and not have to worry about that sort of stuff. I honestly think that there is a misunderstanding of what the admins meant with that, I think that they don't really intend to endanger their marginalized users (although I could just be interpreting this wrongly, you never know)... But even if they wanted to, it wouldn't really matter for us, as it would just make the job harder for the 196 mods, who, expectably, will keep on moderating as they always did, keeping TERFs, homophobes and other haters away from this lovely community (, right? riiiiiight???).
...and I would just say this if LW admins weren't so open to federating with Meta products. Even if we ignore how shitty Meta is as a company, federating with them would bring very little advantages to the table (like, idk, being able to follow some friends and family, and some famous people, and talking with them to some capacity without a Meta account, but still having to follow Meta's ToS obviously), but lots of disadvantages instead (not much more adhesion to the Fediverse because people will keep on using Meta's products anyways; possible "embrace, extend, extinguish" from Meta, which could really damage the Fediverse; Meta possibly involving themselves in some of the Fediverse projects, which could result in them "steering the wheel" as they see fit; and most importantly, spreading the Fediverse's moderation resources thin, due to a way larger influx of users and Meta's shitty moderation). I'm not mad by people who want to federate with Meta, as it sounds really cool to federate with a bunch more people and present to them the wonderful world of the Fediverse. I'm just a bit let down because those people won't realize that things will barely be as cool as they sound once they try federating with Meta.
if you're concerned about defederation, why would you go to lemmy.world, which seems no better on that front than lbz?
seriously? that's a bad decision.
if i could downvote, i would! >>>>>>:((((((((
this is a VERY UNCOMFY move!!! >>>>:((((
just to make it obvious, these are ANGRY FACES!!!
(im saying this cuz maybe 196 mods or whatever cannot understand these kinds of emotions)">" are the ANGRY EYEBROWS! ":" are the EYES and "(" is the SAD MOUTH!!!
I AM VERY SAD! i will NOT lurk on ur evil .world "replacement".
this is NOT what the FEDIVERSE IS MEANT TO BE!!!!
the fediverse is meant to be DECENTRALIZED!!! across MULTIPLE INSTANCES!
this is NOT a "very fediverse move" you are doing here. This is a "reddit move"!
im gonna say it. this is straight up u/spez stuff happening here.
i HOPE that my comment gets blocked or removed by my instance maintainers, so that it becomes OBVIOUS that such hatespeech, which is allowed on .world is NOT OKAY!
(yes i mean my hatespeech rn, im in evil mode today, this is very evil, i dun like this at all. will not support this evil behavior)
sorry for anticlimacting the angry mood but the angry faces made me want to hug u >v<
It's weird - you and I have never interacted, and we're usually engaging in totally different discussions in the fediverse, but every time I see a post from you my first thought is "We must protect Smorty at all costs. If Smorty stops posting, the fediverse has lost its way."
#makesmortyhappyagain
Fuck off, dividing a marginalized community over petty shit.
BOOOO!
Let us keep our own community right here on Blåhaj!
Please don't. Like really, or make your own new community. It being on blahaj zone is good
Time to make a new 196. I should move too, but haven't done so yet because on mobile lots of apps don't display all posts.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no
Adding my voice to the pile. Leave it here. Unlock it and let new mods take over. You can do your thing wherever you want. But let us do our thing where we want.
Who defederates from blåhaj? Why? As far as I can see it's just a queer instance only bigots would defederate.
I don't think this is about defederation ...
But to answer your question, I know Beehaw defederated from Blahaj. I can't remember all the reasons, I think Blahaj was considering defederating from them, and they defederated from Blahaj first, claiming Blahaj users were disrupting them (similar claims were being made about Beehaw users on Blahaj).
I think Blahaj defederates from other instances, usually because those instances don't moderate or remove transphobic and queerphobic content. I don't know of any other cases where an instance defederated from Blahaj other than Beehaw, though.
??? I regularly interact with Beehaw users. The most recent reply in my inbox is from a Beehaw user.
I think you’re mixing Beehaw up with Hexbear.
And ironically it would be the Beehaw users that would be left behind on lw.
Right, I am not super familiar but I know LW and Beehaw don't talk (not sure who defederated from whom or why), but in that case Blahaj and LW are the same in relation to Beehaw.
Can you expand on this? It's not really clear to me why you're making this move.
Basically it's "vibes", that's the only explanation the 196 mods intend to give us
see here: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/20937206/12464713
looks like the main "ideological" differences are about what counts as violations and how to deal with them:
a 196 mod said:
part of Ada's response:
They could still transfer the existing community
Sorry can you say more? I am not connecting the dots between my comment and yours. I am only trying to answer blackn1ght's question about what the ideological differences were between 196 mods and the Blahaj admins.
While there are differences in moderation styles as you detailed in your post, that does not explain why they couldn't just leave the Blahaj community open, potentially to Blahaj admins who would call for a new mod team rather than locking it down.
Not sure I need you to keep copying the comments in both places, but to respond here as well, yes - I agree.
Sounds good!
Time to make /196part two on Blahaj I guess.
or we could get new moderators to ask for control of this comm
Even better.
One day should be enough, members should act when there's still momentum
Good point.
You people should just get back the original one
As someone whose home instance is LW, this is not a good idea. Like, at all. I suggest at least hosting some kind of poll, chances are if people disagree they'll just make a second community on this instance or another one regardless.
Yeah I used to be on world till I got booted. It’s awful.
Fuck this. I'll be blocking the
newfake 196 then.Every single post on the "new" community is from a .world user. Maybe its time for me to block all of .world, it was pretty clear from the start that .world is predatory but this just makes me even more sure. They can have fun over there with their meta/threads federation lol
.world is federating with threads?? eww
Yes
:(
Why Lemmy.world over other servers?
This is a great question, I wonder if they will answer this.
the ideology of blahajzone isn't one I 100% agree with but it's honestly imo the best suited for 196, given that on The Other Website 196 is a fork of 195 that grew to be specifically queer/trans focused. People had other choices like 197, but they specifically chose 196, and I think there's a point to make in that.
as for the Lemmy.World choice, I really don't get it and probably will not migrate there, and really don't like that you guys are feeding the centralisation and concentration of power when there are so many wonderful instances out there. I like shitjustworks myself because it feels very non-interfery and open, but there's so many other options too.
this whole thing honestly feels disheartening given how 'default' the choice of lemmy.world feels, like you all put no thought into the decision before making it.
please just remember that we understand that you all are human and will accept apologies if you think they are necessary
Keep this community open for everyone and find a new mod team. With the world admin team "busting echo chambers" (even thoughs that aren't echo chambers) by overarching mod undercutting admin action, I'm extremely worried that this alone will ruin 196 as a whole. The etiquette on world is also different which will result in the altering of the community into some unknown. The quality content may also suffer a degradation as the culture of blajha and world are not the same.
Such as?
blahaj.zone admins have a tendency to moderate rather heavy-handedly. Mod choices are rarely, if ever, checked by my team, and bans are often given for things that are not in violation of our rules. This is because Ada runs lemmy.blahaj.zone as a very curated community, often removing and banning for matters that are, in my opinion, based on opinion rather than objectivity. I have little against that, and think that, as the owner, she has every right to choose how to run her community. That being said, I don't think its the right community for us.
To be clear, the only moderation I do is for content or users that are breaking our instance guidelines, not 196 rules. If it didn't break instance guidelines, I didn't touch it, and if it did, it was bigger than 196. In neither case was running it past 196 mods an appropriate step
I understand this Ada, as I said both in my comments and my DMs with you. I hope there's no ill will, and that we can remain on good terms.
No ill will! I just don't want people thinking I was defacto moderating 196
not at all!!!
That still doesn't really tell me anything. What kinds of differences of opinions? What kinds of things have resulted in admin action that the mods would be more lenient on?
If you want specific examples,
here's a random onehere's another one.When it comes to moderating, we want to cultivate an environment where queer people feel welcome, but the point where we differ from Ada is not being allowed to respectfully disagree. As far as we're concerned, that person didn't break any of our rules.
Don't get me wrong, we're not gonna start tolerating MAGA shit or anything, we just don't want people to be afraid of getting ejected from the community over a relatively mild take or for committing wrongthink.
My concern at this point hinges on what constitutes "respect" and what things are tolerable to disagree about. Particularly with the backdrop of a society that sees disagreeing with my gender as respectful disagreement.
That really becomes a question of how far is too far, while everyone is subjected to potentially harmful takes because they're not overtly hateful. That's the thing that burned a lot of us out on Reddit.
If the premise of the disagreement is that your gender is invalid, then I don't consider that respectful regardless of how polite they're being.
Lemmy as a whole is pretty far left-leaning so I don't expect it to be an issue... but if we do start getting more of that stuff, the punishment will be the same as it has been (a ban).
My money's on they don't want Ada going over their heads and mandating that neopronouns will be respected. That's the only high profile drama that I've seen on Blahaj in many months. They can call it differences on the back end all they want, but I have to see this as a move away from pro-trans moderation policies, since they're leaving the instance that's explictly pro-trans.
We've been talking about moving out of LBZ way before that happened.
Also, I'll say it as many times as I have to, we didn't ban Drag over neopronouns, and we don't disagree with Ada's rule about them. We banned Drag for encouraging suicide and violence several times.
Weirdly defensive.
I dont remember that decision on y'alls part as particularly controversial, rather the drama - from some non-blahaj members - surrounding Ada's announcement following it.
We're talking about moderation policies here after all, not any one user.
Also, it was in PugJesus's post about his departure that you first mentioned that the 196 mods had already been discussing moving to .world. A comment that you've subsequently deleted. Seems odd to bring it up at that time if it wasn't in some way related.
I'm just trying to set the record straight, because after that incident a lot of people seem to have gotten the impression that we disagreed with Ada's decision, or that we banned Drag over neopronouns. But we don't disagree, and we do respect neopronouns.
And about my comment, I only brought it up because Pug's post was getting a lot of positive reception, so I thought if people were unhappy with BLZ then it'd be a good idea to tell them we've been working on transferring out of there. But Ada got upset over it, and tbh I'm still not sure exactly why, so I removed the comment.
I'm sorry, but as someone who has been very explicitly transgender over 4 years now (and has a team that is 40% trans), i take offense to this. While the neopronouns debate was something that my team probably would have handled slightly differently, it is not what I am referring to AT ALL.
I'm glad to hear that my presumptions are false. Please tell us what you're referring to so that we dont have to speculate.
A_Very_Big_Fan doesn't seem to have an issue with it.
https://lemmy.world/comment/14551980
that is exactly what is going on. I'd like to keep what happened behind closed doors behind closed doors. while, for example, publicizing my DMs would most likely give more substance to my arguments, it would burn bridges that I am unwilling and undesiring to burn.
That's actually a good reason and sad if true. I wish I'd made my account in Blahaj Zone but I guess a bullet was dodged.
If all existing instances have really been exhausted as options (which I do doubt), what about making your own instance?
I mentioned it in another comment, but the main difficulty we had with that was long-term funding
this has been an ongoing issue behind the scenes for a long time
What are your thoughts on the Beehaw and any other instances' users who are going to be forceably left behind by this change?
OK, we saw your post. You can leave now.
No
Big yikes
Why'd you choose .world? Just curious on your rationale.
I reached out to multiple different major instance's admin teams, and world's team was most receptive and cooperative. In addition, lemmy.world has a pretty great reputation, being one of the most popular instances.
Sounds good. Was kinda hoping for a smaller instance so we'd be less centralized and more federated, but this works alright.
we considered that, and even had a voulenteer who was open to giving 196 its own lemmy instance hosted on their personal server, but we ultimately decided against it, as running a lemmy instance is expensive and resource intensive, and we'd rather not fundraise/worry about having to move again. A major instance like lemmy.world has an assurance of longevity that might not necessarily be found in a smaller instance.
Don't do it, seriously I hope you're joking.
.world is too big already, also I understand your moderation concerns but this is a large change that I don't think has been thought through. Why not move to a smaller instance to strengthen federation, or make your own if you can afford to host it?
Bad move :(
How does this comment not violate instance rules?
?
The reason the mods are leaving is due to an issue where the instance admin would remove comments from this community for breaking the instance rule of Empathy which has the guideline of:
How is "fuck off" anything but a comment designed to hurt someone?
Hahaha fuck off is so tame tho. My friends and I say it to each other all the time.
Disappointing
Wow that's terrible, can anyone link some of those 196's so I can block them?
Now where am I supposed to post this Iruleny?
Also waiting for the downvotes to reach 196.
Well, it doesn't seem to be a joke, guess the mods like admins forcing changes to moderation policies, unless users throw a massive shit storm.
WHY ARE U MOVING INSTANCE?
A single drawn out argument over a not even that controversial mod decision. Very sad that the blahaj admins allowed this mod to fuck over this whole community for no good reason and against the will of basically the entirety of this community.
very sad. i can barely use lemmy.world communities as they take weirdly long to federate with my tiny instance. for example, from my instance i can only see the pinned posts on the new 196, and it has been pending subscription since yesterday.
What's wrong with federation?
d-do i get a monopoly on non trans communities here??? im not the kinda person who could manage that, yet...
haha congrats ig
im considering making a wish.com quality clone of 196 atm. though the large amount of moderators would he hard to repleacate as I've been unable to get moderadors on [email protected]
I'd be willing to do some "grunt mod work" for 196. Actual decision-making and community-building would probably take too much time for me to be reliable on it, but just dealing with reports I could do.
I think it’s good for 196 to leave because at least to me it’s clear that your values don’t fully align with this instance and if you leave then the trans community posts don’t get drowned out anymore by 196 posts. Hopefully 196 leaving will boost the trans meme communities here a bit more (and maybe there’ll be more interest in a new meme/generalposting community).
A link that everyone can click: ![email protected]
boom
What's the ! for?
So that you'll go there from your home instance, and not as a website (in most browsers/apps)
I thought lemmy.world is moving toward mandating a lighter touch in moderation, is that what you wanted?
Pretty much. All we need them to do is remove illegal content and stuff that breaks ToS. We want everything else to be our decision.
We're not going to be more lax on transphobia or anything, though. We're still a heavily left-leaning mod team, and about half of us are trans, so naturally our mod actions reflect that.
Honestly on board with this. 196 took up more of Blahaj than I liked and always had a weirdly dissonant feel to the rest of the instance. I'm not really a fan of 196 personally, though, so my opinion is colored by that.
I did feel like we grew a little bit bigger than made sense on blahaj.zone. the instance feed was 90% our community and I could absolutely see that suffocating smaller ones trying to get started here.
You have welcomed and taken great care of my memes in the past, I shall send more your way
glad to hear it!