Meta: For the sake of mutual aid with Blajah and my sanity, no more posts about Blajah's moderation policies please.
I'm gonna get real with you folks, we've had way too many of these posts recently. I've been reflecting on this topic a lot the past few days. For me personally, I couldn't care less about my gender identity. But just because that's true for me, doesn't make that true for everyone.
The beauty of the fediverse is that if you don't like the way a particular instance or community is moderated you can simply choose another to hang out on, or create your own.
Blajah has made it pretty clear by now they will ban anyone who argues against the validity of xenogenders, in order to create a safe space for those folks. That's fair enough imo.
Safe spaces should be respected, and Blajah's admins/mods do not deserve abuse for creating and maintaining those spaces.
I can completely understand why Blajah users don't want to have to constantly argue with external users about the validity of their chosen identities. Bans are one way Blajah has decided to manage that problem so that their users can experience lemmy in relative peace and safety. While it is a blunt tool and I have my reservations about preemptive bans, there are not many other options for @[email protected], other than defederation from most instances. That would be a terrible outcome for the fediverse as a whole.
In order to help Blajah to maintain their safe space, I would like to propose, if @[email protected] agrees and community sentiment is positive:
- that we no longer accept posts about this topic in this community; and
- we also remove previous posts on this topic from the community.
That's all folks, have at 'er.
Edit: thanks for all your feedback and comments. I think it's clear that the vast majority of people are fed up with this topic coming up repeatedly.
Summarizing the feedback, I'd say most folks would prefer to retain previous posts for the sake of posterity, and to serve as an example of why we don't want anymore of these posts. I'm happy to take that on board. For those folks saying I'm a PTB for intervening in this way, I'll just remind you that I haven't made any arbitrary mod decisions, and I've consulted with db0 and the community as a whole before taking any mod actions.
I think the way to move forward with this is to acknowledge that there's a bunch of queer and straight people who have a problem with xenogenders. Personally, I think that's a valid perspective and shouldn't sanctioned on our instance. But for Blajah, they've drawn a line in the sand over this and that's ok too. Our instance won't be blocking anyone over their opinions on the topic, especially in this community where free discussion is necessary and encouraged. But safe spaces should be respected.
A lot of folks mentioned I should more more specific about the "no more posts about Blajah's mod policies" rather than making it a sweeping and overly broad statement. I think that's good feedback. I will amend this to "No more posts in this community about the validity or otherwise of neopronouns, xenogenders, and bans originating from Blajah about gatekeeping or transphobia. This is in recognition of Blajah's safe space policy. You are of course free to discuss those topics outside of this community.
Note that this decision isn't about ideological gatekeeping, its about reducing the workload for our own mods and admins in trying to moderate this community, and to avoid iterating over the same old topics again and again.
Blajah isn't getting a "free pass" over YPTB posts - if you feel they are power tripping over other issues then feel free to make a post here. But if it's a post questioning the validity of xenogenders or about Blajah bans for gatekeeping then that will no longer be allowed here. Those folks deserve a safe space on Lemmy, even if it's not a mainstream opinion.
For those folks who feel aggrieved about being accused of "transphobia" or "gatekeeping" over their views on this topic, I completely understand just how hurtful it can be to be accused in this way. I've been in the same position, and I also found it difficult to deal with. However we do require that you use preferred pronouns whenever they are specified. That's been a longstanding instance policy on dbzer0.
Thank everyone for your feedback.
In favor of doing this, but keep the old posts locked without removing them so people know what happened and what led up to this.
I'm OK with that but it has to be a bit more targeted specifically to blahaj's rule about gatekeeping and neopronouns, and I would add everything drag of course.
I wouldn't delete old posts, just lock them.
Maybe make it a temporary moratorium?
agree. seeing that the trolls the posters here are crying about have been banneed for weeks to months, a temporary moratorium is probably fine. maybe six months but im pulling that number from nowhere.EDIT: I have changed my mind about this. See https://lemmy.cafe/comment/10132150 and the preceding thread.
I agree, this community should be a place to discuss mod abuse, not bellyache over transphobia and hate speech being censored or being banned from it. Such discourse makes this community extremely toxic and unusable to vulnerable groups, it also creates inherent bias here favoring alt-right shitheads.
I think @[email protected] would very much agree with this decision as well.
Ada is in favor of banning dissent
It’s “bellyaching” over dissent from other queers
Literally the comment you wrote immediately before this one involved you deriding bad faith arguments.
"It's not mod abuse if I think they had it coming for Wrongthink, and even discussing the possibility should be banned."
"I'm just going to ignore every point he makes and make up some worthless garbage about banning by disagreement because I can't address Draconic's actual points"
The issue brought up by these threads is whether moderator action was justified or not; whereas you are saying the very topic is verboten and makes this place "toxic" and "unusable" as you harass marginalized folk who commit the crime of disagreeing with you. The point you're making is in favor of a topic ban on YPTB. Hence "and even discussing the possibility should be banned." I'm sorry that you don't understand what you yourself are advocating for.
You got your answer long ago. You Deserved It, They Deserved it. You and them are indeed gatekeeping other people's identities and accusing them of being evil for identifying that way. Also for the record calling people out for gatekeeping and hostility is not "harassing minorities" people don't get a free pass because they're trans sweetie, if they're gatekeeping assholes they get called out. Whether they scream bigotry afterwards or not is their choice but when they chose to falsely scream bigotry it says more about them than the person calling them out, and ironically puts them in that bad situation of being harmful since crying wolf about transphobia ends up being more harmful than helpful.
Yes, I know you think they deserved to be harassed by you and your pals, but generally in this comm the question is about moderator action.
Fucking what.
God, that's some painful fucking irony, to say that with no self-awareness. Bravo.
You're being obtuse and I hope when things cool down you're able to see the harm this behavior is causing in this specific circumstance and also more generally. I understand that you probably have good intentions but I think you're either very misguided, trolling, reacting without thinking through the impact of your behavior, or some combination of these things, and I do feel like the ban was warranted especially considering the fit you're throwing. I have respect for the involvement you have in sustaining and contributing platform and the effort you clearly put into it, and I have seen you say things I really agreed with, but this is too much for me. This is not how you encourage left unity and safe and sustainable practices that support as many people as possible. I know you know about the paradox of tolerance.
A trans user was just harassed off the Fediverse by these people, man. Is that harm invisible? I'm bitching about people doing that. That's harmful?
My ban's not the issue, here. When it was locked the other day, I was content to let that be it. The ban was a minor thing; annoying and shitty, but ultimately not meaning much considering that, as mentioned in the OP, I didn't even use Blahaj anymore.
If you think my ban was warranted, that's fine. But "We shouldn't discuss Blahaj anymore", as in the comment I was replying to, is not.
Sure. You tolerate Nazis, they'll take over and won't tolerate you.
Where are the Nazis, here?
Because it looks to me an awful lot like infinite purity tests inflicted even on users outside of the Blahaj instance, combined with sustained harassment; neither of which encourage left unity or safe and sustainable practices that support as many people as possible.
Luckily I don't see many here (Lemmy), and if I do I am prepared to confront them in whatever way is required. Please point me in their direction if you know of any. I hope you're not calling the people who are upset by this situation Nazis, because I haven't seen any behavior that would warrant that and it would be very alarming and disappointing if that was happening here in a digital space I have come to feel safer in than most others, and would warrant an evaluation of what I am doing here, and I hope that I haven't been spending my time reaching out and talking to and just associating with people who hold those beliefs.
I saw some of the comments that person was making. If they have to go somewhere else to learn how to respect spaces specifically curated by and for trans people that's fine with me, I didn't get the feeling they (or for that matter, you) were willing or able to do so at this point, at least in this specific case in the way that was asked.
And please don't throw in my face again their (or for that matter, your own) marginalized status, it feels to me like it's being used as some kind of gotcha or get out of jail free card, and that is disrespectful as much as most anything that I've seen* has happened in this thread.
I am hoping that by adding my perspective others might feel supported or safer here, and others yet will hopefully see that horizontal harm is a thing that we have to be aware of and identify and do the work to minimize, internally and externally (referring to both the harm and the work).
I am not talking directly to anyone but you, and here, you are talking to me, please keep that in mind. It's fine to complain and always good to speak out against harm coming unwarranted or unfairly to others, but I'm talking to you about your behavior.
Please feel free to reach out for further 1:1 discussion, or not if you do not want to. It's about time we end the the perpetuation of harm in online and physical spaces and in the systems that we live under. Please also feel free to reach out for support with other efforts towards that goal or other similar ones.
Edited to add language to clarify a bit, if others feel like I'm wrong in my assessments and what I've said I am open to feedback, I'm not trying to deny anyone's experience or minimize harm that has come to others. My goal is always to prevent and reduce harm and if I'm not doing that I would hope someone here would call me in.
In this comparison, where are the Nazis, here?
Where is the threat which, if tolerated, will oppress everyone else?
Please, enlighten me.
Considering that this is all to the drumbeat of "We MUST protect marginalized people!", it's kind of fucking relevant.
My behavior being complaining something you don't feel should be complained about, because you feel silence and complicity serves the LGBT community on Lemmy more than airing out the dirty laundry?
The current US admin and other actual Nazis.
I told you I don't see any, here in this thread, and rarely if ever on Lemmy as a whole would I describe the behavior of others as "Nazi" or as you put it "Where is the threat which, if tolerated, will oppress everyone else?", which is apparently what you think Nazi means?
Please enlighten me as to where I said there were any here. As I recall that was you, still waiting for that link.
I did not and would not say that.
Yeah, that's clearly consistent with my behavior and what I say here and elsewhere 🙄 fuck off troll
They're just wanting you to call them a Nazi so it can be screenshotted and posted as proof of something elsewhere.
You seem like the kinda guy who says calling Nazis Nazis devalues the word Nazi.
... because I summarized someone else's position accurately?
I'm completely in favor of this.
Frankly, most of what I see on this comm is BPR and YDI, and most people could probably benefit from taking their bans and touching grass. But having some posts be YDI makes the PTB's more exciting so maybe i'm wrong.
Maybe we should make some penalty for earning a YDI or BPR, so that people who receive them aren't encouraged to re-hash the same conflicts over and over? I'm honestly not sure. Part of the problem is that the same people cross-post the same conflict on similar comms, which makes it feel as if the same issue is being litigated repeatedly.
But complaining about receiving a ban from a protective community with strict conduct policies is certainly not the intent of this community, i don't think.
Is that all it takes to be immune from PTB status? Being a 'protective' community, but only towards the 'right' people who think in the 'right' way?
Maybe it is? Don't non-binary people have a right to moderate their own space as they like?
If they have a rule against gatekeeping gender identities and pronouns in their own instance, don't they have a right to remove offenders from their servers?
You're all over this topic today, maybe just take a second and listen to what the community is saying. You've more than said your piece.
Sure, though it seems as if their right extends to not being satirized in other communities for being power-tripping bastards. Don't they have a right to not be criticized for stifling any discussion and banning people based on vibes and posting history, using thought-terminating cliches in place of arguments? Well, it seems they do.
And what about queer people who don’t play the pronoun police power tripping game? We should just go fuck ourselves I guess
No, you should find a community that's a better fit for you
Oh, the irony.
Social Media has destroyed people's sense of nuance and irony.
Is there a group out there that doesn't have the right to moderate their own space 'as they like'?
"They have the right" and "It is always the correct call" are two entirely different concepts.
Yeah, well maybe I'm fucking pissed that I just watched a user get harassed out of the Fediverse because Blahaj wants to play harassment games on other people's instances, and that I'm the one who had to fucking bring it up to be discussed. Maybe I don't like the idea that if I stayed quiet this all would've been swept under the rug.
Jesus
I haven't a clue what event you're referring to even though I feel as though I've encountered nothing but your comments today. If your goal is to discuss a specific abuse then you've done a piss poor job of it.
I'd recommend reaching out to @[email protected] if you think there's been that severe of an abuse that's happened, and the community mod hasn't addressed it well enough.
Honestly, though, it just seems like you have an axe to grind and you're taking it out on everyone else. Either settle it with the admins or cool off a bit, you're souring the space for everyone by flaming out like this.
I've summarized the events in this thread alone at least twice.
Most of my comments have been refutations to specific arguments put forth in the context of those events.
What user was it?
https://lemmy.world/post/26286098
Do you have something more specific than your (purely objective) recounting of what happened? A link to it?
At the moment, I'm not sure I'd trust you if you told me the sky was blue
https://lemmy.world/post/26286098
It's one of the most recent threads on this comm.
Boy you sure are pissed you got blocked before getting to say a slur.
what
Well, I'm for this move. The why is obvious, as you've covered it in the post already.
I would also like to voice support for a couple ideas from previous comments
First, that previous posts stay up, and locked, so that people can still see that the issues were.
Second, that y'all consider the possibility of an FPT (frequently power tripped) thread at some frequency where folks can still hash out the common subjects. This and the mod abuse C/ are valuable pressure relief valves. I worry that a total banning of "frequent fliers" (sic) might have effects down the road.
I know that's extra work for mods, so it's definitely a big ask, but lemmy does need places where disgruntled users can complain. Having multiple places is better because one community would get swamped if they're the only place people can go for specific complaints.
My suggestion for this topic right now is to get everyone together that needs to and talk/scream/yell about it in private. I think everything has been said publicly at this point and the reading comprehension has gone down the toilet. The amount of misunderstandings, blanket downvotes, pettiness, bad assumptions, baiting and finger pointing is getting ridiculous. Have your damn say and find a conclusion, even if said conclusion is 'fuck you' from each person.
For shit like this in the future? If it comes to it, it is far better to lock first, talk to the person, and then unlock it. We can tell each other all day to be an adult, but it isn't that simple. There will always be some big event that floods the community at some point or another. This community practically begs for it. It will eventually be filed into PTB history.
The way I see it, is that the rules and aim of the instance are all written out pretty fucking clearly and people on a platform dominated by longform text don't really have an excuse for not being able to comprehend it. Like seriously, I had been using Lemmy for two days when I checked out Blåhaj, and I feel like I understood then already because it's not hard and English is my native language.
So that said, when I see people complaining about it, I think they're either fucking stupid, or they're probably these 'free speech' people that want the right to go around insulting everyone without consequences (while doing the most epic pearl clutching the moment anyone insults them).
As far as I'm concerned, moderators and admins doing exactly what is clearly fucking written in the description and rules is not power abuse.
Someone was banned yesterday who didn't even participate in the instance.
That person seems to be an alt wanted to rehash the whole 196 debacle
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/39114269/17051352
I was banned as a queer person for saying that the genderless pronoun “they/them” does not undermine someone’s gender and is just using English as intended.
They’re out to fucking brunch while we’re about to be genocided im america. It’s disgusting having this level of trolling run a queer space. There needs to be an alternative queer space where free speech is tolerated.
And yeah, I’m mad as hell about it and not backing down. These petulant children who run queer spaces these days put us all at risk when they protect trolling neopronouns and non human identities and kick actual queers out. For “gatekeeping”. Fuck blahaj.
get your facts straight you were banned for misunderstanding a conversation SO BADLY you verbally abused another user that you actually agreed with
https://lemmy.cafe/comment/9831688
and that’s the most charitable interperetation i can give you
Making up shit in that thread at the time wasn't enough for you, you feel the need to cite your own bullshit as well?
if i remove the shit i “made up” (i inferred there was a contextual misunderstanding using my best effort) the evidence is even worse for inv3r5ion here
the shit i “made up” is the difference between [misunderstanding ~> verbal abuse] to just regular old [verbal abuse for no reason]
Yeah, don’t care. Staring down a genocide in America, the pronoun police can go fuck themselves and live in their little fantasy world where dragons are people and queers who don’t play the power tripping pronoun police game are not.
Also don’t you have a life? You’re literally in every fucking drama commenting about shit that has nothing to do with you.
Maybe if I identify as an attack helicopter the blahaj mods will get the fucking point. Unlikely.
I was accused of being a transphobe on a comm that wasn't even in Blahaj. I defended myself. For that, I was banned. Another poster, a trans user, made a comment. For that, they were dogpiled by Blahaj defenders, called a fascist and a transphobe, and then banned. Now Blahaj defenders want this to not be discussed under any circumstances.
Who here wants the right to go around insulting everyone without consequences?
Haven’t you figured out by now that’s the strawman argument of any queer person who wants to feel oppression and be offended?
I don't think they're saying you can't discuss it, or they're going to ban or defederate you for trying to talk about it, or anything like that. They're just saying that, now that the issue has been discussed a bunch of times in this community with nothing getting accomplished other than a big productive-conclusion-free food fight, they'd like to (or they are proposing to) prohibit future repetitions of the exact same food fight. I think this is one of the rare times when "you can still talk about it, you just can't do it here anymore" has a good amount of validity.
And like I say, I think the users are much more the issue here than the moderation. I think "how do we manage to get along on the fediverse" may be a better way to approach it than "don't you agree that the mods of blahaj are terrible."
That's sort of what I'm saying. A lot of people on lemmy do want to have that right, and it's not super-important (apparently) within the consensus culture to say they're not allowed to. The boundaries of what's acceptable behavior are often in very weird places, to me.
Proposal from OP, one of the mods (who, in fairness to them, is very hard put on by all this pointless fucking drama that they get to get hit with without even being involved)
One of the most upvoted replies:
The reason why it is production-free is because Blahaj defenders swarm the comm every time it happens. If the position is "Users are sabotaging discussions they don't want to happen, so we should just not have those discussions", then all you've done is reward toxic behavior.
Yeah that's part of my POV lol.
Yeah, deleting past posts is silly I think. I don't agree with that part.
Yeah, that's a bunch of bullshit. The only reason I didn't get in an argument with that person is (1) life is short (2) like I was saying, there are clearly a bunch of good-faith people who are sort of twisted up with certain words and definitions, such that they'll interpret anyone trying to disagree with that person as transphobia. That's the whole point of them being so forceful about defining anyone disagreeing with them in a very particular way. It lays the groundwork for anyone who's an "ally" to misinterpret any disagreement.
I think the solution to that has to come in some other form than just having a big sprawling slapfight with them. The chance of them seeing reason about it seems near 0, and I think the sum total impact of the slapfight on other people who are observing it will just be to drive them a little further into their echo-chamber.
Correct. I'm not saying it's not a problem. I'm saying that having big frequent slapfights about it will not solve the problem (and yes, partly specifically because at this point there's a whole crew of users who've I guess been amped-up and trained to come in and vigorously inflame the slapfight any time one happens.) The best I can come up with is:
Neither of those are simple things to do. I'm just saying that that type of conversation seems more likely to lead to a good solution to the badness that you're seeing, than is just vocally hassling the blahaj admins and users every time this same issue comes up.
Banned users like yourself also flood the thread every time. I don't see how that's any different.
What, all three of us? Clearly we're mass downvoting Blahaj defenders and mass-upvoting our Banned Comrades(tm). Hell, I was only added to that banned list the other day.
I'd want the old posts kept for historical reference, but otherwise I'm fine with this.
As a blahaj'r, I would deeply appreciate this.
i started banned by blahaj to resolve this issue i hope you appreciate it
you broke rule 1 and failed to resolve it i will restore your post if you resolve the transgression
edit for context this exchange is in reference to a post on ![email protected] not banned by blahaj
I think previous posts should remain up, to preserve the discussion in that post, but I understand why you don't want any further posts about this.
I think everyone has shared their views on the topic already.
I have not yet shared my view.
Damn that's crazy
Thank you for seeing me.
I think you're doing the right thing. The trolls are really stepping up, which is obvious in this thread. I'm trying to share it a lot because if you really read it and understand the process of what they're doing, you'll save yourself a lot of time and energy.
https://archive.is/PoUMo
Edit: I forgot to add this part of the thread:
That stood out to me too. A ton of people jumped in with instantly inflammatory takes which seem almost tailor-made to continue this ridiculous dispute.
It's not just here in this community, it's throughout the all page. The fediverse is worrying some people and it's showing.
Man, this is the same spirit of the shit that we perennially went through with forums in the old bbcode days. Established users, especially mods or admins, playing dumb clique games with a community because they all get dopamine from it.
I'm sure the Fediverse does worry some, but this is likely not much influenced by that. It's just regular, shitty human nature on the internet.
You're talking to a veteran politics user from the bad place. I love that you're calling your behavior as being "just regular, shitty human nature" as a defense.
What?
Bruh they're a troll, ignore them.
I think it is both. It's very subtle, but there's enough of distinct little overlap between accounts that support super-odd political views, and accounts that like to attack specific people and cause random drama, that I found it really interesting.
And yes, also, people are jerks sometimes when you give them power and anonymity and a social grouping that is unmoored from everything except the dots on screen and the imaginings in their heads.
I actually have a pretty high opinion of PugJesus otherwise...
I do too. He's not wrong here. I just think it's not productive to have extensive bitter arguments about it. I think it's a selected group of users starting all the drama (I have no idea if because they are trolls or if because they are drama-loving people who like being able to sling around "transphobia!" because it makes them feel like they're being good allies). Whatever it is, those people are having some level of success in restarting the drama here in these comments. I think continuing the drama in this fashion is playing precisely into their hands, so I support the proposal to ban talking about it here. But he's not wrong.
Alternative perspective: the drama has been restarted because of PJ's post, and what seems to be an alt by a person aware of the !196 debacle created to stir that drama
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/39114269/17051352
Well, but he made a specific post about a specific mod action that was, in fact, real messed up. That to me is legit even if I think there are better ways of addressing it in this case.
The drama I am talking about is an army of people coming in to screech that anyone who doesn't agree with them is horrible and bad and transphobic and fascist. I think PJ has a pretty valid point that acceding to that screeching, because it "will cause drama," is basically ceding control of the space to whoever feels like using the threat of screeching if they don't get their way.
hey props, this changed my view! i’ll go back and edit my comments. you are right. this should continue to be allowed here as far as the mods feel is possible to keep moderated. you’re right. it’s better for both spaces for all the screeching to be left here because it keeps it away from the trans space.
What caused my post, I wonder? It must have been nothing. Maybe the wind.
My opinions on xenogender aside, the fact that Blahaj defenders, in this very comm, harassed a trans user into leaving the Fediverse has me fuming, and rightfully so in my opinion. And they play it off as "[The harassed user] deserved it." even now. That is pretty core to the anger I feel right now.
Did they know about the idea of different instances, and each one having their own set of rules and missions?
I was going to ask whether you meant the harassers or the harassed, but I think the answer is yes in both cases.
And they still left the fediverse?
Considering they were attacked on an instance entirely different from the one they thought they were 'away' from, by that instance's defenders?
It's hard to blame them.
Yeah, you're not wrong. I read back on it a little bit, and it's some grade-A bullshit. I'm just not sure if it's the type of thing that can get solved with griping about the moderation. I think in my mind, the users who were egging on the harassment of that person are different from the moderators who were applying the policy.
I think a lot of the root source of it has to do with the power of words and mental structures. Once any type of disagreement with the official stance is "transphobia," you'll get genuinely good people who are for-real convinced that anyone who's trying to talk sense into them is being transphobic and denying their right to exist, and they'll get all amped up to fight against that person. If they don't do that, they're being a bad member of the community. It'll tear a big rift in the communication between people. I have some experience with having that kind of structure in your brain and having it distort how you look at things and how you react to things, and it makes it really hard for people to make sense of each other.
I absolutely agree that DraconicNEO harassed the shit out of an actual trans person with some perfectly valid things to say, and is consistently saying "transphobia" is anything they don't agree with and attacking it using some carefully chosen trigger-words. They're also coming into these comments to try their absolute best to restart the argument. None of that is a very LGBTQ-friendly thing to do or a good thing for cooperation between instances. I'm just saying I'm not sure the anger needs to be directed at the moderators here. I think trying to strive for an actually inclusive social contract, where people can be okay with each other, is the goal, and that has to start with the ways people interact with each other separate from when banhammers come into the picture. In this case. Does that make sense? Have I missed some case of the blahaj admins doing that type of harassment or anything? I get that the policy seems over-the-top but I'm not aware of them actually being obnoxious about it, they're just very consistent about applying it. I sort of get why it's that way, even though I disagree with the decision. I just don't think they are where the toxicity is coming from, here.
I suppose since the bans started with Draconic Neo calling down Ada, and then Ada finding that a valid reason for a ban, not just for me, but later, separately, without being called in, also for the trans user in question, that I see it in a very "unstated approval" light. I am also very pissed about the harassment situation, though, so I may be making connections with tunnel vision.
Yeah, I think Ada's just applying the rules. That's fair (or... well, it makes sense why she's doing it I mean.) Like I say, I think the goal should be building a social contract where harassing a user in that fashion is going to be seen as "holy shit what's wrong with that person" as opposed to something normal. Right now, it's normal for some weird reason. But I think that's a separate thing, only tangentially related to the moderation. It just happens that that person is also able to abuse the rules to involve moderators against people who they're having that type of disagreement with.
Would the harassment-victim have stuck around, if not for the moderation? I don't know. Maybe so. But I don't think the moderation is the issue.
Like I said, I see a very "Wink wink" attitude of permissiveness in this, especially considering the second ban was not from Ada being tagged.
Going back to the old forum days comparison, upsetting one of the big users would always get you swarmed, even if the big user didn't deign to publicly involve themselves.
That kind of community culture is cultivated.
Remember when you banned me because I disagreed with you and it annoyed you and you wanted to win the argument?
I'm very open about banning easily. I have no qualms about it. If I think you're a troll, you're gone. I'll own to being a power tripping bastard. I'll take that over trolling any day.
BTW, I usually do temp bans in case I make a mistake. If it was permanent, then I was pretty sure.
It wasn't permanent. It was actually funny, I was just asking.
Were you the one where we were joking around? Sorry, there's no tagging system and I don't remember names completely.
I was earnestly suggesting that I thought Tony Hinchcliffe might be trolling the Republican party, and that his standup when viewed from a different angle, was a complete roast of all their own talking points.
But you disagreed deeply, and thought I was trolling.
Being a mod sucks, have I mentioned that lately? I make mistakes, which is why I give temp bans. Sorry if I made a mistake. Sometimes, jokes, trolling and me having a bad day aren't easy to differentiate.
The whole thread was pretty heated IIRC, so it's fine. Like I said, it was kind of funny the way it happened, anyway.
Aren't you like.. THE troll?
That's funny, I don't consider myself influential. You're making me blush.
I wouldn’t be against a temporary ban on posts about getting banned from LBZ over neopronouns, but my general inclination is to keep the previous posts up but locked as a wall of shame. I also understand wanting to take them down altogether and I wouldn’t be that fussed about it if they were.
Why do you need to delete old posts?
Where can users banned by blahaj admins for lurking in other communities report it? Especially because the lahaj admins ban so many people for gatekeeping despite them not gatekeeping.
There's a theme here of covering up dissent instead of engaging.
Blahaj admins started this whole ordeal in december for banning dissent and losing dozens of users instead of engaging with their community.
PTB
THANK YOU
I stopped visiting this instance because the transphobic screeds became too much for me. Someone who doesn't 'get' half of young trans people but just feels being nice to people exploring themselves or ignoring them if they're too much is easier.
Everything involving this Blahaj slapfight has been BPR, and anyone continuing to rehash it over here is just BPR^2
Like, seriously, this should've ended the minute the obvious troll provoking everyone got banned. Nothing productive will ever come of continuing to talk about it now, all sides need to let it go.
real af
Oh cool, so you weren't one of the people saying everyone who left 196 was a transphobe?
Oh, wait, you're literally one of the people who fucking started this.
jokes aside, i have been consistently defending you on blahaj for months explicitly that i don’t think you’re a transphobe and moreso just a bad ally. i get some pushback but i think my points get heard. :)
It's cute that you still talk about me there.
oh yikes no i didn’t say frequently i said consistently. maybe 2 times. but both times i did!
Typical of your level of literacy. I didn't say frequently.
just making sure you didn’t get the wrong idea! frankly we dgaf about you
no what i said was, real af
So you think the idea of leaving this all behind is real, but you still love bringing it up too much, unprovoked, to be 'real'.
Okay.
learn to take a joke idk
"ha ha I was just joking" is your go-to every time you get called out.
it’s my go to every time i was making a joke that went over your head, akshually
If I might make a suggestion, assuming it wouldn't cause more of a moderation nightmare: Maintain a list of soft banned topics that get relegated to a weekly "containment" thread. Complaints about explicitly stated instance wide rules get routed there. People have their space to complain but it keeps things cleaner. It also still allows this place to serve as kind of a watch for abuse. Just because it's a clearly stated instance wide rule, or that anyone can pick up and go somewhere else on the fediverse, doesn't necessarily mean it's not being abused.
Either way, I despise the idea of deleting the previous threads. There's nothing illegal and people should be able to draw their own conclusions about those shitshows. I think the previous threads should be locked to prevent any further comments requiring mod work, but left up. They are important context to this whole mess in case it flares up again. Really sucks coming into something late and being attacked for asking questions that are only obvious if you're already up to date, that come across as attacks to people already in it, but you have no way of knowing any better about.
I also have some concerns about this comm if certain topics start becoming forbidden. It limits the ability of this space to allow the community to pass judgement on and discuss mod/admin actions. But not limiting could end up with this com just devolving into a complaint quarantine for leapords ate my face "contestants".
Tl;dr- don't ban topic (maybe a weekly quaratine thread for certain topics), lock old threads and leave up
I have a related question:
Where do the users who get banned from YPTB go, when they eventually get banned from YPTB?
believe it or not, straight to jail.
I think it would be funny if there was a rule that the only way to get banned from YPTB was by coming in and saying "well, it's the moderators' community, so they can really do anything they want and you're wrong for disagreeing with them in any way." And then that person could get banned with reason "Okey dokey then."
I don't think it's actually a good idea. Freedom to say whatever in YPTB, even if you're being kind of obnoxious about it, seems important, and imitating bad behavior to make a point is still bad behavior. I just think it would be funny.
Back in the day, Dragon Rider actually got banned from YPTB for starting too much drama, as db0 put it.
Didn't seem to work.
Double-hell
Hello. I am the new moderator of the mod hot allert community. Things are going to change.
I’ve made my take on the whole xenogender argument clear elsewhere so I won’t rehash it here. From an administration perspective I understand your thought process.
I would say leave previous posts up, as it is a very real part of the experience of the fediverse and should remain documented. I would also find it reasonable to limit further posts on the subject.
I’m fine with not allowing it in the future, but I would appreciate not deleting the ones that already exist.
For archival’s sake. And for so when questions are asked about why, people can see for themselves what happened and decide whether what they see justifies blocking blahaj for them personally or not.
The way Blahaj creates a safe space is a way that ends up creating a very toxic space for others, and I don’t think erasing grievances people have had with them in the past would be good.
The fact that it’s so common means a lot of people are feeling attacked/invalidated/whatnot because of Blahaj, and leaving evidence of what they’ve done to others could help reassure people that it’s not them. Blahaj is just like that.
… If anyone up to the challenge of being a mod of a meanwhileonblahaj, that might be another decent alternative. I saw the idea floating around.
I agree in at least a memorandum or a break on this so everyone, myself included, can outside and breathe from air. Play games they enjoy. Read a good book. Listen to music.
Taking a break from the keyboard helps me when I'm upset about online stuff that doesn't impact the real world.
Mad love for the user name, btw :)
Thank you!
Proposing a very specific limit on posts referring mod/admin actions taken against users on LBZ that directly fall afoul of their instance rules regarding very specific gatekeeping might have some value. The subject has been hashed and re-hashed too fucking much. Their rules are their rules, breaking those rules on the instance is clear YDI. Breaking those rules elsewhere and having action taken against you is arguably PTB. I'm in favor of the idea of putting that on wax.
Purging previous discussion is no good, and even the proposal, coming from a community mod as it does, rubs me the wrong way. It shouldn't, because you have just as much right to propose a change as any other community member, but it puts me on edge.
There is value in what's been said already, even if some of it is highly disagreeable. Suggesting removal of that record for any reason invites future discussion of the same, IMO. Not everyone who will ever be a member of this community is a member now. If we're going to consider making a rule about this whole mess, best to leave the roadmap that led us here intact.
Potential yes to a well-defined rule of specific, narrow scope. Hard, hard no to retroactive application of that rule.
I just want to clarify. The only people getting banned for remote comments are people who knowingly and explicitly gatekeep other folks identity in response to this topic coming up. They are banned so that they don't start appearing in blahaj communities with the very people they're invalidating.
To me, there's no difference. If someone's response to this topic coming up is to double down on gatekeeping, it doesn't make them any less harmful just because they did it outside of a blåhaj community.
I appreciate your willingness to respond and engage on the subject. I understand your position, and that it makes sense to you. I personally feel that there is a degree of overreach involved when action is taken based on behavior that happens outside of an instance, but I also acknowledge that defederation is a more severe version of the same action. That causes a bit of cognitive dissonance for me, which makes me wonder if I'm viewing it all wrong.
For now, I still believe that your method is beyond what I consider to be a reasonable exercise of authority. That's not a slight on you; I have always gotten the impression that all of your actions are taken with the intent of doing what you believe is best for your instance. Our philosophies just differ somewhat when it comes to exercise of authority. I find you and db0 to be the most intellectually honest of the larger instance admins with regards to how you go about the business of adminning, for whatever that's worth.
Thanks again for engaging, I hope everyone else sees that you do your best to be consistent to your instance values.
Let me challenge that. The issue isn't where they gatekeep, it's the fact that they do it at all. People willing to explicitly and deliberately undermine gender diverse folk when these conversations come up are a problem if our users can just stumble across them. It doesn't matter where the user is posting, if they're not banned, their content can and will be seen by blahaj users.
And trying to escape that shit is why so many of us have left twitter, reddit, tumblr and other centralised social media sites that just don't give a shit about transphobia. The users here come here precisely because that shit is stomped out when it's found.
Giving people a free pass because they post outside of blahaj communities just makes the overall experience similar to a mini reddit or twitter or facebook. Individual users have to each encounter the bigot, and then block them. Each of them exposed to the bigotry first.
And I appreciate that some queer folk want that experience. And that's the power of federation. They can be on an instance that doesn't react the way blahaj does. But many folk don't want to see that shit at all. They don't want to stumble across gatekeepers and bigots and people willing to actively deny them their own identity. And that's what blocking folk at the instance level does. They don't need to see the shit first before they can block it. Much of it is gone before it ever crosses folks feeds.
There is no power tripping in this approach. It is a very considered and deliberate approach that lets us avoid defederation of whole instances. Folk who don't want that experience are welcome to host their user accounts on other instances, whilst still joining in with our communities. Or host accounts on our instance and other instances like many folk do.
There is no plan to control what people see here. Just an approach that gives a vulnerable community the option of a relatively bigotry free feed.
Right back at you :)
We’re about to be genocided but yeah let’s make a safe space for fantasy fucking neo pronouns and non human identities. Yeah. You really got your eye on the ball when it comes to the safety of queer people while supporting those who make a mockery of us. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
I’ll die on the hill that their bullshit about pronouns and respecting nonsense and made up troll identities that make a mockery of us makes the world LESS SAFE for queer people. As a queer person who is visibly gender nonconforming and at physical risk in our current political environment. Im willing to be banned from all of lemmy over this idgaf.
Millennial queers and our elders fought like hell for acceptance so children could get their panties in a twist over being “misgendered” by strangers on the internet who don’t know them nor give a fuck what their gender is. Do these kids even touch grass? Chronically online children putting us all at risk.
Meanwhile we have real serious threats to our physical safety in America but yeah. Let’s whine and cry about being misgendered! it’s oppression!
Edit - IRL I call people what they want to be called. Online I have no idea who the fuck you are or what your gender is nor am I going to remember. And the genderless “they” is not undermining your gender you don’t get to police the English language. And that’s really what this is about. People who feel powerless grabbing on to what little power they have to police others behavior under the ironic concept of “gatekeeping.” That’s the pronoun whining in a nutshell.
As for the question at hand, lock old posts, let new ones through. Their moderation is heavy handed and not queer friendly and they deserve criticism for it. Only their kind of queer is accepted. Not people like me living in reality, staring down the beginning of a genocide and telling them to grow the fuck up.
In a similar vein: they promote a redefined version of asexuality that can end in more people than ever thinking asexual people are just picky and will be happy to do it for their partner and/or “can be fixed”.
The more the redefinition leaks into the real world, the more people once considered broken who were finally starting to be accepted as normal will end up dealing with forced consent via peer pressure and corrective rape.
No means NO, and that was starting to be understood for what it was. With the redefinition of asexual into “No means I have quirky requirements that The One will have”, it ends in real harm for actual no means NO people.
So yes. Real life harm can be caused by toxic gatecrashing. And people causing it call the ones at risk names for the terrible sin of not wanting to be taken as a joke in reality. Literal insult added to injury.
That's 100% what's going on with that one specific account causing 99% of this shit
It's just Blahaj's admin is like the Reddit mod that went on Faux News. They don't understand that they're the joke in this situation, but they just happened to start an instance/community first so now they're in charge.
Most of the people they think they're "defending" are actively sabotaging the communities physical safety, because shits bad enough and their over-defensenof trolls is turning people who don't know better away from supporting lgbtq. It's not just internet trolling, this is serious real life stuff these days.
I got banned from their instance for a year old comment because I keep advocating for people to just instance block them like I had done. So Ada hunted for the last comment I had made (there was maybe 10 ever) and banned me thinking it would stop people from listening to me about blocking them
It's just lemmy.ml levels of bullshit over there, and I legitimately don't understand why World's admins still want to stay federated with either.
edit: oops i posted this in the wrong thread apologize
They’re a bunch of petulant children who care more about pronoun policing and power tripping and ironically gatekeeping than preparing for the incoming fucking genocide.
They provide a safe space for made up identities and actively harm actual queer people.
here’s a tldr of your spectacular crashout
them: “i acknowledge that memory is fallible but if you know someone and have been introduced to your pronouns you should at least do your best and it’s not very loving to default to they/them you should at least try :)
you: “you are a piss baby and are responsible for your oppression”
you: gets banned
you: “piss baby im being so oppressed also you don’t care about genocide”
Yeah. That’s language policing of they/them just to get butthurt and feel oppressed. I’m not playing this game. We’re dealing with the start of a genocide in America nobody has time for this childish bullshit.
I’m dying on this hill. Fuck their feelings.
Why do you care so deeply about a physical genocide of these people while simultaneously refusing to even respect their given culture and self-governing practices?
Perhaps it could be because you don't actually care about queer/LGBT genocide and are implicitly okay with it so long as it doesn't spill over onto you? Allyship ain't a one way street, and it sounds like you're not even an ally. Sounds like you just wanna coopt their existence as labor to protect you while simultaneously plotting against them and their culture after the threat has passed. You're no comrade; the only reason you're not a bigoted fascist is because you're not übermensch. Unfuck yourself.
I’m queer, fuck you. Fuck your feelings and fuck your pronouns too. Fuck everything about you. Call me a fascist? For holding queer people accountable for their bullshit while we have a genocide approaching us? Fuck alllllll the way off. Fucking child. Waaaah my pronounssssss go complain to the fucking concentration camp guard about being misgendered in a few years!
Let's set the record straight, queerness and fascist gatekeeping are not mutually exclusive, people can be queer and act in horrible ways, look at transmedicalists, or worse, Blaire White. Being queer doesn't exclude you from being a fascist if you act like one, and it doesn't exclude you from being queerphobic either.
In fact I thought this was already a rule.
i did too i was surprised at the recent resurgence
It used to be, there was at one point a rule against bellyaching about being censored or banned for bigotry, but they got rid of it in favor of making the community a free for all, what a disaster that turned out to be.
I appreciate this post, really helps me fill out my block list. It is sad that people cannot just let others live as they want.
This shouldn't even be a debate or question. This hateful bullshit against Blahaj just needs to stop and mods need to put their foot down and say enough is enough. Like if this kind of shit arguing against a queer friendly instance for being queer friendly is okay or permitted I don't think that ![email protected] should even be on our instance anymore, and our admins should just remove it.
I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope this community can put an end to this bullshit and stop endorsing queerphobic users' complaints.
Nobody is arguing against blahaj for being queer friendly. People are arguing against some of their members for being unfriendly to people, including queer people, among them LittleRatInALittleHat. That’s the only reason people are caring about this.
The type of mentality “you’re not allowed to criticize me, because I am X, and so unless you agree with me you’re being anti-X” is tempting but it is wrong. You might think dragon is a gender, or you might not, it is fine, but refusing to agree that dragon is a gender is not and has never been “transphobia” or in any way anti-queer.
Well I think queer people can have any gender they want, and you just have to deal with it because it's none of your business.
Well, I'm gonna chime in again, because it's a nice jumping off point.
That argument, that anyone is actually saying dragon is a gender, is simply misrepresenting all of the subject.
Regardless of one's view on xenopronouns in specific, or neopronouns one general, the claim hasn't been that dragon is a gender.
The rule, and the argument behind it, is about pronouns. And it isn't really about the pronouns themselves, as much as it is about who gets to decide when someone is deserving of being respected as an individual.
We're not biking being asked to share a belief that a person is a dragon, or fucks dragons, or that humans can be part dragon.
What we're being asked to do is to respect pronouns or just not talk to someone. That's it. That's what it's about.
The rule simply lays out what will happen if people don't do one of those two things.
You don't have to agree with the word being used as a pronoun meaning anything other than that it replaces traditional pronouns and makes them happy. Does it matter if they think they're a dragon, or a tiger? No. It doesn't matter. If the cognitive dissonance of using a word in an unconventional way is so high that you simply can't do it, that's okay. You have multiple options at that point.
One, you can ignore the request, and accept the consequences as they come. Fair or not, those consequences are known.
Two, you can use them anyway, and roll your eyes while you do it. Nobody will know you're rolling your eyes.
Three, you can use them anyway, and complain about it, which may also have consequences, depending on how you complain.
Four, you can block the individual and never interact with them again, thus preventing cognitive dissonance entirely.
Five, you can choose to just not interact with them at all.
Six, you choose to not interact, but complain about it elsewhere, with possible consequences (as these posts have shown).
There's even other options, but they're absurdist stuff like juggling oranges while singing "I'm a little teapot". So, you know, only entertaining to me.
Now, that's separate from anything else, I'm only talking about the idea that one has to share a belief to be able to use someone's pronouns. Like, my pronouns are he/him, they/them, and I'll accept any gender neutral neopronouns as well. But I'll accept she/her in a pinch, though I may correct those if it's relevant. It's why I never list my pronouns, I'm cool with almost anything, up to and including "that asshole". That's not even a joke, I'm fine being referred to that way as a replacement for a pronoun, or in general.
You don't have to agree with my belief that I'm not obligated to behave in the way a pronoun implies to use any of those. You don't have to agree with my belief that by accepting almost any pronoun that I improve myself by challenging my own concepts of gender in order to use he/him, or any of the rest.
So, why would you have to believe in anything at all to use any pronoun? You aren't expected to log off and tell your roommate or whatever, "jeez, this cat I was talking to was a real weirdo, he's just nuts" and you aren't expected to log off and tell the same person "I was talking to this cat from blahaj and drag sure did annoy me" you can use any pronoun you want when you aren't in the presence of the person requesting an individual pronoun, or any neopronouns, or a xenopronoun.
You don't need to believe anything except that the person, the human being with their own life and needs and pains, is made a little happier by the use of it. That's it. That's all you have to believe.
[heavy sigh]
I'm speaking in the general, with dragon as the example used because drag is largely the focus of contention.
The next paragraph, "The rule, and the argument behind it, is about pronouns. And it isn't really about the pronouns themselves, as much as it is about who gets to decide when someone is deserving of being respected as an individual." covers that. I was addressing the rule, and blahaj, not drag.
It hasn't been blahaj policy that I've seen that dragon is a gender, only that you have to treat people's pronouns and genders with respect.
It's one of those where we don't have to agree, we just have to be nice.
Or have the admins specifically addressed the issue as a declarative, and I missed it? I do miss things ;)
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8b47330e-fe59-466e-aef5-b529ed0b05a5.jpeg
I could go further back to the whole kerfluffle this stems from, where there are more examples, but honestly, I don't feel like digging that shit up.
Ehhh, what that screenshot shows is admins deciding that you didn't treat pronouns with respect.
Obviously, you disagree with their assessment. I do too, really, though I have seen their argument about it somewhere to and down the various threads.
That is a different thing.
I definitely get why you don't think it's different, but, looking at it from this side of the screen, that's not a statement of policy, it's a reaction to their interpretation of what you said.
Against my better judgement, I went into Blahaj back around the time of The Event.
Removed: Gatekeeping
Removed: Gatekeeping
Removed, no note
Removed: Gatekeeping
Removed: Gatekeeping (that one's literally me)
Removed: Gatekeeping
Removed: Transmed stuff
All of that points pretty firmly to disagreement with dragon as a gender as gatekeeping, not a matter of respecting pronouns.
Legitimately, I don't see how that can be reasonably interpreted to be about pronouns at all. My objection was to dragon as a gender. I was banned for 'gatekeeping'. Redirecting that to a pronoun dispute requires a reading that I literally cannot see, not simply one I disagree with.
Thank you for this. It's nice to see that Blahaj is defending all gender identities and not just pronouns.
PugJesus already covered it. Just to clarify, though, because your point is perfectly fair:
I get the policy about using pronouns when you're talking to people. It makes some amount of sense to me, I already talked elsewhere in these comments about why I can completely understand just needing to set a clear, consistent policy on using people's pronouns regardless of anything else. Makes sense. I kind of think that when someone's clearly exploiting that policy to mock queer people to their faces, there maybe needs to be a commonsense exception instead of going to bat for the anti-queer troll, but it's whatever. As people have pointed out, that problem has already been solved and dealt with.
When I say "dragon is a gender," I am talking about people who are screaming that anyone who doesn't agree with the policy is "misgendering" or "transphobic" or a fascist or secretly yearns to start calling all these LGBTQ people slurs. It's super weird, and dishonest. It's divisive and stupid. And using the word "misgendering" in reference to it, which a ton of people are doing, is predicated on the assumption (never started explicitly) that dragon is a gender. And people are getting banned (PugJesus is one, LittleRatInALittleHat is one) not for ever refusing to use the pronouns to anybody in particular, but just by talking about the policy or saying their opinion on it or pointing out that dragon is not, in fact, a gender.
Your list of multiple options doesn't really apply, since neither PugJesus nor LittleRatInALittleHat were interacting directly with anybody at all, just talking about the issue in general terms. They've got a right to do that, I think. Again, I get the reason for the original policy. What's ridiculous is using that as a jumping-off point to say "If you have any disagreement with this policy, even if you're not expressing it to me but just talking with other people about it in general, you are bad and transphobic and you need to be banned and you're a fascist and you hate queer people and you're not allowed to disagree with me because I have X identity and if you do, you are anti-X."
Well put
Being queer-friendly doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. The issues people have with that instance have little to do with it being queer-friendly, and more to do with heavy-handed mod practices, and I think it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest that that's the reason why people are upset.
Nah the core of most of these posts is whether or not it’s ok to disrespect someone for their xenogender or using neopronouns. People will come in here to say they have been banned for accidentally misgendering or just ‘sharing their opinion’ but every case I’ve seen so far, if you look into their modlog you see that they were actually being really disrespectful about it, making other people with xenogender and/or neopronouns feel unsafe. Blahaj admin has made it clear that disrespecting someones pronouns or identity is not allowed on the instance, which most blahaj users agree with. Anyone who would still like to argue about this rule is just better off on another instance.
They’re not queer friendly because they don’t tolerate serious dissent from queers. They’re a safe space for people who live in a fucking fantasy world and not reality.
Reality is overrated. Belief is perception.
Reality definitely is overrated
So why force queer people to live in it when they say it hurts them? Sadism?
Fantasy non human identities aren’t queer.
Okay, so if someone says their gender is cat, you're saying they're not queer. Fine, which non queer identity do they have? For argument's sake, let's say they prefer cat/cats pronouns and object to being he/himed or she/hered. How are they not queer? Make a specific claim please.
Trolls be trolling. I’m not giving into this sea lion nonsense.
They need mental health help, they’re not queer. Cat isn’t a gender anymore than attack helicopter is. You can’t be a cat just like you can’t be an attack helicopter. I’m not putting up with this queerphobic let’s tolerate everyone! nonsense.
If I were a Blahaj user, I'd be posting about defederation from db0. The transphobia needs to end.
"They can't be power tripping mods because they are queer!"
No, that is stupid.
Yes, that does seem to be the consistent position in Blahaj.
Brother in Christ, imagine you had a sub where you talk about basketball and people constantly came in, not fans of basketball just saying "man, basketball? I don't get it" but they are just using that to argue how basketball shouldn't exist if you dare engage with that.
You'd ban those posts. Because you want your sub to be about basketball for basketball fans. Not because you want to argue with non fans about the validity of the existence of basketball.
Hope that answer was straight and masculine enough for ya.
Cool, now, how about looking around outside of that sub for people who say "Basketball? I don't get it" to hand out bans and accuse of being Basketball-phobes? Or, in this case, an actual Basketball fan who dared question a referee's decision? Unfortunately, the holsum basketball community decided that made them a Sports Hater and an opponent of public schooling, and RIGHTEOUSLY drove them out of town!
I don't like sports and I'm not particularly traditionally masculine, but thanks for the stereotyping.
It’s part of the definition of “teams.” They need to assign attributes of the enemy team to you, just to make sure everyone understands that they’re on the correct team and need to be supported uncritically.
It’s part of the demonstration of the power relationship. They’re allowed to make snide comments about your sexuality and talk down to you. God help you if you try to do it in the other direction (which is of course as it should be - I’m just calling out the toxic behavior for what it is, not saying it should at all be okay in the other direction.) They’re flexing their privilege within this context.
Idk man. Pick one, or both. Like I say, once you’ve engaged yourself as officially “the enemy” according to established battle lines, people are going to feel like they’re being a good ally if they show up to do battle with you accordingly.
Someone is real pissed they can't argue queer folks existence to their face. Boo fucking hoo. Think about what you are arguing about. A targeted minority wants a place to exist in peace and your pissed you can't call them delusional children. Fuck off
Oh fuck off. They banned this female gender nonconforming queer for not being down with their support for people who make a mockery of us while my country is trying to genocide us.
They’re a bunch of petulant children living in a fantasy world and anyone who pops their fantasy bubble gets banned. Whatever. There needs to be a queer space for people who don’t get their panties in a twist over being mIsGeNdErEd like it’s the worst thing that ever happened to them in life. Those children need to fucking grow up.
Nah you fuck off. Drawing your line for acceptability one step away from yourself and being a belittling little bigot to people outside your sensibility.
Agree. Thank you.EDIT I have changed my opinion on this. See here https://lemmy.cafe/comment/10132150 and the preceding thread.at this point it's all just going in circles
I kinda feel you on this.
I only turned-up in the fediverse because my phone, the Voyager app and Lemmy looks suspiciously like how my phone, the Apollo app and… some other aggregator site I used to visit looked. (Robbit, or something. Can’t remember all the details)
Anyway, having a browse, looking around. Happy happy. Saw /196 and checked it out - I knew the “content” and “the rule” from the other place. Just like old.
Got to understand the difference between community and instance. Had a look around Blahaj… eye-opening. I felt the place out and discovered that it was, in fact, what it appeared to be. Doubly eye-opening.
If Blahaj was a pub, run by Ada, and I was the doorman I wouldn’t even let me in; let alone drink at the bar.
So I wound my neck in.
Plenty of other instances to go bump my gums on - if I’m so inclined.
Just let it slide, folks… their place, their rules.
P.S. The sum of human time wasted on these few words, again and again, reheated and reserved, again and again. I mean, really? We’re at the peak of technological advancement and saturation whilst possibly on the cusp of a dystopian cataclysm and we are all - me included - wasting our time churning over the same old nonsense.
I think people should be allowed to complain about any mod, on any community, on any instance.
Otherwise, it shows a pretty clear favoritism.
I don't come here for fruitless arguments regarding lemmy.ml or blahaj.zone moderation, but that is the cost of open discussion. If people want to fight each other, who are we to prevent them?
That's just it, though. The blahaj people don't want to fight about this, that's literally the entire point of the rule. This is about other people coming into their spaces, starting fights, getting banned for rules that are very clear and then pitching a shit fit about it.
I don't complain when I get booted from lemmy.ml communities for breaking a clear rule because I went to their place and fucked around. It would literally be a waste of everyone's time for me to complain about.
The rule about pronouns is pretty cut and dried. You can either respect them, or you can not engage with the people who you think are trolling at all, which to be clear, is incredibly fucking easy to do. No one is forcing these people to make comments like that in those communities. That's a personal choice.
Once again, if you show up on blahaj and start fucking around with pretty clearly defined rules, only one side is fighting, the other side is just banning them for breaking clear rules. That's not a fight, that's enforcing the rules they've laid out.
"Do not confront the people doing bad things" is a very shitty advice.
That's not the rule. The rule is don't misgender them.
If you can't use their pronouns or otherwise interact with them without invalidating their identity, then, you aren't to interact with them.
Sounds like a Truman Show glass house, considering the federation.
Well, whatever, it's your playground.
As I've said in other posts I'm happy to use gender neutral pronouns, particularly as a default option, but I'm not doing the neopronoun thing, that's just silly.
You don't get to arbitrarily decide how language works.
Wait, you're arbitrarily deciding how language works.
The fact that neopronouns are new don't make them any *morez arbitrary than existing words.
Language evolves and shifts, even when there's a governing body of formal language like French has.
Ever heard the phrase "to coin a phrase"? It's literally a phrase that was coined about making up a new phrase being similar to making a new coin in a mint.
Brobdingnagian may be an obscure word, but it's in dictionaries. It was totally made up by people in response to the writings of Gulliver's Travels.
Ever get ghosted? Or butt dial someone? Or call someone on a telephone at all? Because the telephone was an invention, named arbitrarily. Someone decided to name the invention that, and it was arbitrary, based in root words from old languages, not even english. Then people just shrugged and went with it.
Mind you, I tend to not have the capacity for neopronouns that aren't fairly standardized. Once it's something uncommon, I'm too old to remember it without a lot of effort that I'm rarely going to make for a stranger. I'll just not talk to them rather than deal with it, but it's still my problem, not theirs.
But arguing that it isn't valid because it's arbitrary is just silly.
Nobody has ever demanded I say those things the way Blahaj does.
Malarkey.
Nobody is chasing people around trying to make them say things.
The only time they're demanding you use their pronouns is when you're talking to them. And if you aren't, then maybe the problem isn't their pronouns, since there's a lovely block function if you don't want to just walk away.
You know that's an option, right? To just walk away. It's even easy to do. Easier than trying to argue about how language works when you don't really understand it yourself. Easier than making a false claim.
Also, you are aware that blahaj is an instance, right? It doesn't have some monolithic spiritual entity that makes demands. It's not an individual person. So, trying to claim "blahaj" demanded anything is just silly.
Fucking BINGO
Who was I interacting with, Ada? :)
happy to chip in. it was right here that you verbally invalidated someone’s identity and expressed clear intent to invalidate other identities in the future. edit i misunderstood and Pug wanted the most recent occurrence. see below for details and that occurence.
::: spoiler content warning :::
Was that what I was banned for? Because it seems to me that I was banned just the other day, not 2 months ago.
Thank you for also confirming that acknowledging reality is against your moral code.
ah! it was not clear you meant the most recent instance. still happy to chip in! i t was right here that you verbally invalidated someone’s identity and expressed clear intent to invalidate other identities in the future.
I think there are far worse and far bigger things for folks to be worried about in real life than getting their fucking panties in a twist because trans people want to be left alone.
If you really think banning people for not being able to respect pronouns is a "bad thing" my dude you gotta get a fuckin grip on reality. Seriously touch some fucking grass and realize there's actual real life shit that's actually bad.
"Do not confront the people doing minor bad things, we should let those slide because there are worse things out there" is a slightly shitty advice too though.
Once again, if you think that's a bad thing: touch fucking grass dude.
I'm going to give you the benefit of a doubt and consider this last reply as not intentionally endorsing doing slightly bad things to people, because that would be bullying and we're not here to bully people, far as I know.
If you think an instance with barely 9000 users has some control over the world that a handful of them being shitty online (in your opinion) means that you "must confront the bad thing" you're off your rocker. Trans people are a sliver of the human community and they're a sliver of the Lemmy community. They have no real power except that of their own instance. Why is that a bad thing? Explain it to me, please. That's what I mean by "touch grass." You are ascribing ill intent to people who traditionally have no power in society simply because they finally have a place where they have instituted their own rules.
Do you confront cops for doing bad things? Because I think they actually have power in society maybe you should focus on groups like that instead of pissing away your time on tiny communities who mostly keep to themselves to begin with. Or do you only confront groups you know don't have power over you, like the trans community? Because you're too much of a pussy to confront a cop for doing bad things? Easier to pick a fight with someone small?
It’s not about pronouns. It’s that they lose their fucking minds over any kind of pushback at all. They/them/their is gender neutral and does not negate someone’s gender. Neopronouns are a joke in the real world. Species dysphoria? Get fucking mental health help. You’re a human not a cat.
In the real world this kind of fantasy bullshit that blahaj promotes actively harms queer people.
And then in the context of current events - America is right now starting a genocide against us and this is what the community thinks is important? Fucking pronouns?!
Trans people are being genocided. They deserve a safe space to be themselves. You don't need to bring that Republican nonsense into their communities. Now isn't the time to be transphobic.
QUEER people are being genocided. I am a queer person. Fuck off.
Equating not taking fantasy nonsense seriously and being actively against it because it is transphobic trolling with the very real existence of trans people and then equating it to “republican” and “tRaNsPhObIc” is fucking rich.
THEY are tRaNsPhObIc. Fantasy identities and neopronouns are not real and are actively harmful to the very real queer community.
Mmmmm, nah. They're not hurting you, but you're hurting them. Just ignore them.
Dbzero is not their space and they don’t get to police other people’s conceptions of them.
Blahaj admins started this whole ordeal in december for banning dissent and losing dozens of users instead of engaging with their community.
I thought the people saying neopronouns are trolling, when it was already against the rules, started the drama.
There were a few problematic users who used their Neopronouns to mock people in the space, the old attack helicopter thing.
People reported them and the problematic users weren't removed, so the community took to self policing, then the Neopronoun rule dropped and all the people who wanted the trolls gone got banned instead, a lot of that group of users were the ones who ended up on 196 world.
Holy fucking shit man, both of the recent Blahaj posts were done to users who were not posting in Blahaj. They were posting here, on dbzer0, and for that matter in this very comm.
This community is on lemmy.dbzer0.com
I'm talking about people containing their fights over moderation topics to this community, not going into another community and trying to start fights there.
They should be able to complain about any mod, any community, or any instance here
Well I did. And I want all of them.
Fruit salad for all!
After thinking about this a little bit more: can we just only exclude anything related to xenogenders, no matter the instance? or even just the topic when coming from blahaj? There could be actual moderation issues on blahaj, as seen with 196's fiascos.
First the came for the dragonfuckers, and since I was not a dragonfucker, I did not stand up.
/s?
I think it's the wrong direction. Though much more work is involved, focusing on the comments themselves should be the way to go.
This community is about rules and whether the people in charge of maintaining them abuse their power. The topics in which this happens matter less than whether there is an abuse happening.
So the comments that focus on the wrong thing are the ones that should be moderated.
Is there an abuse? Yes/No and why.
Doesn't one of the db0 mod team literally think xenogenders are trolling? He's probably just going to override you and say those posts are allowed.
No
Good move.
If we're at the point where Blahaj gets a pass for power-tripping by using the idea that they're a trans safe-space as a shield, even as they harass other trans users on other instances to the point of leaving the Fediverse, I'm out of this comm.
Did they harass you though? Or just ban you from blahaj?
They are on this thread accusing Pug of being a transphobe, wanting to use slurs, and a bunch of other heinous shit he has never done based on him not agreeing that dragon can be a gender.
It has also happened repeatedly in the last, but I am to lazy to look it up. Just imagine the same volume of anger and vitrol has been directed at Pug for some time on instances other than blajah for quite a while now.
They just banned him from blahaj.zone and he's been bellyaching about it for a while.
Not me, LittleRatInAHat, whom they, Draconic Neo below playing dumb included, called a fascist and a transphobe for daring to disagree with them.
Arguing in bad faith as always eh? Just for the record I called them transphobic and fascist not because they disagree with me but because their attitude of dismissing gender identities is transphobic and is indeed reminiscent of fascist behavior. But continue arguing in bad faith and lying, it's what you do best.
"Not because they disagreed with me, but because they disagreed with me."
Jesus fucking Christ.
Themesong for this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt30uxh2fhM
which is a mf'n bop bee tee dubs
Should we just have a pinned post about them and lemmy.ml?
Yeah that definitely won't create any ongoing drama lol
I don't see why it would.
three hundredth
Its not ur choice as to if a mod is a BTB. The community gets to decide that. This post itself is a PTB kind of move ngl.
It is if they ultimately decide that it's just simply being used to bellyache about transphobia or fascism. In which case it diminishes the validity of the community. If you still want to do that, Gab and truthsocial are that way.
It's their choice whether they want to entertain the exact same conversation over and over again, in ways that create needless drama with some other instance, an instance which doesn't seem to mean any harm.
I would support this move on db0's part. It's not about blahaj, it's about db0.
Edit: You know what? My viewpoint doesn't need to be rehashed in this comment.
Uh, considering recent events, where Blahaj defenders dogpiled a trans person on another instance for disagreeing with them, you sure about that
Oh, certain users on blahaj definitely mean harm. I'm not trying to give anyone a free pass on toxic behavior because they belong to the "correct" grouping, although I know that claiming those passes is a real popular activity. I'm talking more about the original intent of the instance.
Even the "dragon is a gender, we'll ban you if you disagree" "disagreeing with me is transphobia ALWAYS because I say it is" stuff, I want to give some level of benefit-of-the-doubt about. I kind of think the original intent of blahaj was good, and it's now been hijacked by people who love causing drama and being the righteous attacker against someone who they've been able to define as "bad." I'm just saying I don't think feeding the flames is necessarily a good activity even when the complaint is legitimate. I feel very differently about some instances where it seems like the core admin team is part of the deliberate trolling and bad-faith behavior.
Maybe I am wrong and missed something. I have not been keeping close attention on it.
I disagree with the core issue of a topic ban on YPTB, but I respect your arguments.
This fucking comm is already SRD for Lemmy.
Cya.
To all the blahaj stans:
lol that telling you to take it elsewhere is “making you believe absurities”
no one has to believe shit we just have to not be assholes about it
Unfortunately that's not possible for the people who are whining and complaining about blahaj here. They're incapable of not being assholes which is why they got banned in the first place.
Blahaj is groupthink land where queers who don’t play the groupthink game are banned
I am genuinely concerned for your well-being and your grasp on reality. Do you even realize what you’re defending? Do you think everyone who points to observable evidence contrary to your comforting preconceived notions is just evil? I’m seriously concerned about your bubble and I am worried about the toll it will take on you and your personal relationships. You demonize me over imploring you to think critically about the information you surround yourself in. You don’t seem to consider that you and your affiliations are fallible, and you’re going to experience a lot of difficulties in life if you carry on assuming that if you do something or you associate with something, then it can’t be wrong. I don’t wish harm on you, but you sure do spit a lot of venom at me for wanting you to be present in reality and to embrace empathy.
The irony is, your comment can be uno reversed right back at you.
No. You can’t just say things that are convenient for you to believe and by doing so make them true. That delusion is the foundation of the row, specifically the notion on blahaj that magic incantations can make fictional creatures real. I’m not a bad person for telling you that Pegasus and Pikachu and Popeye aren’t real and can’t be real, and one would be willfully daft and willfully destructive to defend the dogma that says otherwise.
Squorlples aren’t real, you should stop using that name as you can’t magically make them real. You should instead go by “human”.
You seem to struggle with differentiating between the material and the abstract. If somebody pisses on your leg and tells you it’s raining, it’s actually piss, not rain.
Yeah, elsewhere, somewhere outside of Blahaj, like maybe dbzer0!
yeah dude :) welcome to the concept of discussion :) i’ve been here the whole time lol
go ahead and talk about trans identities here. get it all out. lol. i literally can’t nor won’t stop you. did you think i was trying to shut you up?
Yep, you sure were standing around the thread where you and your friends harassed a trans user out of the Fediverse for wrongthink. Great discussion!
girl wtf is you talking about XD
https://lemmy.world/post/26286098
And as I pointed out in that very thread
Fucking predictable.
idk[i know what you linked but am ignoring it for humorous effect] because it proves nothing and is meaningless to your point. but the onus of proving i bullied anyone is on you :/ liar liar pants on fire till you prove iti don’t bully people, it is against my moral code and also the rules of this community
Ah yes, no one has to believe anything in particular but all dissidence will be silenced
user discovers the concept of a safe space
A “safe space” that prioritizes bullshit identities over actual queers
Ah yes, the safe space that famously attacks and harms members of the demographic for whom it specifically says it is safe. It’s also not a safe space if you’re just plugging your ears to reality and pretending unicorns are real; that’s called an echo chamber and a cult.
Safe space without borders - the safe space that extends everywhere its users can reach.
The fact that we can all see your comments suggests that the safe space has borders.
Not for lack of trying.
You got it backwards, being against blahaj and what it stands for is culture war bullshit.
Sorry I identify as an attack helicopter now because that’s what blahaj prioritizes. Bullshit identities and ideologies that make a mockery of actual queer people. As a safe space!
Can y'all leave the attack helicopter bullshit in 2016 where it belongs.
What’s the difference between a dragon or a dog or a cat or whatever fucking non human entity and an attack helicopter? Thanks for making my point. These people are trolls actively harming queer people with their bullshit and are given a safe space out of “tolerance” while actual queer people are banned for not giving into that bullshit.
I think people should be able to live their lives however they want. I find "identifying" as an animal/vehicle/non-human entity a bit weird, but ultimitely, people should be able to do what they want.
The main problem is that arguments like that are usually used to invalidate people who don't conform to binary genders. "People identifying as neither male or female? Where does it stop? Why can't I identify as a a dog or cat?"
I don't think that they should be considered queer, as animals and stuff have nothing to do with gender.
People can do whatever the hell they want and receive pushback for it. They’re not special and they’re actively harming queer people with their fantasy bullshit.
I think that since they aren't harming anyone, they shouldn't get pushback. When they go into the wrong spaces, they should get pushback, but that is dangerously close to gatekeeping
The instance stands for clearly, directly, and repeatedly insisting upon the notion that fictional entities are real, and demonizing and falsely accusing those who point out that fictional entities are fictional. That is the absurdity. What an asinine and self-important thing for you to say that totally tracks with everything we’ve seen so far.