Comment on Policy Updates and Feedback (+ a few other things)
MentalEdge@ani.social 1 week ago
I approve.
What do you mean by not having an admin’s discretion clause to avoid abuse? Abuse by who?
Things are always up to the discretion of admins and mods.
That we enact rules doesn’t change the fact that if we want to we can do any one of the things the tools at our disposal enable us to do, at any given time.
That we don’t, isn’t because there is no rule saying we are allowed to. I don’t trust you as an admin because you haven’t enacted a “I do what I want” rule. I trust you, because your actions so far show that what you want to do, is to do good.
Therefore, I can trust you to want to run ani.social in a sane and competent manner. That doesn’t mean you aren’t or even shouldn’t be doing “whatever you want”.
The reason good admins and mods don’t make decisions on a whim or abuse the tools available, is because those of us who do this for good reasons, don’t list a powertrip among those reasons. Instead, the goal is the same as that of any user. A good social media experience.
But we do decide. And we do do what we want.
The difference between abusive admins and good admins, isn’t whether this rule exists, because I think it always does. The difference, is what kind of person is behind it.
We can’t set up rules in advance of every eventuality. And while we try to follow the ones we do enact, they might turn out to be insufficient. Like a piece of code that does something unexpected, they can have bugs and loopholes.
The fix, in such cases, is a person with the ability to make decisions at their discretion. IMO, instance admins and community mods are and should be those people, whether there is a rule stating that explicitly or not.
Moderation is a good thing. The innovation that the fediverse presents, is enabling users to much more easily leave moderators that do not act according to communal interests, because their personal interests overshadow them.
hitagi@ani.social 1 week ago
Thanks! As for the discretion clause, it only applies to admins removing/banning things. Mods are free to manage their communities as they see fit. As much as possible, I’d like to make instance rules detailed so nobody can claim abuse when a catch-all rule is used. Although I know I can make up rules on the spot, I’d like them to be well-documented at least. But you’re right, it’s hard to predict the future. For now, I think I’ll include it to see how things will develop first.
Endmaker@ani.social 6 days ago
Here’s my 2 cents (it’s political, but politics is everywhere🤷):
You may want to take a look at The Narrow Corridor, or at least read the first few chapters.
One point that struck me was that you need someone with enough power to keep everyone else in check, like what @MentalEdge@ani.social does.
Otherwise, the more powerful players would simply oppress everyone else.
When it comes to examples,
off-topic; politics
you don’t even have to turn to history. Just look at what is going on in USA now. Without a strong government to keep the rich and powerful in check, they can simply bring the government under their control instead. Now, they have even more power to oppress weak players.
Ideally, you’d want to share power - usually through democracy - so that the people can prevent the state from going rogue, even after you are long gone. But if you do so prematurely, you may find yourself in the above situation.
I know ani.social is just an inconsequential weeb community, but these principles of governance applies here too.
IMO you and other mods are doing well. Until the time is right (perhaps when Lemmy becomes mainstream?), I’d say: just be a BDFL - Benevolent dictator for life
hitagi@ani.social 6 days ago
Thanks! Interesting book. My sister read “Why Nations Fail” from the same author so maybe I should read this one. But yeah, I’ll update the policy to include the clause and just try to word it nicely.
MentalEdge@ani.social 1 week ago
The way I like to do things, is make the rule very clearly good-natured.
Something along the lines of “be nice” or “don’t be a dick”. Very broad, but really just a kinder way to say “use your common sense” and “don’t piss me off”.
The particular rule should almost never be cited in favor of clearer rules when applicable, but it gives you an out when you need to take action to deal with someone who is being difficult.
I also think it signals to people that your rules represent an ideal, rather than just their literal meaning. That people should read between the lines a little, in order to judge what will and won’t fly. Basically, making it a “don’t violate the overrall spirit of the rules” clause.
As an example, “no cringe” is a rule on my northstar game servers. Once, I cited it when banning a trio of players who’d log onto one of my servers, and then hog it by votekicking anyone who joined afterwards. This prevented other players from joining, as they could never outnumber them by enough to no longer make 3 votes a majority.
They didn’t break some explicit rule, but I host my servers for all to use. If they wanted to have a private game, they could do the same. My servers weren’t theirs to hog, and they stopped dozens of others who wanted to get a larger game going from doing so.
NineSwords@ani.social 6 days ago
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MentalEdge@ani.social 6 days ago
Exactly 👍