As a newly-appointed moderator myself, I think “customer service representatives curating a space” is going a little too far. I see myself more as a janitor taking out the trash while doing my best to leave all the art alone, whether I like it or not.
Moderators banning/censoring people arent oppressors violating your rights; they are customer service representatives curating the space for their intended costomers. All this to say, I see Karen.
Submitted 4 weeks ago by Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
grue@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
To me it’s exactly the type of services a customer service representative would provide.
Forester@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
Stay Gold ponyboy, stay Gold
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
And sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
What do you do when that happens? What guides do you look to?
Etterra@discuss.online 4 weeks ago
No, they’re usually just power tripping. When certain people get even a modicum of power, real or imagined, they become full-on dictators at superluminal velocities. There’s some crossover with powerless people seeking revenge on the world at large (or any piece of it) for their misfortune or flights against them, real or imagined. I don’t have any data on the ratios but my gut instinct wild-ass guess is that at least 25-33% fall into the tinpot tyrant category.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I imagine that phenomenon is similar to how super sheltered kids become the wildest teenagers/young adults (whichever age they are when they first get a taste of freedom.) Like how people with newfound freedom often party hard with it, people who’ve never been in a position of power before can easily take their new authority too far.
Totally not excusing it. It’s not some inevitable “human nature” thing. There are good parents, teachers, and others in positions of authority that take their responsibility to others seriously. They’re the ones that allow some modicum of function in society.
But those who seek power for its own sake are going to be ruthless about it. Then once someone has power, it’s extremely difficult for them to let it go.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I agree with you.
But can we let the Karen thing go now? It’s been long enough
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Sorry to all the lovely Karen’s I’ve meg during my life, no.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Not until we get another word for the same persona.
And for some reason we can’t use “bitch” anymore.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Well, that’s the problem.
Karen is just an excuse to call women something without having the guts to be up front about it.
Originally, it was about a specific kind of entitled behavior. But it turned into a generic misogynist term like bitch used to be.
jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
“The ultimate test of a society’s freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens; it’s how it treats its dissidents.” - Glenn Greenwald
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
They give em bob haircuts, setup em up in a SUV, and groan when they see them and their stack of expired cupons.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Okay, sure, but Greenwald’s an absolute fascist-apologist piece of shit who only hides behind a liberal-libertarian veneer when it is convenient.
Past that, the problem you run into with dissent is that it is heavily predicated on whether you are willing to endorse the dissenters. The more alien a community’s political views and activities, the less tolerant admins become. The cause of Luigi Mangione is the most notable one, as certain communities seem to reveal in cannonizing his image while others furiously scrub out anything but the most derogatory mention of his name.
How do you distinguish between the dissident Freedom Fighter and the dissident Terrorist? What do you perceive as the limit of tolerance towards the intolerant? What kind of advocacy is constructive and what is merely provocative or trollish?
When you’ve got a guy like Glenn paling around with Tucker Carlson and bemoaning the Woke Antifa Left one minute, then crying over their own community of MAGA Truthers getting deep sixed by the Deep State, it seems the very idea of legitimate “dissent” is predicated on whether you align with it or not.
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Well, this is how they should operate…
But these volunteers also require that you understand they are human beings too.* and, like all humans, they sometimes make mistakes.
Please be patient, especially during busy times of the year.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It almost sounds like you’re saying people don’t think of customer service representatives are people. If that’s the case woosh.
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 4 weeks ago
And like many human beings, they often refuse to admit their mistakes out of pride and anger.
gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
As a head CSR for my job : no mod I’ve ever seen is anything close to providing customer service and it’s hilarious that you’d even think that in passing
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Sounds like I was doing customer service before you were born.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Do we count ‘nametag’ jobs of the late '80s? If so, then I’m in!
j4k3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Communities are not owned by moderators. They are built by those that participate. The primary fallacy I see is the idea that anyone can start a different community and that size and momentum are meaningless. That is simply not the case.
An authoritarian or very active mod, in any community with public participation is actively abusing those users when they act in opposition to the interests of the community. A visible mod is a bad mod. The job of mod is as a janitor acting in the interests of the community. If you care about authority or steering, you shouldn’t be a mod or admin.
Nothing about being a mod is hard. You don’t need to read every post or comment. All you do is setup the basic guidelines and trust the community to vote and flag bad stuff. The community will always flag the bad stuff. The only part that really matters is that you set yourself aside and really look into any flagged issue while giving the benefit of the doubt in absolutely every possible way one can imagine while never allowing bigotry type abuse. This is how to be a good mod, to be an invisible mod. The job is only to herd bad bots and sort the flags from others.
radix@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
j4k3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
No, not really. What is this?
grue@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Man, I’m only at the “Company Ethos” question (at the very beginning) and I already don’t like the choices it’s giving me.
gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Cute game
Suddenly ended when one of my mods mislabeled 1 post despite basically all of my stats being in the green
So, you know, totally realistic and all
Forester@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
kaida@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
Thanks, that game was amazing, I loved and hated it :)
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Moderation plays a big part in shaping the community. Are community guidlines not set by the mods? If there are people participating not following the guidlines, when they get squelching because they weren’t following the rules agree to by everyone participating in the community.
j4k3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Guidelines are not rigid. The Hippocrates aphorism “first, do no harm” is key in principal and practice. A visible mod is always a bad mod.
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
So you want to shape us.
How about just letting us talk?
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
But if they’re saying the wrong stuff then I get to hit them with my modhammer. Right?
haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 4 weeks ago
Those were a lot of different points. I think they’re important and I respect your view.
I‘m not sure though if I see it exactly the same:
ownership
i think this assumes a lot. You could of course start more communities and I did so. But of course your goal can be different.
authority
I agree, authority should not be important.
modding is easy
I dont think that is the case. Modding - especially good modding - is very hard, as you mentioned yourself. A mod needs enough restraint to take their ego out of the equation and needs to see when the community rules get broken and act accordingly. A lot of bad mods are too eager or too lax with bigotry.
only flagged content needs looking at
It needs to be looked at first and the rest is optional, yes. But a mod should definitely trust their gut and be an active part in the community they mod. Ideally under a different name though so to divide between mod stuff and non.
PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I think it’s ok to be somewhat active in my community that way people at least see that there’s a mod present and didn’t abandon the community. I haven’t had to ban anyone yet, but I did give two people a gentle warning because they had started to get off topic and argue, which is outside the scope of the group.
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
be in the community but secretly …
Oh that will work out just fine.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
They’re volunteers providing a public service for free around here, not employees.
Probably.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
If currency is influence, they’re getting paid.
FireTower@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
And if your aunt was a man, she’d be your uncle.
If I create a community and it gets 1k members I’m not a businessman.
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
Influence, narrative-control, hurting the out-group, control over a little domain. Those are good pay for some people.
Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Would you agree that banning/censoring is a form of suppression rather than oppression?
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Nope, I think curat3d spaces should be allowed to exsist. Suppression would only exist if you owned a space and it was being squelched by an outside organization.
Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
So, purely hypothetically, you would be fine with a curator deleting / omitting a fact because it goes against the narrative they are driving?
Interesting… personally I’d before to read a truth I disliked than to continue believing erroneous information; but that’s just me.
Blaze@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com definitely has some cases of power tripping
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
If you trust this person to tell you, and everybody else here, how to speak then either your speech is worthless to you or this conversation is worthless to you.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
here, how to speak then
You missed a closing delimiter on the subclause. Is that still acceptable speech for you?
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
Actually it ain’t. Good, catch
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Most conversations on the internet are worthless or I would even attribute negative value to many of them.
big_fat_fluffy@leminal.space 4 weeks ago
Most? Well not my conversations.
Maybe it’s a smalltalk vs “largetalk” thing. Maybe most conversations are smalltalk. Talk that’s just friendly noise or whatever.
That is a territory with which I am pretty unfamiliar.
But ya, 2 totally different kinds of talk.
Maybe trolling constitutes a 3rd variety.
rumba@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
I think for the most part they’re trying to protect themselves, their communities and their servers.
That said, I left world for other places and found some of the stuff that was defederated to be interesting and provide a little balance.
There’s certainly nothing going on here even close to the crap that was going on at Reddit.
jared@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
I just try and make a percentage of my post anti corporate.
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
You see us as customers, by your own words.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
In my personal experience, the people I see posting to !modabuse@lemmy.sdf.org deserved the actions the mods took, and are looking to whine to someone.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s a very mixed bag, dependently largely on the personal views of the moderators at-large relative to the speakers. For the most part, the mods at .world seem egalitarian and amicable to liberalish dissenting views. We haven’t seen a slew of censorship/bannings over arguments about veganism or Israel/Palestine or capitalism vs socialism.
But the “y’all deserve to get banned” mentality is largely tied up in the idea that their ideas are bad for being outside the spectrum of your allowable discourse. Meanwhile, a community like .ml or Truth Social doing a censorship/ban on content is morally repugnant because its limiting conversations that are inside the spectrum of your allowable discourse.
The mechanics are the same, everyone’s just arguing where the lines should be drawn.
gravityowl@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Not to be that guy, but exactly what kind of conversation are we supposed to have with fascists and people openly calling for an end to both your and my liberties?
Ideas are debatable, but there’s no debating that we all deserve to live and to exist. But I’ve ever only encountered people from the right falling into that category. My own existence to them is offensive and worthy of murder. I want to have no conversation with such people, but you seem to be willing to tolerate that for the sake of “just having a conversation”.
stoly@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
A majority sure but probably not too much beyond 60%. There’s a lot of pretty evident bad behavior on the mods side
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Happy cake day!