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  • Excellent! Although you might need to shift LW more fully into the blue if they decide to implement the Flat Earth proposal that they strongly tried to push a month ago, before as you say walking that back in response to the enormous outcry against it. Were they to continue though, that would radically shift the balance of everything across all of Lemmy if all of those community mods gave up and had to find new homes elsewhere.

    • Legitimately think that they simply did not think the proposal through. It was pretty nakedly an attempt to push back at radical echo-chamber communities, without understanding that rules cut both ways, and in the process of trying to justify and clarify it without being 'ideological', managed to just highlight how absurd the proposed rule was to begin with.

      The two big problems with .world's admins is that they're very much amateurs (which is a hard thing to avoid in our scenario here), and that they, like many centrists, have trouble discerning where their ideology begins and ends. They feel the need to phrase things in 'fair' and non-discriminatory terms, but in doing so, often blunder into self-contradictory positions, because ultimately, discrimination (in the sense of discerning and marking) between views is what all rules are based on. The kind of "The law is the law" attitude that people who are accustomed to following, but not making, law, are prone to. One hopes that a mixture of experience and pushback will improve them, with time.

      But yeah, had they implemented that, they'd go more auth and right, and I'd probably be packing up all my comms to go to another instance. Again.

      • I'm going to quote @simple@lemm.ee on their comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/14430767

        This is like the third time LW tried to be front-and-center in deciding how conversations should happen on Lemmy. You are the most popular Lemmy instance and most content is on your instance. This isn’t an experimental safe space instance to dictate how social media should work. Please understand that any weirdly aggressive stances you take affects everyone.

        • This isn’t an experimental safe space instance to dictate how social media should work. Please understand that any weirdly aggressive stances you take affects everyone.

          Yeah, basically. Which is why the pushback is important, and, though it reflects a serious paucity of understanding, it's also good that they're willing to retract in response to pushback.

          They're slow learners, and perhaps everyone is in a position of power, but we'll see if we can teach them.

      • managed to just highlight how absurd the proposed rule was to begin with.

        It was (unintentionally) the best thing they could do to show users it was a terrible blanket rule and also showed that they weren't smart enough to notice it was a terrible idea before making it public.

      • I could see that. I legit thought it was a good proposal to suggest at least this part:

        If they’re just saying something you don’t like, respectfully, and they’re not spamming it, use your words instead of your moderation abilities.

        Edit: I was probably overstating the case - it could be good, I suppose? Then again, why not leave it to the mods to decide what they want for their own communities? Yet the instance admins should also have a say what kinds of communities exist on their instance, especially if legality of content is part of the issue. It's definitely a balancing act no matter what.

        Especially in light of some of the stuff that came before. But it definitely went off the deep end with the likes of:

        We’re going to allow some “flat earth” comments. We’re going to force some moderators to accept some “flat earth” comments.

        Woah, not the best choice of words there perhaps even if the concept itself was meant legitimately.

        I would really hate to see the mods of e.g. !tenforward@lemmy.world have to put up with crap like that, or as you said it's more likely that they would simply step down as mods, and then hopefully migrate the community elsewhere. Unlike the debacle with 196, such a move there would be fully supported by the community members, in that case, I have zero doubts.

      • @PugJesus

        they, like many centrists, have trouble discerning where their ideology begins and ends.

        I thought a centrist was someone between "Don't be Stalin" and "Don't be Hitler."

        • We are discussing in a thread about the political compass, so even strictly going by the meaning of the word "centrist" it wouldn't put you only on one axis in the authoritarian half.

          But in reality a "centrist" is usually referring to someone in support of the status quo or at least someone that doesn't want to rock the boat too hard. Where exactly that person falls in the ideological spectrum can vary widely between countries, and even if they are not outright conservative in their expressed opinions, the very act of preferring the status quo makes them structurally conservative.

        • Something like 80-95% of people on planet earth are centrists, so yeah.

          Though to reactionaries on social media, it's considered a pejorative term I suppose? Like people who dare to use something other than Arch Linux, even if required to at work.

          We haven't quite left behind the "enragement increases profits" mindset that we all were taught on Reddit, to allow for more nuancer POVs other than "oThEr SiDe BaD". Meh, it's human nature.

    • How would that place them in blue and not just yellow?

      I dont think you get more freedom of speech when becoming more authoritarian

    • Flat earth? Were they trolling or really believed that stuff? A lot of flat earthers are just trolls that don't even believe what they are posting. They're just trying to get a reaction.

      • Have a look yourself: https://lemmy.world/post/24135976

        • Interesting. So, basically allowing both.

          It is good to have open discourse, but generally with things like this, the most vocal and active people determine what is acceptable or not. Rules or not, when everyone in a community disagrees with someone, most people go somewhere else sooner or later. Unless they are a troll or evangelist or masochist.

          Open discussion can work in some communities, but there has to be a mutual interesting in finding the truth. If, instead, everyone is out to promote their agenda, it does not work so well.

92 comments