Thanks for trying to keep the comm on topic.
Comment on Lemmy Shitshow
vatlark@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I am the mod that removed your post. I am always happy to talk about it. I do make mistakes and change my mind at times.
Yeah its a gray rule, no doubt about it, but the alternative is the comm flooded with everyone’s political hot take, which quickly drowns out lots of great posts.
Kertyna@feddit.nl 2 days ago
DandomRude@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’ll spare you any “hot takes” in the future by no longer participating in your “community” all together. That way, I won’t have to deal with the thought police who rule over your shower thoughts.
I can understand that moderation is time-consuming, but it’s pretty absurd what you’re pulling. It’s nothing short of arbitrary censorship, because there’s nothing in the world that can’t be called “political” in one way or another
So, in short: Mission accomplished—another user silenced who was disrupting your addiction to entertainment with pesky remarks about reality.
vatlark@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Sorry, that wasn’t a jab at you.
Here are some of my thoughts if you are interested. Being on lemmy I assume we have similar values and in general agree on a lot, even if the implementation details are messy. I do try to balance all of the various thoughts i get about how showerthoughts should be moderated, and your thoughts are helpful to me.
From my perspective, if communities didnt have rules and enforcement to keep them on-topic then there wouldn’t be much point in having communities. They would all have the same content.
Whats “on-topic” is a hard judgement call sometimes. A “showerthought” is a pretty loose thing but i remember liking r/showerthoughts for the fun clever discoveries that people made about everyday life, and I assume that most of the subscribers to c/showerthoughts are thinking the same thing, but i dont know.
You are correct that it helped reduce the mod workload which I am trying to find a sustainable balance with. Its a catch 22 with politics because people become really impassioned which means people slip up and say inappropriate things, which means you need to take more mod actions, which makes more people angry at you which makes even more work… but if it makes people impassioned then maybe it means its the most important thing to be talking about…
I think the lemmy ecosystem has a lot of space for talking about politics, if people dont subscribe to those communities as heavily then thats another issue, but maybe not because the conversations can be more meaningful. When I browes lemmy i sort by new or scaled so that i can help build engagement in small communities that otherwise dont get much attention. Imdoingmypart.jpg
I have had my posts removed too and yeah i dont like it.
DandomRude@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Thank you very much for the background information. And also for the time you spend moderating—that is truly commendable and is indeed very much needed.
Perhaps I should have reached out to you directly, but I was so outraged that I didn’t, especially since this wasn’t the first post of mine you’d removed for the same reason.
Well, looking at all the downvotes here, it seems your approach to “showerthoughts” is being liked and even vigorously defended by many.
As I said, I see it differently and consider it very dangerous to define community rules so broadly that they simply leave the decision of what’s allowed and what isn’t exclusively up to the moderators. In your case, this seems to be done with caution and reasonable consideration. Nevertheless, I believe that rules must be clearly defined and transparent from the outset so that it’s clear what to expect.
As I said, I consider the “no politics” rule unsuitable for this, since there’s simply no such thing as a topic that might not be political to someone. Likewise, to ensure that decisions are not made purely on a whim.
But since many here seem to see it quite differently, I’m probably wrong. Still, I simply can’t accept that it’s a lottery whether my posts will be allowed or not in a general community that doesn’t have a fixed topic.
Therefore, I have to accept the rules and just post elsewhere, where there is no such rule. I think that’s better for everyone, since my posts at your community only seem to lead to conflicts, which is certainly not my intention at all.
If you’d like, I’ll delete this post here right away, but it seems to me that it might be a good way to gather some more opinions on the rule in question.
Please let me know if you see it differently—in that case, I’ll delete this post here immediately.
vatlark@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Thank you for the understanding and I do agree with your position as well. I did solicit some input from others that share similar views to you, but i have been too lazy to take action on it.
If you have ideas for how to make the rules more objective while still allowing a space for more light hearted content to flourish, I would love to hear your thoughts. Even if they arent fully formed. A community like c/cat_pictures has an easier time of it i imagine.