Daily Bard Digest 2024-07-03

At 2024-07-03T16:59:14+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 5 points:

In previous posts years ago you even said it wasn't OK to ban people based on posting in other subs,

This has been a complex issue.

In the 2015-2020 era, before Reddit was kicking bad actors & hate/harassment groups off the site, automatic blanket bans for participating in those groups was the best tool good faith subreddits had for preventing being deluged in derail / forum slide / flood the zone tactics.

That was when there was a literal conspiracy by a group of operators of /r/the_donald, /r/cringeanarchy, /r/metacanada, and more to extort and harass good faith moderators off the site, most famously with the "five mods control 500 subreddits" meme -

https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/gxas21/upcoming_changes_to_our_content_policy_our_board/ft08mel/?context=8

The admins had addressed this kind of strong-arming in the context of automated bans (banbots) before:

https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/9ld746/you_have_thousands_of_questions_i_have_dozens_of/e76jqa3/?context=8

Those make clear that they were always unhappy with automated bans because those bans could be viewed as antagonistic, but that "things" had to happen before they could address that aspect.

Sitewide rule 1, kicking off hate & harassment groups, crowd control, cqs score, & Mod code of conduct were those "things".

Addressing the antagonistic aspect / uses of automated ban messages is possible now because the larger issues have been mostly tackled.

Even now, however, importantly, community moderators are people who pick up the responsibility of setting and maintaining a community's collective boundaries — which legitimately includes recognising that a given other community, collectively or severally, is inherently incompatible with the moderator's community.

Blanket bans are still necessary in those situations, and explaining to banned users the facts of the antagonistic community's malfeasance is necessary.

I'm not going to tell someone "our banbot banned you because you commented in a subreddit for [podcast] _and you're going to have to figure out why that is on your own_", I'm going to tell them "our banbot banned you because you commented in a subreddit for [podcast] which has a lengthy history of transphobia being promoted on the podcast and by the subreddit's audience".

Reddit now handles internally a lot of the content policy enforcement that meta subs used to opensource, and hate & harassment subreddits are now banned, but that doesn't mean hives of scum and villainy are entirely absent from the platform, & individuals & communities are entitled to represent their history when telling people why the boundary exists.

At 2024-07-03T14:00:04+00:00 on /r/reddit with a score of 1 point:

Misgendering is hate speech. Transphobia is fascism.

At 2024-07-03T21:34:12+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 1 point:

The User Agreement did, in fact, state that the administration had an expectation that moderators were to follow the Moderator Guidelines.

The language of "expectation" and calling them Moderator Guidelines, making them SHOULD / SHOULD NOT conditions instead of making them a set of MUST / MUST NOT conditions is because of the implications of the AOL Community Leaders program, Mavrix Photography LLC v LiveJournal Inc., and other applicable case law which make clear and necessary that volunteer moderators are third parties, at arm's length, and not employed by Reddit.

Reddit can't issue specific written instructions to volunteer moderators, collectively or severally, as to how they must carry out moderation in their communities. If they did, those volunteer moderators would be converted to employees, and Reddit could be sued.

Reddit can have a content policy / acceptable use policy that covers all user content and platform behaviour, however — and formulate a moderator code of conduct that elucidates historical examples of how people have abused moderator privileges to violate the AUP, the User Agreement, applicable law, and the rights of other people to use the platform / have a business relationship with Reddit.

Everything the moderator code of conduct covers is a simplification and distillation of violative behaviours that moderator-privileged bad actors have previously carried out, and for which have had their mod privileges revoked, their user accounts suspended, their communities closed. Behaviours that violated the general Content Policy / User Agreement / the law.

The moderator code of conduct isn't a "new" thing. It doesn't introduce any new principles or policies. It's a collection of accessible language that warns people off of doing things that have always* been disallowed.

• since about 2015 when the current boilerplate format of User Agreement was adopted

At 2024-07-03T23:20:28+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 1 point:

I try to avoid anything with current Twitter screenshots. My position is that Twitter is now a Chan board & was made that way on purpose to manipulate 2024 elections.

At 2024-07-03T18:03:16+00:00 on /r/AntiTrumpAlliance with a score of 1 point:

The Supreme Court decision on Trump v US specified that SCOTUS wasn't deciding that, it was up to lower courts (and by extension, Congress) to decide that.

At 2024-07-03T18:03:16+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 1 point:

Thank you for respectfully disagreeing.

At 2024-07-03T23:20:28+00:00 on /r/conservativeterrorism with a score of 3 points:

Use the Report button, please.

At 2024-07-03T16:59:14+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 5 points:

Are they "silencing all diacussion" or are they keeping the subreddit on-tooic instead of devolving into a spiral of metadiscussion?

Concerns about moderation are best done by modmail, not by middle-of-the-night "the mods here suck" gripe posts, no matter how sophisticated and genteely they're worded.

Thanks doc

At 2024-07-04T01:05:42+00:00 on /r/ContraPoints with a score of yall:

Some, yes. Many, no.

There's a significant amount of very real human beings who believe that rehabilitation of Kim Jong Un / North Korea is worthwhile political thought and action, who read Marx and thought "If only … but wait, we can still accomplish this", never thinking through that the world and where the levers of power are, are very different today. It doesn't matter if 50%+ of Americans under 30 decide that both Democratic and Republican policies are untenable, they're still not going to adopt Communism - because the failures and crimes of Lenin, Mao, and many other Communist states are historical facts & stand as warnings, and because a mass prole revolt then would and did work, but today would be met with cell towers & lastmile isp cable being switched off & the revolutionary mob being dronestriked. And would then be used by the GOP to class "antifa" legally as terrorists. And they'd get away with it this time, too.

At 2024-07-04T01:05:42+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 1 point:

The hypothesis that "Mods of large, high volume subreddits spend their (precious) time maliciously banning users that never broke a subreddit rule or sitewide rule" is far outweighed, in both reason and in historic evidence, by the alternative hypothesis that "Banned user doesn't understand the rules, or does, and won't admit fault".

I did a study on subreddit bans to find out the truth, and mods do make mistakes and accidentally ban people, but almost always reverse it when they see it. And almost all mods (save mods without modmail privileges) see ban appeals.

At 2024-07-03T22:03:37+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 1 point:

ignore modmails

I'm sorry to report that they're allowed to do so. And that there's no straightforward way to disentangle "user broke subreddit rule in this modmail" versus "absentee mods" on the question of them merely ignoring modmails.

they ignore reports

If those are reports for subreddit rule violations — they're allowed.

If those are reports for sitewide rules violations, file a Moderator Code of Conduct complaint.

avoid discussion of astroturfing

Accusations of astroturfing and vote manip are unprovable and are metadiscussion, and because of those qualities, are weaponisable by bad faith manipulation operations to derail the subreddit.

shadowbanned / manual approval / same format

That does smack of bad faith and astroturfing. If it's an unofficial subreddit, I'd make another and migrate the audience to the new one. If it's official … I'd do the same thing.

The admins want clear violations of written policy before they take action, and "moderators approve posts by shadowbanned users" is unfortunately something with substantial legitimate use.

Spam is defined as "unsolicited", and if moderators are approving the posts, they are by definition soliciting them.

It does sound like you have a complex and unwelcoming situation, and I'm sorry for your frustration.

At 2024-07-03T22:03:37+00:00 on /r/modnews with a score of 1 point:

In this hypothetical, the banned person should take the time during the mute to read and understand the rules of the subreddit, and the sitewide rules, and apply those themselves to the content they submitted to the subreddit (and to their behaviour outside of that subreddit), and honestly evaluate where and how they violated those rules.

If they believe that they can amend their ways and still want to participate in the subreddit, when the mute has expired, they should write a modmail that clearly states that they're appealing the ban, that they read and applied the subreddit and sitewide rules to their conduct in (and if applicable, outside of) the subreddit, and that they are sorry for having violated those rules, and will not break them again, and want to rejoin the community.

In the potential case of having been banned for participating in a subreddit that has a legacy of community interference with the operations of the subreddit from which they were banned, they should cease participating in the interfering subreddit.

This ban appeal's apology should be sincere.

And throughout, the banned person should set their expectation that the moderators have no obligation to lift the ban — absolutely none.

You charge us with your safe keeping. Yet; despite our best efforts, you agendapost, you toxify your threads, and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival. Please understand, the website balance is all that guides me. To protect rDrama, some dramanauts must be sacrificed. To ensure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered. We jannies will ensure rDrama's continued existence. You are so like children. We must save you, from yourselves.