Totally fine to have KDE set up aesthetically as you please.

They like how gnome looks, not as much how it works.

Ok, 2/2 (I hope). Starting with a part I missed:

It is “our” community in the sense that we are, and always have been, responsible for it. We’re not suggesting you owe us your contributions.

Hard disagree on both. Especially when the community gets locked.

To speak frankly again, I’ve exhausted myself with how much time I’ve put into responding to all of the concerns. But if you feel like you have more that wasn’t addressed then just say it. I’ll be here, and I’ll always be willing to continue sacrificing my free time for the sake of you guys understanding what happened, why, and what we are doing differently so there are no problems in the future.

I think my reply is detailed enough to explain why I say the concerns have not been addressed in any of those three parts.

Asking if people agreed with the choice should have been the first step, because clearly a majority of the community agreed with Ada as well.

This was already addressed here, and I encourage you to read Ada’s reply and my reply to her. Long story short, I did tell people about this months ago in an effort to be more transparent with the community, and I was in favor of a vote, but due to some misunderstandings with Ada I had to remove what I said.

So… people didn’t get asked because it was removed? So people didn’t get asked. It just became a unilateral decision based on the mod team’s own vibes.

What I didn’t say in that comment, though, was that the mods didn’t even have time to realize or interject when the change was being made without notice.

“The mods” are the ones who made the change. So… I don’t follow.

So even the idea of discussing a move was so far removed from when conversation should have happened, if only to get some alignment/input from the community, Addressed in the previous two paragraphs, and in many of my comments elsewhere.

That it didn’t happen, yes, confirmed. There was no input from the community.

that this should also be a pretty bright lantern light guiding the mod team to resignation. Addressed here and in this post.

You have said you would. Do you speak for the whole mod team? Where is the response from the rest of the mod team involved in this debacle? Have folks resigned?

So still not addressed.

To start off, I just want to note that I’m not replying in anger here. I want to note that I am providing feedback - by your own request btw - for why I think the questions are unanswered, and why I think resignation of all the mods is appropriate. I’m not angry with you as a person, and I do consider what was done to be a blunder with good intentions. Unfortunately, a pretty big one, and what it says to me is either that the concerns of the community are not understood or not being provided consideration.

For the record, I do think you are considering them, because you are talking to people. I would absolutely not say that of the entire mod team though.

Yes, the community and the mods are clearly still not on the same page on this matter, despite how transparent we’ve been in the OP and how much I’ve been in my replies. “Ah, but you weren’t transparent until after the fact”, that’s addressed later in this comment.

No, I’m saying you’re still not on the same page because you still have a complete misconception of the issues at hand, which continues in the reply.

Then .world shouldn’t have been a consideration.

That’s also addressed later in this comment, but for now I have a question… LW is already federated with LBZ, so how does being hosted there make a difference in terms of transphobes/etc. coming in from LW? The whole point of the fediverse is that those floodgates are already open. We already get loads of LW users on all of the LBZ subs, and we’ve had no issues dealing with them so far on 196. There really isn’t that much to do in order to deal with it, and there are eight of us, so I don’t think the absence of Ada would make that an issue either. Plus, this post demonstrates how much free time I alone have and am willing to put into this community.

(And I’m not asking this question as an implicit statement. I just think that there must be some aspect of federated platforms that I don’t understand considering it’s relevance to this whole ordeal. (And if you’re thinking “ah, but here’s what Ada said about what you don’t understand about federation!” I addressed it here and here.))

Yeah this isn’t really about federation (which can be messy).

So, two issues. The first is discovery - if its on LBZ, its visible to .world on all, yes. It is not discoverable on local though since its on a different instance. So thats one item - being on local is more likely to attract the average .world user.

Two, and more important, different instance means different rules. Yes, that is why the mod team was looking to move, but lets look at that instance in particular for a moment. Keeping this aside, which is a symptom, but lets hit a few more of those symptoms for a moment. For example, admins jumping in on c/vegan and wreaking havoc. This may be a mea culpa announcement, but lets look at some of the things they did (and not the content, that is irrelevant here) as noted in their own post:

• Removing comments in a community they didn’t moderate, for reasons based on their own interpretation of instance terms
• Comments removed without a reason
• Removing moderators from that community
• Posting their own opposing comments and elevating visibility

The result of all this?

• A mea culpa post
• No actions being taking against the admin who did it
• A new section for the moderators to respond to admin actions, but not vice-versa
• A rather… interesting take on censorship.

Lets review that censorship one for a second:

Controversial topics can and should be discussed, as long as they are not causing risk of imminent physical harm.

Boy oh boy, that bolded part - by .world by the way, they bolded and I’m quoting as is - you may notice there is some similar terminology to that recent post.

Ok, lets get the next sentence in there:

We are firm believers in the hippocratic oath of “do no harm”.

Now, lets compare that sentence to the one that comes immediately before. “Do no harm” vs “imminent physical harm”. There is a wide window between “no harm” and “imminent physical harm”. As someone who went through clear trauma as you mentioned (which I am always sorry to hear, and I hope you’ve had the support you needed in the meantime, but I digress) - there is a lot in that window that fits into blatantly transphobic, racist, sexist, fascist support, etc. behavior but not “imminent physical harm”. And when we put that alongside “Controversial topics can and should be discussed” (emphasis mine this time), that is a huge can of worms.

This is why I spoke about assurances - an assurance to you is not an assurance to the community. I’ll get to that in a bit though.

One of the more prominent mods and posters on .world recently posted up some Matt Walsh bs - and just to note, I check the modlogs somewhat often. I have other accounts and mod some niche communities with a small number of subscribers. So, on that note, I’d ask if you’ve seen the .world modlogs all that much. I say that because in my opinion, there is a strong center-right lean in the moderation across the board, and that is fostered by the administration - see two linked announcements. You can see even more of this with moderation actions by admins in the more recent Luigi-inspired post. “Uncivil” and “Bad faith” are two good examples of reasons often used for this sort of moderation.

This is why I can’t comprehend why anyone would ever consider .world for 196. This is why I bring up assurances - what you’re told, and what has been done by admins without any repercussions are not in agreement. So why, without an assurance to the community, would the community believe that its going to be handled as a space that is safe for them?

Unfortunately I have to join an unexpected conference call, so I’ll have to wrap up this up later. Some items I intend to mention tie back to whats here so its not a complete thought, but figured I may as well share in the meantime. I’ll edit the rest in later, unless in the meantime you mention you’d prefer a separate comment.

but we’ve been in contact with the lemmy.world admins for a while now

Ah yes, and you shared that communication right? Not that there has been communication, but actually what was said?

I feel like this question was worded weirdly but I will answer according to my best interpretation.

We felt no need to publish other people’s DMs since that’s generally something you shouldn’t do, especially when establishing a relationship with people… So if you want to see them for yourself, you’ll have to ask Moss, since they were her and Ruud’s DMs. I don’t feel comfortable posting them myself.

Couple of issues there. For one thing, if the assurances are being given to the mod team only, then they aren’t being given to the community. They are being given to the mods.

Second, no one knows what those “assurances” are. I’m not talking about posting someone else’s DMs, I’m saying that recognizing people may take issue enough to even warrant that chat should be enough to know that this information would be needed. So there should have been enough thought to document what was discussed, have everyone involved know that it would be published, and do it.

Third, how do those “assurances” line up with the history of .world admins? What guarantees are being provided that they won’t interject at their leisure? Why would 196 be considered unique to them, since they have done exactly what everyone is concerned about?

We addressed a lot of other things in the post, too. If there’s anything we missed

Soooo many replies went ignored or just gave the same non-answer. I’d start there. Or by just resigning, which is way more efficient tbh.

We are people with our own lives and shit to deal with. We cannot respond to every reply, but I’ve given the 196 community an overwhelming amount of my time to address what I can, and I’m continuing to do so.

Which isn’t to say I respond to every comment, but if a new concern came up that wasn’t addressed in the OP, I responded to the first person to bring it up. My comment history for the past few days is evidence of this.

Plenty were missed, but lets push that aside here - why are you the only one responding to the majority of comments? Why was one mod posting, then (aside from some snarky replies) not replying to people who were concerned?

I don’t expect you to reply to every comment. I expect the mod team, especially after this massive faceplant, to reply.

For this reason, I value giving people patience and hearing them out, even if what they said has a transphobic “vibe”. (At least when what they are expressing isn’t blatant transphobia). When I joined the mod team, this is one of the values I intended to bring to the team.

I have a friend who transitioned some years back. When we talk about things before transitioning, we use her previous name, because that is who she was at the time, and that is her preference.

So I went out one night with her to meet her new friend, and long story short - phrased things in a way that was completely appropriate for my friend and how she preferred, but was not for her friend. Something for which I still feel like an asshole for, though her friend understands why and we are friends as well.

Anyway, point being - this is what is ok for you. Engaging, letting them explain. Should the entire community need to? Because you’d be forcing them to. As an alternative, for example, you could let that person immediately know why, and engage with them privately instead before restoring (or restoring with an edit, whatever the case may be).

Ran out of space! Will have to do a second reply, sorry…

qBittorrent. With a quick UI switch to vuetorrent for the tablet. LXC bound to a bridge thats VPN connected.

Happy to wait. Especially as these are repeat issues many have wanted a response to, and has absolutely not been addressed.

As long as it doesn’t say something about how you should have announced the migration beforehand, in which case no further reply is needed.

Well, its been a full day. Any comment? Responses to the issues I raised?

Its possible.

But here’s the thing - there is no way to know for sure. Clearly, none of them resigned on hearing about it, so at some level they are onboard.

Also, at no point in any of these months-long internal discussions did any of these folks say “Hey, this isn’t right, people need to be informed of what we are thinking and why”, or “I can’t agree to this, I’m going to post about it and resign”.

So I still think all of them should resign. Going along with a terrible decision is not, IMO, any better.

EDIT AT THE TOP: Doing a whole lot of commenting, and a whole lot of not responding to these issues. So I’ll just assume you have no response to any of these, and will stop here. Kthxbye.

–––––––––––––––

OK, I’m going to start with the quote. Let’s just do that for now.

Another huge issue was that the mods and the community were not on the same page regarding lemmy.world, their admins, and their policies.

You’re still not, clearly.

We understand the concern about trolls/bad-actors/transphobes

Then .world shouldn’t have been a consideration.

but we’ve been in contact with the lemmy.world admins for a while now

Ah yes, and you shared that communication right? Not that there has been communication, but actually what was said?

and they’ve assured us that they’d allow us to moderate our community however we saw fit

First problem - “our community”. You’re all (mods) acting like this is something you own.

Second problem - “how we saw fit”. You (mods) had a problem with what you (mods) called “heavy handed moderation”. This is entirely your (mods) opinion and doesnt match the community’s opinion. This should be yet another point where you (mods) should recognize that none of you are in alignment with the community, and probably should step aside.

Third problem - You (mods) have zero control over the administration and the rules. Lemmy.world has, even very recently put forth (and pulled back, but not removed - its just being reworded) a requirement around engaging with exactly the sort of people everyone is concerned about.

That post from .world should have immediately told you that a community like 196 would not do well there. But you (mods) ignored this based on “assurances”.

What assurances? Let’s be candid here - assurances to you are meaningless. What assurances are you providing the community? “Trust me bro”? How is that an assurance to the community? How did you (another moment of clarity should be here about you not being in alignment with the community) think people would react, knowing what .world and their admins are like?

All this being said, we still failed to communicate that to the community before taking action

Like I said, repeating the same stuff that is not the main problem

which has undermined any assurances that we have given after the fact.

Which has entirely consisted of “Trust me, we totally talked to the admins, and what we want is what will happen”.

Thats not an assurance to the community. That is about you (mods) being assured that you’ll have control.

One of these things is not like the other…

We cannot apologize enough for that.

I mean, you can. Easily. You can all resign.

We addressed a lot of other things in the post, too. If there’s anything we missed

Soooo many replies went ignored or just gave the same non-answer. I’d start there. Or by just resigning, which is way more efficient tbh.

I encourage you to voice it here.

Would you like me to do the same with the rest of the post, or are you seeing why the non-answer answers being given by the mod team completely miss the point?

Edit: I’ll also comment preemptively on the example of heavy handed moderation.

First off, the example left out a lot of context. Context that is important. Ada, IMHO, made the right call, its the mod team that screwed up there. So calling it heavy handed or “by vibe” is just disparaging nonsense. That moment where people pointed out the example being garbage should really have been another signal to the entire mod team that they aren’t the right fit.

Second, the desire (by the mod team) to move is waaaaayyyyyyy after where communication should have occurred. Asking if people agreed with the choice should have been the first step, because clearly a majority of the community agreed with Ada as well.

So even the idea of discussing a move was so far removed from when conversation should have happened, if only to get some alignment/input from the community, that this should also be a pretty bright lantern light guiding the mod team to resignation.

Oh I don’t expect meaningful replies to any points. If there were, more of the comments and questions from the community would have actually been responding to, rather than trying to matrix-style bullet dodge (but without success).

Do you want me to call out the issues with the post line by line? I can, but honestly I’m just going to be repeating a lot of comments made by other folks already.

What we didn’t approve of was the sudden decision to move at the drop of a hat with no warning.

This was part of the issue, but overwhelmingly not the issue for the majority of users. This keeps being referenced as “the problem” but really isn’t what people are commenting on. Just saying that because it really comes across like none of the mod team are actually listening.

So still kinda the same take for me. The whole mod team resigning, to me, makes the most sense. Not one mod seems to be replying to the complaints of the community, and is instead continuously replying with what seems like talking points which don’t actually address the concerns.

So, yeah. Whole mod team leaving makes sense to me. Yes, I include you regardless of your tenure.

Really? All of them?

According to the mod team, they were all in on this decision.

So all of them makes sense to me.

LBZ has more strict rules about behavior, while Lemmy.world is much more lax (in some cases, in others they take a hard right turn, but mostly irrelevant for this part).

By going to .world, the mods are saying that is the admin level ruleset/moderation they support, specifically because the mod team said they consider Ada to be “heavy handed”.

.world tends to have a lot more of the problematic userbase, in part due to its size.

On LBZ, the users would have the benefit of both moderation by the community mods, as well as the rules of LBZ and its admin team (I’m sure there are folks who help Ada in some way, sorry but I dont know who they are).

On .world, those additional rules/protections are gone, and a recent announcement (which has since been crossed out with a “new announcement clarifying” message) basically said you have to engage with trolls, and its OK for users to be awful. As you can imagine, this didn’t go over well, and yet they are still moving forward just with text edits based on what they’ve said so far.

This is a huge change in rules for the community at large, as well as an increased risk - from appearing in the local feed in addition to all or subscribed - in .world users who are problematic getting involved in discussions on 196. With the change in instance level rules, in combination with the mod team wanting more lax rules about behavior, means more exposure to those problematic folks.

The point of federation is that the means of management is distributed and localized, and anyone (capable of running an instance) can make their own and interact with the other instances.

Locally, administration matters.

For example, I had a .world account. I moved to db0 because .world made it clear their admins were amateur lawyers, db0’s administration style and rules align with me (among other things, but irrelevant here), so I moved.

I could have seen a lot of the same content on .world, but not all (federation with specific instances is optional after all), but the .world admins behavior mattered to me. db0’s approach matters to me, as Ada’s does to the many on lbz.

For me, it was a great decision to leave .world, and I’m quite happy where I am. That, to me, is the point of the fediverse. I can change instances to get away from their administration, and still get all the content.

Hope this made sense and wasn’t just a garbled mess of early morning ADHD.

but I don’t think your beef is with the whole mod team.

Was the whole mod team involved in these discussions? Was everyone aware of this desire to move? That Lemmy.world was the selected option?

Edit: As a reminder, “the whole mod team is on board” was one of the original notes on the move.

Yes, there are defined differences. On blahaj, the admins are removing posts and comments that, by the mod-team’s estimation, did not violate 196’ rules. On .world, the admins promised not to.

Yes. Because .world is more tolerant of the things I mentioned.

The mods want more lax admins who let stuff slide. The instance that said “you have to engage with trolls” is the instance they tried to move to.

This ain’t rocket surgery.

They adressed this in the OP, stating that the .world admin team was contacted prior and was allowing them to keep all their rules.

“Trust me bro” is worth less than nothing when they dont respect the community enough to communicate.

Nothing about what I said is a straw-man, there are defined differences in admin level moderation which the mod team specifically stated.

So cut the bs about logical fallacies when none are present.

Irrelevant.

Also…

but the community doesn’t know all the facts that lead to that decision.

And the decision was to go to .world, where recently the admin team decided trolls are to be engaged with, where misogyny, transphobia, etc happens pretty regularly and doesnt “cross the line”, with their reasoning being that the admin team was too heavy handed.

If that doesnt scream “Completely out of sync with the community” to you, I don’t know what would.

No matter how you look at it - the mod team is far, far removed from being on the same page as the community. That makes them the wrong mods for the community.

The primary issue that incited this was because we don’t fully agree with the admin’s moderation policies.

Clearly the community does though.

Which means the community is perfectly happy to continue on blahaj, its you, as the mod team, that aren’t aligning with the community.

As someone who enjoys 196 (but only really participates by voting), I would just say that since you aren’t aligning with the community, this isn’t a community you should be moderating.

Make the !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone mods the mods of !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone and move on.

I’d recommend looking at the instance those folks are coming from. You may notice some similarity with those users.