I tried to send an appeal message in my application as a response to being banned, but I don’t even know if they ever get read. My original account’s application probably wasn’t even read at all, which caused trouble for me later on. Here’s what I said after I got home and saw what was done:

Appeal message

"I couldn’t find any avenues to appeal my ban, so this is all I have. First of all, I just want to say that I’m genuinely hurt. I created my account over 5 months ago after following the site as a lurker for over a year now. I specifically said in my account’s creation that I was unsure which communities I would be participating in, and that I just wanted an account to have the option to help out and contribute when my mental health makes it possible.

After 5 months of my mental health being in the trenches, I finally worked up the courage to start participating and contributing very important content that had absolutely nothing hostile to the mission of Marxism-Leninism. I was trying to build an archive of educational videos that people could link to (just provide links to the post) and I was really proud of what I was able to setup.

I also made it a point to respond to people in a timely manner, so naturally I made a People’s Court case immediately once Wisconcom’s post went live. I had a long, bad day at work yesterday and I get home and see that he had griefed ProleWiki, and that set me off because I genuinely care about the work all of you do and wanted to offer solutions that would put a stop to his bullying and deception.

I spent the rest of the night being upset about it, before going to bed. At work I was thinking about my People’s Court case, looking forward to CriticalResist’s feedback and setting up a system that would prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

You have no idea what this meant to me, and I’m at a loss for words that someone would be so quick to ban me without looking into my history, my contributions, even keeping an eye on me going forward to make absolutely sure I wasn’t Wisconcom. I’m honestly heartbroken and feel so betrayed that I would come home tonight and just see the total opposite of what I had hoped for.

My account is gone, all the contributions I’ve made in regards to extremely important historical archives are now gone. Everything has been completely ruined. It’s so upsetting that I’ve been driven to tears. I feel thoroughly demoralized and hopeless now, and just after I had finally crawled out of the pits.

I understand your positions as admins and that you have to deal with troublemakers all the time. I’ve been in your shoes and have made this kind of mistake in the past.

There were so many things I had to offer, but now I’ve been publicly humiliated, shamed, and now I’m probably hated not even three days after just beginning to spread my wings. I don’t expect a response, not that there’s a way to do it directly anyhow. I wish all of you good health and prosperity, and hope you take care to avoid shooting first and asking questions second.

Thank you for at least allowing me the opportunity to contribute what I did, and helping with my confidence about posting content (CriticalResist8). At least it served to further the development of historical literacy and will have hopefully affected discourse in a positive way.

I really wish you all would’ve talked with me more, and gotten to know me better. I was even planning on creating an ML Blender community so we could share projects we’d worked on to boost creativity, morale, and encourage the development of artistic skills. Art is massively important to the movement for communism.

It’s such a loss and I need time to process this, because it’s a slap in the face from the people I had held in high esteem. In the meantime, take care of yourselves.

  • aeon"

It’s been a few days, and I’ve been able to get over the worst of the shock. I’m so confused as to why I was shot down so hard like this. All I’ve done since I got here is support Lemmygrad’s development as a resource for oppressed peoples. I seriously encourage you to actually take a look at my resume. Here is everything I’ve contributed:

Contributions

[Africa]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=VftR9vOn8xE - Thomas Sankara: the Upright Man
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=cobVBgQKdlc - Faces Of Africa - Sankara’s Ghost
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=LVKgvakY_Io - Thomas Sankara speaks
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=aGQlUxkP1XQ - President of Socialist Party of Zambia: Human development is not sustainable on basis of plunder
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=wUhfpb4Uhis - Why is the U.S. promotion of democracy viewed with suspicion?

[Art]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=oL10Gt2uags - What can art look like when money is a secondary concern? Redline レッドライン (2009) Yellowline Race in 4k (EN, edited, 24fps, 5.1)

[China]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=8HuM5S0fY3g - China Says Democracy Is Not A Single Flavor Coca-Cola Worldwide
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=Vg7QOSyKMP4 - How does whole-process people’s democracy work?
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=AMy--2KhozY - Whole-process people’s democracy: China’s domestic reality vs. the international rhetoric

[GenZedong]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=DMRdPp-TU9w - “Soviet Media’s Portrait of the United States” (1986) Reel America Preview
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=dlYqISgwVYQ - Soviet Media’s Portrait of the United States in 1986 (Extended version)

[Korea]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=g1h8XsQhT5o - Who is to Blame for Korea’s Division and the Korean War?

[Hip Hop]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=RvOGeaEP_c0 - The Culture Industry: How Capitalism Ruined Hip Hop | 1Dime
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=1WkvomHrfVo - Ice Cube - Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It (CW violence by police and NATO troops and aftermath of violence (various levels of injuries))
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=67Pylw3Kukc - Dax - Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Dogg “Still D.R.E.” Remix [One Take Video]
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=H5IXuJ7llf0 - Zack Fox & Kenny Beats - Square Up (Official Video)
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=nCGmeoyImIs - Dax - Dr. Dre ft. Eminem “Forgot About Dre” Remix [Official Video]

[Laborwave]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=xvRACQl5zos - 【Laborwave - North Korea is a paradise】
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=KfPwEL6PRqA - Laborwave - USSR (video version)
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=48vW8LbQ6TE - Laborwave - USSR (audio version) - [VAPORWAVE] - Eddy Huntington - U.S.S.R. DISCO LABORWAVE

[TankieTunes]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=s7Iig8dcs4s - “We will travel one road forever” - North Korean Patriotic Song
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=LnR0pN8o63g - Immortal North Korean Propaganda Masterpiece - “수령님을 따라 천만리 당을 따라 천만리” (Millions of Miles following the Leader, following the Party)

[World News]:
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=gTIRxpyX6EA - US-backed Terrorism Targets Vietnam & Myanmar in Wider War on China
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=FQwoQnsiVOk - Washington’s REAL Policy on China - “Repairing Ties” is Theater Ahead of Sanctions, War

[Video Games]
https://vede.itch.io/the-communist-dogifesto - The Communist Dogifesto

Is there anything wrong with any of this? What did I do wrong, exactly? This stuff should’ve added tons of value to Lemmygrad, and yet everything was wiped out. That’s a tremendous loss, not for me, but for everyone involved here from admins, to users, to lurkers.

I’ve always been candid and sincere in all my interactions with everyone on this site. Two people offered feedback that they weren’t happy with my cross-posting for a few videos because it was obstructing their feed, which I respectfully addressed and promptly stopped. I’ve always taken care to be respectful and uphold good etiquette, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to losing my temper when wreckers cause grief for fellow comrades.

Yeah, maybe none of you have seen anyone annoyed with Wisconcom, but guess what? You don’t know how everyone feels all of the time. Most of the site’s traffic is lurkers, and we have a lot of them. Do you know their stories? Do you know how they behave? How they feel? When one of them decides to start being hands on, anything can happen. You don’t know them, even if they’ve had a ton of time to get to know a lot about you.

That being said, lurkers are commonly seen as anomalies when they start making moves. But being an anomaly doesn’t mean you’re a fugitive (Wisconcom).

I remember seeing a post by an admin that went a little something like this: “You’re free to criticize anyone, even admins. However, you’re only free to criticize our actions, not our political position. Take that to leftist in-fighting”, which is perfectly reasonable.

I’m going to take them up on that and give you constructive criticism about me being wrongfully accused.

This part is directed towards CriticalResist8. I have also archived the relevant pages on the Wayback Machine just in-case you get any other cute ideas to recklessly erase history without due process.

Here’s the archive of what’s left of my People’s Court case post: https://web.archive.org/web/20230714191523/https://lemmygrad.ml/post/929993

Let’s take a look at the so-called “reasons” why I was accused of being Wisconcom:

Reason 1
  1. “instantly knows who defaced prolewiki, like they went into the edit history which nobody ever does lol”

First of all, I don’t know how to go into the edit history, or even where to find this function. I knew it was Wisconcom because the profile (RedArcher9) had a picture with a quote of Enver Hoxha in the banner.

Wisconcom is a notorious hoxhaist, so this was arrogant, unnecessary, and even unprofessional to respond this way.

And guess what? I linked that very picture in the image function when I created the post. I even explicitly said so.

Reason 2
  1. “talks like wisconcom”

This is an arbitrary statement that could mean absolutely anything. If you’re going to make a claim like this, the responsible thing to do is provide receipts.

Talks like them in what way? Where is your documentation? You erased everything.

Where are your side-by-side comparisons?

This is is not good enough and wouldn’t hold up in court. The reason I say that is because it’s a serious matter banning someone, and shouldn’t be the first option. How many times have innocent people been wrongfully imprisoned because they were mistaken for someone else? How many innocent people have you banned and alienated, for that matter?

You erased the history and the contents of the accounts in question, which has added unnecessary complications in the event of a proper investigation.

As the amount of power you have scales up in society, the level of responsibility you carry also scales proportionately. I expect a lot better from a Marxist-Leninist administrator. We’re supposed to be the most educated, most competent, and most advanced politically, but also in numerous other respects.

Reason 3
  1. “‘The site has been seemingly defaced yet again’ this is the only time wisconcom has been allowed in and defaced PW. He has tried getting accounts in the past, but they were all refused. Account requests are not public. Only he would know about this.”

Ok, then what is this?: https://web.archive.org/web/20230714191710/https://lemmygrad.ml/post/835854 - Oh yeah, wisconcom is back 😃 @CriticalResist8A to ProleWiki • 16 days ago

What’s this all about, then? You tell everyone he’s only been allowed in once, yet here you’re saying he got in just over two weeks prior to this incident and started wrecking 10 pages. You even provided photographic evidence.

Are you gaslighting us? Clearly he’s not the only one who would know about this.

You undermine your credibility and trust in the public eye when you either lie, or neglect to account for the relevant history of matters of interest.

Reason 4
  1. Same with “but this game of cat and mouse with Wisconcom has become very tiresome”, we don’t talk about him ever.

How many times have you all posted about him? How many times has his name come up? How many times has he been pinned? Just do a general search for his name and have yourself an endless scroll. Don’t try that with me.

Reason 5
  1. “I propose a freeze on the creation or promotion of accounts to have edit permissions, and restrict such promotion to only those who have been around (for a good while) and earned the trust of the Lemmygrad netizens.” this is child-level wrecking stuff. a) ProleWiki is wholly independent from Lemmygrad (but wiscon seems to think we’re connected in a love triangle with GZD too) and b) ProleWiki’s policies are an internal matter.

What did I just say in the post?: I don’t know the current policies for allowing people to become editors, but this game of cat and mouse with Wisconcom has become very tiresome.

I admitted upfront I am not familiar with the process, or policies. I’ve also never personally made an account or requested an account on ProleWiki. I use ProleWiki for the same reason everyone else does–to learn about Marxism-Leninism. It is a critical resource that is intended to provide a public service to all, and having someone grief it affects all of us collectively in a negative way.

Why don’t you show any understanding about this? Where is your compassion?

In addition, I’m not the only one interested in the policies of ProleWiki, in the context of securing the integrity of the resource and making sure it can scale when needed. These are perfectly legitimate interests.

You saying the policies are an “internal matter” when the consequences of the failures of those policies to keep infiltrators out affects everyone as an external matter is dismissive and egotistical. It reeks of hubris. Do you think Linux would be so successful if Torvalds had this attitude about the kernel?

ProleWiki isn’t an internal project in some obscure Discord or Matrix server where only a few people of the “in crowd” suffer the consequences of something going wrong.

Have a look at this: https://web.archive.org/web/20230714195138/https://lemmygrad.ml/post/798887 - Traffic to prolewiki has doubled ever since we went viral on Twitter.

The project has gone viral in the past, and people who are still finding their way politically are the most vulnerable to hostile manipulation of the site. If you don’t care about this, then it would bring into question your commitment to building a communist world.

If you don’t like me, that’s okay. If you don’t believe my contributions to Lemmygrad are worth a damn, then tell me and we can discuss why. But to ban me because you sloppily jumped to conclusions purely out of impulse is just wrong.

You saw only what you wanted to see and made a huge mess with your follow-up actions. Your “reasons” are full of holes. If your argument was a submarine, you’d have ended up just like those billionaires–soup in a tin can.

If you’re going to be an administrator, we all expect you to be professional and thorough in carrying out your obligations. If you can’t handle the responsibility that goes with that, then let us know.

I am perfectly fine being hated for who I am, but to be hated and shamed for someone I am not is just cruel, inhumane and flat out uncalled for.

You didn’t even give me a chance to defend myself, much less get to know me.

All lurkers turned contributors are going to seem suspect in some regard. That doesn’t mean you simply turn into a hammer looking for nails and just decide someone is “good enough” to meet the criteria and completely erase them and all their hard work from the internet. You give them time to make names for themselves and become familiar faces around the 'grad. This should be common sense.

We’re supposed to provide a service that offers better than the practices of Big Tech. You publicly humiliated and disgraced me all over a misunderstanding. Was it worth it? I’ve decided to make this post because I haven’t given up on Lemmygrad. There’s so many wonderful people here and I have always felt safe with how understanding people are, especially to the most vulnerable who need a space to vent and open up.

This is also my first time participating on any public forum like this. I never used Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other Big Tech platforms to engage in public discourse. If you want people to feel safe, welcome, and not afraid to actually speak up when there’s issues that need to be addressed and brought to your attention, maybe don’t be so heavy handed and act so unilaterally without having done your homework.

I’m still quite upset, and might be for some time, but I still desire to contribute to Lemmygrad’s development. If you don’t want me here, then tell me why based on my actual resume, instead of just deciding to take such an infantile approach like “guh huhuh. i declare you wisconcom, lol kek banhammer go bam”.

How about this time, you actually talk to me. I’m not an unreasonable person, and I’m fully willing to humble myself and admit when I’m in the wrong.

If you choose to double-down and insist upon these self-defeating practices, then I will gladly take my contributions elsewhere as Lemmygrad wouldn’t be able to provide a nurturing and encouraging environment for me to help organize and share as a Marxist-Leninist.

I came here to find solidarity amongst like-minded people who share my class interests, not be bullied by an admin’s negligence.

  • @punk_outcastOP
    1•1 year ago

    Ok, so here’s an update. (post is broken up into two parts because it’s too long)

    I was confused why it was taking so long to see a response from @[email protected], so I went digging for their profile.

    Turns out they’re actually banned from the instance I’m using here, lemmy.world. So their posts don’t even show up from my side.

    That being said, I apologize for the incredibly late response. I had to go and check lemmygrad.ml itself to see what had been said, so I’ll do my best to respond going off that.

    Are you going to be replying to the people that don’t agree with you? How do you want to be taken seriously when you come in with great claims of admin abuse and an emotional story and then reply to only 2 comments that (nominally) agree with you?

    Response

    If the people in question aren’t engaging with the content of the post, and simply saying “I don’t buy it. Sounds like Wisconcom.”, there’s nothing for me to really work with here. As for your post in particular, I hadn’t seen it until I went looking into lemmygrad.ml, which I apologize for the inconvenience.

    Since you allowed yourself to insult me and my character freely in your piece, you’ll agree it’s only fair I get to throw out my patience as well and say things like they really are.

    Fully agree on this, yes.

    You said in a reply as well as your original post that you understand lurkers can seem suspicious. Don’t you think it’s suspicious that you started posting on LG one day after RedArcher9 was approved on ProleWiki? And that your first actual post was asking for changes on ProleWiki which, by your admission, you know nothing about?

    Yes, this I understand. It was incredibly bad timing and makes my case all the more difficult.

    What makes you qualified to talk on how Lemmygrad or ProleWiki should handle their processes and bans? (Maybe asking how editors are approved on ProleWiki would be a good, reasonable first step most people would think of first if they were being genuinely concerned)

    Response

    In terms of LG, my problem was I was banned and had everything except for my post on People’s Court wiped out, so nobody could actually go in and see my history of interacting with other users. This makes things complicated.

    Regarding ProleWiki, two incidents within the space of two weeks made me feel like the policies (of which yes, I know nothing about) were inadequate. You’re completely right that it would’ve made a lot more sense to simply ask how editors are approved first. I was upset and not necessarily rational when I impulsively created that case post, so I admit that’s on me.

    We’ve cultivated a culture of taking responsibility on Lemmygrad, maybe you haven’t participated enough to know that yet. I’ve had people DM me before to say they agreed with their ban (usually on communities), that’s how responsible we are here.

    I think you’re right about that. After all, I only started posting a few days ago and hadn’t even gotten my feet wet.

    This is the post you made on People’s Court, there’s nothing “left” of it because nothing got deleted in it. You saw that for yourself when you made the archive link.

    Was referring to my comments in the chat breaking the context of some of the replies.

    If you understand that then I don’t know why you complain when you get banned. Once again, you can easily request a new account not tied to your previous identity and nobody would ever know. Not even the admins.

    Response

    I can’t just change what I want to contribute to the site. My M.O. was made out by the content I offered and I would’ve wanted to restore it. People would’ve caught onto who I was, so this wasn’t feasible. Instead of doing all that for nothing, I think it’s better to simply be upfront and honest about who I am, and what I wanted to contribute, to avoid any further trouble.

    While I’m on the topic, Lemmygrad and PW are two completely independent projects. I don’t understand how you could, in good faith, think Lemmygrad should have any say in how ProleWiki is run, if you’ve actually been lurking enough to get a sense of both communities. Do you DM Zuckerberg any time Facebook is down for a few minutes? Do you tag Musk on Twitter any time your tweets get deleted and ask to be made CEO? Get some perspective. There was a vandal, he got banned, what more could you reasonably want?

    Response

    I’m not sure where else we could possibly discuss ProleWiki’s processes that would be more appropriate, unless there’s perhaps a room on the GenZedong Matrix server? I just thought that since ProleWiki was being promoted so much on Lemmygrad, that it would be an appropriate place to talk about it. My mistake, though, for not taking this into consideration.

    Regardless of being Wisconcom, if you don’t want to be compared to a wrecker, then don’t act like one. You had a lurker account that had only posted a few videos, do you sincerely think you were harmed in any way by this ban and accusation (that is still not off the table btw)? That’s a genuine question. I can understand someone who’s spent years on Lemmygrad – but even they don’t cry as hard when they get banned – but you had like 5 videos posted across multiple communities. Your history can be rebuilt in 10 minutes.

    Response

    The ban made it unable to defend against the accusation. My archive can indeed be rebuilt, yes. I personally watched all of those videos start to finish in order to write a description that would offer the best possible context to anyone who wanted to watch. So it actually took hours to build it up, because they were all effort posts.

    I was also stressed at the fact that some people might be annoyed seeing the same content re-posted and give me a hard time about why I was re-posting material that may seem redundant from their perspective, since they may not know what happened.