So after a run in with a moderator yesterday I’ve had some thoughts I felt I wanted to share.
I won’t name them here, you are welcome to look at my comment history and make up your own mind.
In this instance a user posted some misinformation. I don’t think they intended to, they merely perpetuated a myth, they clearly simply knew no better.
I tried to respond diplomatically, they doubled down, other users piled on, the downvotes are plenty and then I responded with an article citing evidence supporting my assertions.
I also stated that the burden of proof lies with the claimant and asked for some context on why they seemed dead set on the lie they were aping back, asking if they subscribe to other myth based beliefs, religions, etc. That post was unceremoniously deleted with no notice to me and no reasons given… until the user pointed out in another post that they are the sole mod of the community and warned me that they were “not afraid to ban” me should I “cross the line” in a very *‘I’m the sheriff of this here town’ *tone. Which gave me a chuckle.
That’s my side of the story, it’s all there if you want to draw your own conclusions. It really doesn’t matter who is right or wrong in a ‘someone is wrong on the internet’ spat but I did spot a chink in the fediverse through this incident.
The real point here is that this kind of behaviour is one of things that made Reddit fucking awful and I’d hate to see it flourish here in the fediverse.
I don’t have the solutions just some suggestions that I’d be keen to hear others opinions on:
- No moderation without representation. IOW: mods should be democratically elected.
- Mod elections should be annual and no mod should enjoy that status for life.
- There should be a mechanism for inducing a ‘no confidence’ mode election at any time otherwise the communities are likely to splinter into “real_” communities just as they did on Reddit which no community in the fediverse can currently afford.
What say you my brothers and sisters and everything in between? Is there a way to safeguard against cronyism, corruption and other frailties of the human ego?
Fwiw: other than insults and a mod’s implied threat… The conversation looked like it had potential and that both of you were making relevanct, fact-based points.
Issue was that there was a low key combativeness throughout and I’m not sure why that was necessary. I see that a lot online, but I think I see it more here than anywhere else.
I’ve wondered if it’s just easy to feel like a big fish in this medium sized pond and then embarrass ourselves when we meet a fish of approximately equal size.
Having said all the above. I slip into combative too. Almost always have regrets later, but it’s super easy to do.
I appreciate your thoughts but I’ll refrain from commenting further on the silly spat. It’s not important to this topic and in retrospect I should have left it off my OP and just posted the ideas I’d had.
Thank you for you thoughtful post.