edit: As I’m seeing a lot of worry about the impact this will/could have on the community, please be assured we have the same mod team, and will be holding the community to the same standards. the same things that were always allowed will continue to be allowed and the same things that got things removed before will continue to get things removed before. Lemmy.world admins have agreed to allow us to run our community on our terms. It is my pleasure to announce that effective immediately, we are transferring our community to Lemmy.world! This has been a few months in the making, so my entire mod team is already on board.
FAQ:
Why?
That’s a complicated question with a long answer! The primary difference is moderatorial and ideologial differences between my team and Ada’s excellent team of admins. We are on good terms with Ada and her team, and have gotten her consent to do this. In addition to this, the fact that a large portion of instances do not federate with 196 has caused our reach to be reduced, with many communities creating their own 196es.
How does this work?
Currently, as there is not an easy way to transfer an entire community (trust me, we checked), we are locking the community as mod-only, and moving our focus to the 196 on lemmy.world. For you guys, functionally nothing has changed.
What about the posts?
Well, we tried to transfer them, but there was no real way to do so without absolutely destroying lemmy.world’s federation. For this reason, we are simply archiving this community as mod-only. Everything is staying up, you just won’t be able to post new content. Comments are still enabled, so we will continue to check our modlogs for some time after the transfer has settled.
As for the posts on lemmy.world’s 196, we’re leaving those up too. From this point onwards, all posts made to that community are beholden to the rules you are all used to, but anything pre-existing is getting grandfathered in.

IF YOU GUYS HAVE ANY OTHER QUESTIONS, PLEASE PUT THEM IN THE COMMENTS OF THIS POST, AND I’LL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER THEM.
Once again, here’s the link to our new apartment of awesome. (universal: [email protected])

  • @[email protected]
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    312 minutes ago

    u guys should mod a community on lemmy.world if they share ur values more but don’t steal our community

    • MossOPM
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      08 minutes ago

      we aren’t stealing your community. the people who built and facilitated this community are the people who are migrating this community.

      • Blaze (he/him)
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        15 minutes ago

        So the community never belonged to the users, it was only the mods’ ?

  • Poplar?
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    91 hour ago

    I want to add my voice to the others asking for tranfering to a new mod team. You don’t have to kill the community, let people who want it on blahaj.zone keep using it. The worst that can happen is the quality of posts being lower.

  • @[email protected]
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    81 hour ago

    It’s pretty clear what the community consensus here is.

    You can leave, and start a new 196 community wherever you like. Leave this one as is, and people can choose to follow one, both or neither.

    Locking it here is very hostile to the community and a categorically bad move. I hope the instance admins can step in, remove the mods and unlock the community.

  • @[email protected]
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    142 hours ago

    This move is going to make the community a lot less welcoming to queer folk, by virtue of being on .world alone. I don’t know what rift between Ada and you let to that decision, but I think it’s a big mistake. It feels especially bad for us members of this community not being involved in the decision making process at all, all the more if this has truly been “months in the making”.

    With that said: I strongly implore you to not lock down the community, and instead let a new mod team take over. Not having centralized decisions and power tripping mods is one of the big hopes I had for the fediverse, and this… feels really bad. It’s not a bad thing to have several similar communities on different instances! Please don’t destroy this one over personal grievances

  • Furbland
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    71 hour ago

    As someone whose home instance is LW, this is not a good idea. Like, at all. I suggest at least hosting some kind of poll, chances are if people disagree they’ll just make a second community on this instance or another one regardless.

  • @[email protected]
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    213 hours ago

    OK, I think I see where you’re coming from. But lemmy.world already has several meme, shitpost, and microblog repost communities. Why does lemmy.world need c/196? Up til now the fact that it was on blahaj.zone was what made it stand out.

    • MossOPM
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      130 minutes ago

      it’s less that lemmy.world needs 196, and more that we think it is an instance that is well suited to host 196. this community is not one that is defined by the instance it is located on

  • Toes♀
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    133 hours ago

    Don’t do it, seriously I hope you’re joking.

  • Lux
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    415 hours ago

    We joined this community because its on blahaj.zone.

    We’re not moving

    • @[email protected]
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      184 hours ago

      Seriously. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should leave the community, so ultimately this may be a good thing, so long as this community is kept here and passed to other people.

        • @[email protected]
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          14 hours ago

          The reason the mods are leaving is due to an issue where the instance admin would remove comments from this community for breaking the instance rule of Empathy which has the guideline of:

          If your comment is designed to hurt someone, this isn’t the space for it.

          How is “fuck off” anything but a comment designed to hurt someone?

  • Kaja
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    335 hours ago

    A move that has been months in the making but only now is getting announced? Has it been announced previously and I missed it or something? I get the motivation for the move, but this feels like the kind of decision that the users of the 196 should have gotten more of a chance to at least give feedback on what other instance 196 should be migrating to.

    • MossOPM
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      138 minutes ago

      while I am still confident this is the right choice of instance to transfer to, i do think you are most likely right. if I had a do over, I would have made a poll before anouncing this. unfortunately at this point, I feel like it’s a little late in the game to do a 360.

      • @[email protected]
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        329 minutes ago

        Why are you not engaging with the large number of users suggesting simply leaving this community unlocked and allowing new mods to take over? It’s very obvious you are avoiding responding to those comments. As you have acknowledged, this was handled badly with zero community choice or involvement. Few, if any commenters agree with the move or support it.

        Nobody is asking for a “360” on whatever the mod team planned, the community can’t hold you hostage and force you to moderate a community when you don’t want to. Locking the community however should not be your choice to make. If you want to leave, leave. If the mod team and new instance are so important as you suggest, you’ll have a flourishing community on lemmy.world in no time.

        But locking out the community with no consultation or notice is just cruel.

      • Blaze (he/him)
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        230 minutes ago

        How about reopening the community, and allow a Blahaj admin to take over, asking for new mods and keep the community open?

    • @A_Very_Big_FanM
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      43 hours ago

      Tbf I did try to bring it up a while ago but it upset Ada for some reason, even though I’m fairly certain I didn’t say anything we weren’t on the same page about… So I removed it.

      You’re right, though, we should have said something first. That’s our bad.

  • @[email protected]
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    335 hours ago

    I agree with most others that this is a huge mistake, if only for moving to .world. Another larger community being on that instance sounds like a bad idea for the lemmy ecosystem, even if you wanted to move from blahaj.zone. I will continue to post and browse on 196, but if I start to feel unwelcome there, I will make it known.

    The problem is that you’re creating more work for yourself, even if you’re as on top of moderation as you were here. If you get the additional reach that you’re hoping for, you’ll have to work much quicker at removing shit content than you did here. Now that 196 isn’t on the openly queer instance, more bigots will feel like they can interact. This could lead to the community becoming less accepting in the long run, as queer people feel less safe and welcomed.

    I have thick skin and often run towards conflicts other people won’t, but I know that many users here aren’t like me. If I start to feel it weighing on me, be confident that things have gone too far for most people on this instance.

    • @A_Very_Big_FanM
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      13 hours ago

      That’s valid! But we are confident that we’ll be able to stay on top of things. If there were any doubts, we wouldn’t have made the switch.

      • @[email protected]
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        122 hours ago

        Like I said, the perception of .world from people here is not good. I changed from .world because most conservative and transphobic nonsense came from there. You will lose a number of queer people in this move, whether you like it or not.

  • Tar_Alcaran
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    104 hours ago

    Well, it doesn’t seem to be a joke, guess the mods like admins forcing changes to moderation policies, unless users throw a massive shit storm.