one thing i’ve noticed, is that when you get into less moderated, harder to moderate, and less centralized services, particularly anti-censorship ones, you get a lot of shitty people congregating there. And the reason why is pretty simple, it’s because you can. Some of it is probably just edgy shitposting, because, internet. Some of it is also just genuine, because again, the internet.
So you get this weird thing where it fractures heavily, into to small communal groups, that each do their own thing. But you have a broad group of outliers, who generally exist outside of this space also, which means that it tends to be rather hit and miss what you find.
This is one of the reasons i really like the darknet conceptually. Yes there may be racism there, but you know what else isn’t there? Rules, and you know what that means? People can make their own however they please. Don’t like it? Go away, simple as that.
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
The biggest mistake new moderators make is allowing bad actors to use the rules against them. You can’t be too prescriptive, you can’t give them ammo to go “well this doesn’t technically violate any rule.” And when they complain you have a “don’t disrupt the community” rule and say it’s “too vague” just tag them as potentially a problem and see what they do. In my experience, they inevitably deserve a ban.
This is my experience moderating communities as well. The worst trolls get a kick out of testing how far they can stretch the rules and provoke mayhem without getting banned. Excessively explicit rules also trample over people who would usually cause no trouble, but get too tense under exceptional situations.
one thing i’ve noticed, is that when you get into less moderated, harder to moderate, and less centralized services, particularly anti-censorship ones, you get a lot of shitty people congregating there. And the reason why is pretty simple, it’s because you can. Some of it is probably just edgy shitposting, because, internet. Some of it is also just genuine, because again, the internet.
So you get this weird thing where it fractures heavily, into to small communal groups, that each do their own thing. But you have a broad group of outliers, who generally exist outside of this space also, which means that it tends to be rather hit and miss what you find.
This is one of the reasons i really like the darknet conceptually. Yes there may be racism there, but you know what else isn’t there? Rules, and you know what that means? People can make their own however they please. Don’t like it? Go away, simple as that.
r/TalesFromYourServer: Kicking a Nazi out as soon as they walk in
Removed by mod
Think of it as ‘Exit’ or “No Smoking” or “Bus Stop” signs.
Not aesthetically pleasing, but needed for the common good.
Someone should make a find replacement copypasta with “Zionist” and “Palestinian” that would get some engagement
The biggest mistake new moderators make is allowing bad actors to use the rules against them. You can’t be too prescriptive, you can’t give them ammo to go “well this doesn’t technically violate any rule.” And when they complain you have a “don’t disrupt the community” rule and say it’s “too vague” just tag them as potentially a problem and see what they do. In my experience, they inevitably deserve a ban.
Users may hate “moderator discretion” as a rule, but by fuck do users hate not having it as well
spoiler
sdfsaf
This is my experience moderating communities as well. The worst trolls get a kick out of testing how far they can stretch the rules and provoke mayhem without getting banned. Excessively explicit rules also trample over people who would usually cause no trouble, but get too tense under exceptional situations.
It’s amazing how disruptive 2-3 people can be in a community of hundreds or even thousands.