I’m gonna get real with you folks, we’ve had way too many of these posts recently. I’ve been reflecting on this topic a lot the past few days. For me personally, I couldn’t care less about my gender identity. But just because that’s true for me, doesn’t make that true for everyone.

The beauty of the fediverse is that if you don’t like the way a particular instance or community is moderated you can simply choose another to hang out on, or create your own.

Blajah has made it pretty clear by now they will ban anyone who argues against the validity of xenogenders, in order to create a safe space for those folks. That’s fair enough imo.

Safe spaces should be respected, and Blajah’s admins/mods do not deserve abuse for creating and maintaining those spaces.

I can completely understand why Blajah users don’t want to have to constantly argue with external users about the validity of their chosen identities. Bans are one way Blajah has decided to manage that problem so that their users can experience lemmy in relative peace and safety. While it is a blunt tool and I have my reservations about preemptive bans, there are not many other options for @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone, other than defederation from most instances. That would be a terrible outcome for the fediverse as a whole.

In order to help Blajah to maintain their safe space, I would like to propose, if @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com agrees and community sentiment is positive:

  • that we no longer accept posts about this topic in this community; and - we also remove previous posts on this topic from the community.

That’s all folks, have at 'er.

Edit: thanks for all your feedback and comments. I think it’s clear that the vast majority of people are fed up with this topic coming up repeatedly.

Summarizing the feedback, I’d say most folks would prefer to retain previous posts for the sake of posterity, and to serve as an example of why we don’t want anymore of these posts. I’m happy to take that on board. For those folks saying I’m a PTB for intervening in this way, I’ll just remind you that I haven’t made any arbitrary mod decisions, and I’ve consulted with db0 and the community as a whole before taking any mod actions.

I think the way to move forward with this is to acknowledge that there’s a bunch of queer and straight people who have a problem with xenogenders. Personally, I think that’s a valid perspective and shouldn’t sanctioned on our instance. But for Blajah, they’ve drawn a line in the sand over this and that’s ok too. Our instance won’t be blocking anyone over their opinions on the topic, especially in this community where free discussion is necessary and encouraged. But safe spaces should be respected.

A lot of folks mentioned I should more more specific about the “no more posts about Blajah’s mod policies” rather than making it a sweeping and overly broad statement. I think that’s good feedback. I will amend this to "No more posts in this community about the validity or otherwise of neopronouns, xenogenders, and bans originating from Blajah about gatekeeping or transphobia. This is in recognition of Blajah’s safe space policy. You are of course free to discuss those topics outside of this community.

Note that this decision isn’t about ideological gatekeeping, its about reducing the workload for our own mods and admins in trying to moderate this community, and to avoid iterating over the same old topics again and again.

Blajah isn’t getting a “free pass” over YPTB posts - if you feel they are power tripping over other issues then feel free to make a post here. But if it’s a post questioning the validity of xenogenders or about Blajah bans for gatekeeping then that will no longer be allowed here. Those folks deserve a safe space on Lemmy, even if it’s not a mainstream opinion.

For those folks who feel aggrieved about being accused of “transphobia” or “gatekeeping” over their views on this topic, I completely understand just how hurtful it can be to be unfairly (imo) accused in this way. I’ve been in the same position, and I also found it difficult to deal with. I want those folks to know that our instance does not require you to support xenogenders in order to participate in our instance. However we do require that you use preferred pronouns whenever they are specified. That’s been a longstanding instance policy on dbzer0.

Thank everyone for your feedback.

  • BomberMan9865@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    In favor of doing this, but keep the old posts locked without removing them so people know what happened and what led up to this.

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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    6 days ago

    I’m OK with that but it has to be a bit more targeted specifically to blahaj’s rule about gatekeeping and neopronouns, and I would add everything drag of course.

    I wouldn’t delete old posts, just lock them.

    Maybe make it a temporary moratorium?

    • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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      5 days ago

      agree. seeing that the trolls the posters here are crying about have been banneed for weeks to months, a temporary moratorium is probably fine. maybe six months but im pulling that number from nowhere.

      EDIT: I have changed my mind about this. See https://lemmy.cafe/comment/10132150 and the preceding thread.

  • Draconic NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    I agree, this community should be a place to discuss mod abuse, not bellyache over transphobia and hate speech being censored or being banned from it. Such discourse makes this community extremely toxic and unusable to vulnerable groups, it also creates inherent bias here favoring alt-right shitheads.

    I think @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone would very much agree with this decision as well.

  • jadedwench [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago
    1. Leave the threads up, probably locked. Don’t erase history.
    2. I wouldn’t start on wholesale topic bans just yet. This should be an absolute last resort and this will probably do more harm than good.
    3. Possibly create some extra categories for titles so users can filter it out if they don’t want to hear about it. Instance name of the potential PTB? Not sure.

    My suggestion for this topic right now is to get everyone together that needs to and talk/scream/yell about it in private. I think everything has been said publicly at this point and the reading comprehension has gone down the toilet. The amount of misunderstandings, blanket downvotes, pettiness, bad assumptions, baiting and finger pointing is getting ridiculous. Have your damn say and find a conclusion, even if said conclusion is ‘fuck you’ from each person.

    For shit like this in the future? If it comes to it, it is far better to lock first, talk to the person, and then unlock it. We can tell each other all day to be an adult, but it isn’t that simple. There will always be some big event that floods the community at some point or another. This community practically begs for it. It will eventually be filed into PTB history.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    Well, I’m for this move. The why is obvious, as you’ve covered it in the post already.

    I would also like to voice support for a couple ideas from previous comments

    First, that previous posts stay up, and locked, so that people can still see that the issues were.

    Second, that y’all consider the possibility of an FPT (frequently power tripped) thread at some frequency where folks can still hash out the common subjects. This and the mod abuse C/ are valuable pressure relief valves. I worry that a total banning of “frequent fliers” (sic) might have effects down the road.

    I know that’s extra work for mods, so it’s definitely a big ask, but lemmy does need places where disgruntled users can complain. Having multiple places is better because one community would get swamped if they’re the only place people can go for specific complaints.

  • Makeshift@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    I’m fine with not allowing it in the future, but I would appreciate not deleting the ones that already exist.

    For archival’s sake. And for so when questions are asked about why, people can see for themselves what happened and decide whether what they see justifies blocking blahaj for them personally or not.

    The way Blahaj creates a safe space is a way that ends up creating a very toxic space for others, and I don’t think erasing grievances people have had with them in the past would be good.

    The fact that it’s so common means a lot of people are feeling attacked/invalidated/whatnot because of Blahaj, and leaving evidence of what they’ve done to others could help reassure people that it’s not them. Blahaj is just like that.

    … If anyone up to the challenge of being a mod of a meanwhileonblahaj, that might be another decent alternative. I saw the idea floating around.

  • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    I’m completely in favor of this.

    Frankly, most of what I see on this comm is BPR and YDI, and most people could probably benefit from taking their bans and touching grass. But having some posts be YDI makes the PTB’s more exciting so maybe i’m wrong.

    Maybe we should make some penalty for earning a YDI or BPR, so that people who receive them aren’t encouraged to re-hash the same conflicts over and over? I’m honestly not sure. Part of the problem is that the same people cross-post the same conflict on similar comms, which makes it feel as if the same issue is being litigated repeatedly.

    But complaining about receiving a ban from a protective community with strict conduct policies is certainly not the intent of this community, i don’t think.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    I think previous posts should remain up, to preserve the discussion in that post, but I understand why you don’t want any further posts about this.

    I think everyone has shared their views on the topic already.

  • Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 days ago

    The way I see it, is that the rules and aim of the instance are all written out pretty fucking clearly and people on a platform dominated by longform text don’t really have an excuse for not being able to comprehend it. Like seriously, I had been using Lemmy for two days when I checked out Blåhaj, and I feel like I understood then already because it’s not hard and English is my native language.

    So that said, when I see people complaining about it, I think they’re either fucking stupid, or they’re probably these ‘free speech’ people that want the right to go around insulting everyone without consequences (while doing the most epic pearl clutching the moment anyone insults them).

    As far as I’m concerned, moderators and admins doing exactly what is clearly fucking written in the description and rules is not power abuse.

  • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 days ago

    I wouldn’t be against a temporary ban on posts about getting banned from LBZ over neopronouns, but my general inclination is to keep the previous posts up but locked as a wall of shame. I also understand wanting to take them down altogether and I wouldn’t be that fussed about it if they were.

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    I think you’re doing the right thing. The trolls are really stepping up, which is obvious in this thread. I’m trying to share it a lot because if you really read it and understand the process of what they’re doing, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and energy.

    “Once we isolate key people, we look for people we know are in their upstream – people that they read posts from, but who themselves are less influential. We then either start flame wars with bots to derail the conversations that are influencing influential people, or else send off specific tasks for sockpuppets (changing this wording of an idea here; cause an ideological split there; etc).”

    https://archive.is/PoUMo

    Edit: I forgot to add this part of the thread:

    The goal is to keep opinions we don’t want fragmented and from coalescing in to a single voice for long enough that the memes we do want can,…

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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      6 days ago

      The trolls are really stepping up, which is obvious in this thread.

      That stood out to me too. A ton of people jumped in with instantly inflammatory takes which seem almost tailor-made to continue this ridiculous dispute.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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          6 days ago

          I actually have a pretty high opinion of PugJesus otherwise…

          I do too. He’s not wrong here. I just think it’s not productive to have extensive bitter arguments about it. I think it’s a selected group of users starting all the drama (I have no idea if because they are trolls or if because they are drama-loving people who like being able to sling around “transphobia!” because it makes them feel like they’re being good allies). Whatever it is, those people are having some level of success in restarting the drama here in these comments. I think continuing the drama in this fashion is playing precisely into their hands, so I support the proposal to ban talking about it here. But he’s not wrong.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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              5 days ago

              Well, but he made a specific post about a specific mod action that was, in fact, real messed up. That to me is legit even if I think there are better ways of addressing it in this case.

              The drama I am talking about is an army of people coming in to screech that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is horrible and bad and transphobic and fascist. I think PJ has a pretty valid point that acceding to that screeching, because it “will cause drama,” is basically ceding control of the space to whoever feels like using the threat of screeching if they don’t get their way.

              • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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                5 days ago

                hey props, this changed my view! i’ll go back and edit my comments. you are right. this should continue to be allowed here as far as the mods feel is possible to keep moderated. you’re right. it’s better for both spaces for all the screeching to be left here because it keeps it away from the trans space.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        It’s not just here in this community, it’s throughout the all page. The fediverse is worrying some people and it’s showing.

    • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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      6 days ago

      Remember when you banned me because I disagreed with you and it annoyed you and you wanted to win the argument?

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        I’m very open about banning easily. I have no qualms about it. If I think you’re a troll, you’re gone. I’ll own to being a power tripping bastard. I’ll take that over trolling any day.

        BTW, I usually do temp bans in case I make a mistake. If it was permanent, then I was pretty sure.

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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            6 days ago

            Were you the one where we were joking around? Sorry, there’s no tagging system and I don’t remember names completely.

            • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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              6 days ago

              I was earnestly suggesting that I thought Tony Hinchcliffe might be trolling the Republican party, and that his standup when viewed from a different angle, was a complete roast of all their own talking points.

              But you disagreed deeply, and thought I was trolling.

              • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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                6 days ago

                Being a mod sucks, have I mentioned that lately? I make mistakes, which is why I give temp bans. Sorry if I made a mistake. Sometimes, jokes, trolling and me having a bad day aren’t easy to differentiate.

                • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  6 days ago

                  The whole thread was pretty heated IIRC, so it’s fine. Like I said, it was kind of funny the way it happened, anyway.

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Why do you need to delete old posts?

    Where can users banned by blahaj admins for lurking in other communities report it? Especially because the lahaj admins ban so many people for gatekeeping despite them not gatekeeping.

    There’s a theme here of covering up dissent instead of engaging.

    Blahaj admins started this whole ordeal in december for banning dissent and losing dozens of users instead of engaging with their community.

    PTB

  • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    I agree in at least a memorandum or a break on this so everyone, myself included, can outside and breathe from air. Play games they enjoy. Read a good book. Listen to music.

    Taking a break from the keyboard helps me when I’m upset about online stuff that doesn’t impact the real world.

  • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    I have a related question:

    Where do the users who get banned from YPTB go, when they eventually get banned from YPTB?

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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      6 days ago

      I think it would be funny if there was a rule that the only way to get banned from YPTB was by coming in and saying “well, it’s the moderators’ community, so they can really do anything they want and you’re wrong for disagreeing with them in any way.” And then that person could get banned with reason “Okey dokey then.”

      I don’t think it’s actually a good idea. Freedom to say whatever in YPTB, even if you’re being kind of obnoxious about it, seems important, and imitating bad behavior to make a point is still bad behavior. I just think it would be funny.

      • OccultIconoclast@reddthat.com
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        5 days ago

        Back in the day, Dragon Rider actually got banned from YPTB for starting too much drama, as db0 put it.

        Didn’t seem to work.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      6 days ago

      There is a mod hot allert community…

      On fedi there is always a place to go. Start your own community on a obscure server !

      That’s how decentralization works… Vote with your feet.

      Isolationist communities will lose on the long run anyway.