Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
As noted in my post on the “moderation incident”, by adding more subjectivity to the rules, you are opening the door to even more instance moderator misconduct. There is already evidence of how that would go.
Rooki felt it right to intervene in the !vegan cat food thread (and got a pat on the back with the new rules made to justify their actions), then not only took no issue with comments like “Meat is not something diabetics need to worry about.” but also fueled the fire in the same thread by saying “To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died.”
So much for taking action against harmful dietary advice.
I think this raises some good points.
I get that admins are doing their best, but what’s really needed is a policy guiding admin behaviour. Under what circumstances will admins intervene, and what decision process will they follow to determine what interventions they will implement.
Without that, I’m afraid updating the ToS to green light the behaviour of admins retrospectively is just going to cause more frustration and resentment for everyone.
I love how the same groupthink from Reddit like “vegans bad” made it way over here verbatim, to the point where an admin goes out of their way to censor them. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but this was some blatant bias.
I’m pretty much a reddit refugee in that my reddit activity is limited to checking the community I moderate, simply as a token to all the users, but as I noted in that post, even reddit doesn’t seem to interfere in its communities unless pushed to do so by all the other communities. The “free speech absolutist” straw man also hardly applies to reddit, as it still takes action against harassment, illegal content, and things like that - exactly what I would expect from a platform like Lemmy.
Quite concerning to be honest
The real interesting thing is that just ~14 months ago this wasn’t the case. Anti-Vegans and a shift to more right wing “opinions” sadly go hand in hand.
Lemmy is still very left though, even when not federated with the tankiest instances. My impression is that it’s not an influx of more right leaning people, but rather that the increased popularity brought in a wider audience, which also brought in more people who are unwilling to consider or respect alternate viewpoints, no matter how well argued or founded those opinions are.
I read a post by a vegan in this thread who wanted to try a vegan diet for their cat, so they went to the vet for a plan, tried that vet approved plan, but their cat didn’t like the food so they switched back. Imo perfectly reasonable and well argumented, no risk or harm to the kitten at all, and yet massive downvotes.
I’ve had similar with Rooki showing a distinct lack of depth and level headedness. I left here entirely for a month as a result of an interaction with them.
Seeing how this post is playing out seems insane to me. People may not like some aspect of this idea, but when presented with evidence, the response here has been eye opening an almost evangelical fervor with many that seem wholly incapable of objective thinking. I have not seen a single person claim they have tried feeding a cat a vegan diet, or that it is a good idea. All that I’ve seen is people mentioning in abstract that this has been researched. Hell, many things in common foods are derived from petroleum. Go watch Nile Red. Anything can about be made into anything, insert drain cleaner to grape soda here. I have no interest in eating crickets, meal worms, or algae, but these are a thing too. When I’m confronted with something new, I set myself aside and do not cast my emotions into the fray like an ignorant foolish child.
There is nothing special about murder diets. It is just organic chemistry. It may cost a fortune for someone to properly feed a cat, but I have no faith that the largely unregulated in practice pet food industry is much better or more ethical than someone doing proper scientific research. Mentioning the frontiers of science and causing a pitchfork mob like post shows I’m probably in the wrong kind of place here. I have far higher expectations for intellectual engagement than this disappointing display of biased and backwards ignorance.
If you’re talking about the upvotes and the supportive comments, I’m not even sure they reflect how the community would feel had they seen the full sequence of events* leading up to that decision.
As I previously mentioned, seemingly the first comment to start the chain of !vegan moderators’ and subsequent Rooki actions was the impolite “don’t force your shit on them” one-line comment by a user first exonerated, but later banned for trolling in another community by none other than Rooki.
The vegan comments were way lengthier, containing balanced (“it’s important to do a bit of extra research”, “cat nutrition is too complicated to be trying to make at home”) and seemingly thoughtful takes with a link to the NCBI.
Conversely, Rooki’s line of arguing contained little but outbursts like “have a nice rest of your life knowing you killed your loved pet” and “If anyone else thinks pets should be vegan i have no problem banning them for being a troll and promoting killing pets”, with unsubstantiated yet specific claims like “YES cats can survive vegan diet for few months”.
Sure, Rooki admitted to being emotional and said sorry after my post asking for their removal, but what’s the weight of that apology if the new rules echo those same talking points, from “misinformation” to the quite specific example “Unhealthy diets, e.g. due to insufficient nutrients”?
*Screenshots sent to me by a !vegan mod after my post - verifiable via the public modlog.
I saw the original post too, and thought it was mildly interesting objective research with intelligent perspective and dialog, like one of the few actually good posts.
I’ve got two cats, and I would never consider doing this, but I’m not dumb enough to claim to be some expert with ontological godlike knowledge of feline nutrition like I just watched a musical or David Attenborough.
I’m not here to bash on Rooki or gang up on them. All I have to say is that they had a negative impact on me in the past, and I find this post’s comments rather pathetic in many respects.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone that should not be playing the face of public interaction admitting so and limiting engagement or moving on to find things that are a better fit. Some people have a harder time separating themselves from objective thinking. Like I can be super opinionated and hyperbolic, but if I act as a mod, I’m a totally different person. I strongly believe any visible mod is a bad mod. A good mod is an invisible janitor and a servant of the community. I’ve told other mods here and elsewhere, I won’t even take mod action if I am personally involved in an issue. I contact another mod to take care of the situation as they see fit. For me, that includes stepping down if they ask and I have no qualms about saying that openly and honestly. I’m only a mod to herd bots and defuse the situation. As a person, I can feel strongly and be vocal, but as an authority, I have an obligation to be conservative and step very lightly. Some people can’t speak quietly when they hold a big stick, but that is a requirement to lead well.
Well put
Great advice. Although many small communities’ only mod is also naturally their most active member; however, I still think one should “speak quietly” (or dare I say, “act moderately”) when it comes to topics that can get heated.
Verbose but not outspoken? Anyway, you get the vibe
Lulz
This is not the first time Rooki has emotionally pushed their own agenda in the face of criticism. Rooki seems to very much want to tell others exactly how to think.
They should stick to programming as they are NOT a good fit for Admin.
I agree, I literally guessed it was related to Rooki when “moderation incident” was mentioned.
They also handled the MBFC situation terribly
Hey look I’m famous!
Also I got banned from that community today for being critical of the bot.
Only today? What the fuck is happening. Not saying I agree with the ban
Not for that comment, if you’re referring to the month between that comment and now.
Ooh okay, thanks for clarifying
Exactly. Those positions should generally be separated. Relying on a programmer that helps with running the instance on a technical level or developing for the instance inevitably weighs on the decision-making process when assessing their position as a moderator. Having that extra pull enables the moderator to misbehave with impunity.