After being harassed in multiple discord channels by powermod FlyingSquid the news mod blackbeard has shuttered his account and moved to bluesky.
https://lemmy.world/u/Blackbeard
"The recklessness with which people downvote polite disagreements reminds me of all the worst parts of Reddit, and it proves to me that this isn’t the social media savior I’d hoped it would be, and is instead just another echo chamber. I hope eventually lemmy.world (and the fediverse more broadly) can grow out of that, but some of the behavior I’ve seen on the inside from both mods and admins doesn’t really inspire much confidence for that kind of evolution in the short term. "
FlyingSquid is the same mod who has the power to siteban people from lemmy.world
Why does lemmy.world keep having issues with their powermods and admins? Why do powermods get the ability to siteban their enemies from the largest instance?
If you want some insight, check this user’s comments and sort by controversial. Then do the same for FlyingSquid.
Have some citations for that abuse of authority? OP alluded to abuse of authority by pointing out various powers FlyingSquid has, but in my mind very tellingly didn’t actually provide any examples of abuse of authority. The screenshotted conversation, where a person with some site admin powers is reporting things as a regular user, and then when a mod gets really hostile and insulting with them, simply says “Oh, okay, I think I just won’t participate in your stuff then, if my presence is unwanted,” doesn’t exactly paint the picture of some kind of power-mad petulant tyrant.
Hey, yo, I got one! I once argued with FS about something where he continuously attempted to goad me, argued disingenuously, and acted childishly, and when I rightfully called him out on all of that, he removed my comment. It was a rather small abuse of power, but I have seen him act righteously indignant, especially when he is called out for acting like a child. He does not differentiate this from a personal attack, especially when he was very much responsible for escalating several interactions he has with others.
What community did this take place in?
Edit: I think I found it.
https://lemmy.world/comment/12606768
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=1040702
It’s sort of an ESH situation, and after that length of bickering I can’t see why either of you continued the conversation. But I don’t at all agree with your summary. It looks to me like he wanted to talk facts, you wanted to insult him and avoid the factual discussion, and he ended the conversation and then removed one comment afterwards where you started going after him personally (“insipid” “impetuous” “childish”).
I’m not sure what you were trying to accomplish by refusing to answer his questions and instead inflaming the bickering, but ending the conversation and removing the escalation sounds like the right response to me.
Additionally, I called him childish because he was mocking others, and I pointed that out to him with his own quote.
He was not arguing in good faith, and to believe otherwise is to, frankly, underestimate him.
I did answer his questions. He didn’t like the answers. They weren’t either-or question, and it can, indeed, be answered with answers he doesn’t like, because those questions were leading.
There’s a mod log, but also from this post I just found out a bot is used to hide the admin/mod doing the actions.
It’s clear FS has been doing this for some time and Blackbeard was getting sick and tired of it. Telling someone who regularly reports users to mind what they consider report worthy is something I imagine a lot of mods have to do. Saying “Well then, I guess I won’t report anything if that’s the way it’s going to be” is pretty childish IMO. Especially considering FS is a mod themselves.
FS is just very combative in nature. I’ve seen it several times. They’re not an easy person to have a discussion with.
So, no citations for abuse of power? Just that they had a disagreement with someone in Discord?
I mean sure, here’s an example. https://lemm.ee/post/44255924/15323391
I thought this one was ironic given the topic of conversation from this post.
Oh no! What happened after saroh was banned?
It would be silly if your case for “abuse of power” was that two months ago, FlyingSquid sent one rude message to one user because he made a mistake, so I know it’s not that.
People on Lemmy really seem to hate his guts, that much is apparent. Not just in this thread but everywhere else as well.
I don’t think they actually do. I think it’s a very vocal contingent, which has at least a little bit of overlap with the “Kamala Harris is literally Hitler” contingent. Also, I don’t participate enough in lemmy.world to be aware of what their normal moderation style is, but just based on this one instance it sounds like FlyingSquid unlike most LW mods is interested in taking some kind of action against the “Kamala Harris is literally Hitler” contingent.
Make of that what you will.
The general message I’m getting in the comments here are pretty favorable to FS. He’s a good guy. And his private discussion should not have been made public.
This entire post is because of FlyingSquid throwing a tantrum because Blackbeard told them to mind how they report comments. That’s all the was asked. This is after months of this behavior. Then FlyingSquid goes on this whole rant about how they feel unsafe and took a less than hour silence as being ignored and began acting even more childishly.
Meanwhile I gave one example of FlyingSquid literally running into the same thing for a community they mod and threatening to ban the person with absolutely zero discussion. They could have just started with a warning like Blackbeard did but instead went straight for threatening to ban the user.
Are you not seeing the double standard?
It is obvious that you and I see the screenshotted conversation very differently from one another.
I don’t think FlyingSquid should have sent one rude message to that one user that one time, no. I don’t see that as any kind of abuse of power.
I think I’ve said about as much as I want to say about this situation at this point.
Yes, we clearly do.
As an individual action and for majority of users, I would agree with you. But given how FlyingSquid behaved after being asked not to over-report comments and then proceeded to say how they’re not going to report anymore, they don’t feel safe or welcome in c/news, and views it as hostile. Their treatment of the user in the post I linked just comes across as being very abusive. If FlyingSquid viewed what Blackbeard so badly, what does that say about about their treatment of users in the communities they mod when they approach with much more hostility?
Because it is a hostile approach what are you on about. People aren’t clairvoyants to be able to see the future and read minds of mods who will take a look at the reports. They won’t know that their reports are causing a single mod to boil over in anger, especially when apparently there were two reports in two weeks?
So now you have a situation where one person sees something and reports it, and the other has been pissed off for two weeks, but not communicating their annoyance.
So the mod overreacts and reaches out to say “don’t report!!!” To which the other person says “I think this is a valid report”. Which then evolves to “ok I won’t report anymore”.
First, why the fuck would you confront someone over two reports in two weeks? Second, why not end the conversation like an adult - saying “reporting this as misinfo is against our rules” and end it there? Third, why leave the site and their modding duties alltogether over a single interaction - with someone who hasn’t been confronted before about this issue and was unaware of it? Fourth why call “ok I’ll not be reporting” childish / immature as if reporting is some divine duty of the user?
The way it should’ve been handled is a) don’t confront people over nothing. Check HALT - hungry angry lonely tired and don’t start anything when that’s the case. B) if they need to confront, talk to your fellow mods first to present a unified front. C) be succint and state what you find to be a problem. Don’t be an ahole about it. D) when the other person reacts with “I don’t want to report anymore” reply with “I am sorry to hear that and I’d rather you wouldn’t stop, but ultimately that’s your choice to make”. Don’t antagonize further for no reason.
100% dead on!