Summary:

  • @Cat@ponder.cat was posting at a high volume to !news@lemmy.world
  • there is no written rule on !news@lemmy.world about post volume
  • there is no written rule on ponder.cat about post volume
  • !news is the one single community Cat was this active in
  • !news has no ponder.cat mods
  • from my understanding, all rules Cat did break were unrelated to volume (correct me if I am wrong)
  • ponder.cat admin @PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat reaches out to Cat via comment and then DM essentially threatening account deletion if Cat doesn’t lower their activity level
  • Cat understandably deletes their account because who wants that

Of course, PhilipTheBucket had the right to do this, but I also think it’s exceedingly bad form and people have a right to know that this admin is willing to go above the community mods’ head like that.

Internet etiquette has dictates for dealing with undesirable yet not rule-breaking behavior that was just ignored here. Communication should be chosen before simple fist waving and threats.

I agree with this comment that this is a bait-provoked reaction. Next time I recommend:

  • at the instance/admin level, the creation of instance rules about volume
  • at the community level, advocacy for community rules about volume (i.e. “[Meta] Petition: Limit daily submissions to !news to ensure community quality”)
  • avoid personal slapfights to get your way
  • avoid escalation directly to account termination threats

Source: https://ponder.cat/post/1731587

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
    6·
    6 hours ago

    Phil’s “mistake”, if we’re insisting there is one, was not approaching the account-hopper with “You post a lot, and most of it is questionable trash. Please don’t shovel shit from this instance anymore if you want to remain.”

    That’s actually exactly what I did. You’ll note that OP’s complaint is that they describe that as “threats.” No sanction was ever given to the person who was spamming (“posting at a high volume”). We just talked with them, and the consensus was overwhelmingly that they needed to cool down, and then they deleted their account.

    Here’s the conversation where it happened (what’s left of it, see next link): https://ponder.cat/post/1728396

    I don’t have a lot to add to the conversation that already took place here: https://ponder.cat/post/1731587

    It’s made a little bit more complex because there’s a separate issue of !news@lemmy.world mods not really reacting to propaganda-spammy users, and so I decided there was an issue with this user when the mods were saying there was not. The behavior was in no way limited to !news@lemmy.world though. I’ve seen reports for them in:

    And so on, I think you get the point. Several of their posts had been removed before from a variety of communities, because they were spamming and posting low-quality crap. I can’t show you in the modlog because they deleted their user, but they were a source of reports for a while. I was leaving it alone for the mods to handle, until it became clear that the community overwhelmingly considered them a source of negativity. Then I talked with them about it (not for the first time) and explicitly said that they needed to stop in order to keep their account. It just happened randomly that the post where it came to a head happened in a community with bad moderation (which, possibly, explains why the post stayed up for us to be able to have an argument about it in the comments).

    I think most of the issue motivating this post is that I riled up OP by being kind of sarcastic with them. That part’s on me and maybe it would have been better for me to be more zen. But as far as the original situation, IDK what the expected reaction could possibly be, other than what I did.