Remember when the person behind GamingOnLinux decided to leave Lemmy after someone pointed out their community manipulation tactics in the modlog? Something that you have to assume they had been able to get away with as a Reddit mod. They then took to Mastodon or something to complain about how a modlog being public is “bad design”.
From what I have seen, removed comments definitely are still visible in the modlog. But if the mod just bans the user instead of removing the comment, all the user’s comments are automatically removed as a result and are not visible in the modlog. All that said, you are correct, this can be abused by moderators who understand the distinction and take advantage of it.
I absolutely have observed mods on Lemmy engaging in the same shitty behaviors (I am sitting on a post about a little cabal of !progressivepolitics@lemmy.world people who seem to be trying to rig the discourse in a particular direction to meet their electoral goals). But the simple fact of it being less centralized and more transparent (and with more of a culture of effective pushback against the mods) makes it a lot harder. They can’t just say “lol get fucked” like the mod from this post did and have that be the end of the story.
Plus federation means that the admins can’t just step in and shut down any competing communities unless they are on their instance. And if that happens, it just starts up on another instance.
I’ve seen the mod in that community delete comments that simply disagreed with them or called out their deletions. It’s always “harassment” or something no matter how polite people are being.
As part of the LW Community Team, I’ve tried to combat this in a couple ways.
One is that when we need moderators for a community I don’t just put up a post that says “who wants to mod?” Instead I try to draft specific individuals one at a time who are relevant to that community.
You wouldn’t believe how many people just tell me no. They have time to post to Lemmy a dozen times a day, but they just don’t have time to mod c/threepostsaweek
The other is that I try not to just keep recruiting mods we already have. It’s very easy to turn to the people already doing the modding and ask them to pick up just one more, but we’ve seen what that has done to Reddit, and I’d rather not repeat it.
But all this takes time and effort, and it doesn’t seem to have much effect yet. I probably just need to keep at it.
You think Lemmy is better? Mods here are engaging in the same shitty behaviours. Lack of moderator accountability is a serious issue on this platform.
Edit: brigading just proves my point, you dumb fucks.
Public mod log is a big accountability improvement over the absence of information Reddit has
Remember when the person behind GamingOnLinux decided to leave Lemmy after someone pointed out their community manipulation tactics in the modlog? Something that you have to assume they had been able to get away with as a Reddit mod. They then took to Mastodon or something to complain about how a modlog being public is “bad design”.
What kind of agenda would a GamingOnLinux powermod push?
IMO the biggest flaw is that the mod log doesn’t append a copy of the content that was deleted. It allows mods to just straight up lie.
From what I have seen, removed comments definitely are still visible in the modlog. But if the mod just bans the user instead of removing the comment, all the user’s comments are automatically removed as a result and are not visible in the modlog. All that said, you are correct, this can be abused by moderators who understand the distinction and take advantage of it.
But really it’s a human problem. As long as humans get power, they will misuse it. Perhaps not all, but some will.
The key is to prevent any one human (or associated group) from gaining too much power. With limited exceptions, it ends poorly.
I absolutely have observed mods on Lemmy engaging in the same shitty behaviors (I am sitting on a post about a little cabal of !progressivepolitics@lemmy.world people who seem to be trying to rig the discourse in a particular direction to meet their electoral goals). But the simple fact of it being less centralized and more transparent (and with more of a culture of effective pushback against the mods) makes it a lot harder. They can’t just say “lol get fucked” like the mod from this post did and have that be the end of the story.
Plus federation means that the admins can’t just step in and shut down any competing communities unless they are on their instance. And if that happens, it just starts up on another instance.
I’ve seen the mod in that community delete comments that simply disagreed with them or called out their deletions. It’s always “harassment” or something no matter how polite people are being.
i mean lemmy def is better. we dont have one ahole controlling everything here.
Honestly yes, I have not had much problems with mods (and admins!) deleting the words I’ve taken time out of my day to write.
Free Luigi Mangione!
You’ve been lucky.
I’ll give it more time then. I spent years on Reddit and intend to spend years here.
Modding attracts a certain type.
As part of the LW Community Team, I’ve tried to combat this in a couple ways.
One is that when we need moderators for a community I don’t just put up a post that says “who wants to mod?” Instead I try to draft specific individuals one at a time who are relevant to that community.
You wouldn’t believe how many people just tell me no. They have time to post to Lemmy a dozen times a day, but they just don’t have time to mod c/threepostsaweek
The other is that I try not to just keep recruiting mods we already have. It’s very easy to turn to the people already doing the modding and ask them to pick up just one more, but we’ve seen what that has done to Reddit, and I’d rather not repeat it.
But all this takes time and effort, and it doesn’t seem to have much effect yet. I probably just need to keep at it.
Exactly