So after a run in with a moderator yesterday I’ve had some thoughts I felt I wanted to share.
I won’t name them here, you are welcome to look at my comment history and make up your own mind.
In this instance a user posted some misinformation. I don’t think they intended to, they merely perpetuated a myth, they clearly simply knew no better.
I tried to respond diplomatically, they doubled down, other users piled on, the downvotes are plenty and then I responded with an article citing evidence supporting my assertions.
I also stated that the burden of proof lies with the claimant and asked for some context on why they seemed dead set on the lie they were aping back, asking if they subscribe to other myth based beliefs, religions, etc. That post was unceremoniously deleted with no notice to me and no reasons given… until the user pointed out in another post that they are the sole mod of the community and warned me that they were “not afraid to ban” me should I “cross the line” in a very *‘I’m the sheriff of this here town’ *tone. Which gave me a chuckle.
That’s my side of the story, it’s all there if you want to draw your own conclusions. It really doesn’t matter who is right or wrong in a ‘someone is wrong on the internet’ spat but I did spot a chink in the fediverse through this incident.
The real point here is that this kind of behaviour is one of things that made Reddit fucking awful and I’d hate to see it flourish here in the fediverse.
I don’t have the solutions just some suggestions that I’d be keen to hear others opinions on:
- No moderation without representation. IOW: mods should be democratically elected.
- Mod elections should be annual and no mod should enjoy that status for life.
- There should be a mechanism for inducing a ‘no confidence’ mode election at any time otherwise the communities are likely to splinter into “real_” communities just as they did on Reddit which no community in the fediverse can currently afford.
What say you my brothers and sisters and everything in between? Is there a way to safeguard against cronyism, corruption and other frailties of the human ego?
Yeah, no.
Don’t turn this into a popularity contest. One that can be bought and cheesed.
Who has time for oversight on that? Why not voter id too.
Is this first past the post or proportional representation?
Term limits, right? Does that include a hand over? How much of their term will be spent getting up to speed?
Where is the incentive to someone starting their own community if it is going to be taken from them when they’ve put in hard work for no money. Should they not be rewarded for their labour?
Will the inherent democratisation of communities alter the content posted on them? Should we place bans in meta-political posts that support only the incumbent mod?
What if they choose not to leave? Insurrection? Send in the troops?
My friend, I say this genuinely, you are trying to police the internet. Don’t. It’s a folly.
You have the power to walk away. You have the power to start your own community.
Do it and run it better.
And back to the democracy thing… Democracy is a wonderful thing in the governance of human civilization… It’s not a fix for every situation you encounter that you don’t like. It often means instead of having one asshole to deal with you’ll get a carousel of different assholes on a regular basis.
Just thought, fuck it. Why no add a second elected chamber where each other community can elect a representative to have oversight on everything the mod does?
Let’s democracy the hell out of this.
I mean, that’s sort of what admins already are, right? Just not democratically elected
All good points. Besides which consensus is that my ideas in the OP are naive at best, which I accept.
One comment I would like to make is that ownership of a community is an oxymoron. Obviously. But I totally get your points and thank you for your thoughtful post.