this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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196

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2781 users here now

This community only has one rule.

Rule: You must post before you leave.

founded 1 day ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm kinda regretting not naming it oneninesix, but here we are. I guess I love letters.

~~To anyone wondering what's up, I did this on my phone while out in the "big city", so I'm still waiting to get home to do anything serious. I have a few ~~suckers~~ really nice people who volunteered for modding along with me. Anyone else who is interested, drop me a line. I'll be picking mods when I get home in a few hours. Sorry for the wait and I'll do my best to put out any fires in the meantime. I didn't think this would take off!~~

For those wondering, here's my take on moderating the place.

  1. Moderation is to facilitate an experience for its users in line with the goals of the community and the instance. It's not to push a personal agenda, give you a bigger hammer in debates, set up a digital fiefdom, etc. You certainly can and should include your mod experience on your dating profile, though. Unilateral decisions are not cool except in a few situations, like if 100% of your userbase is usurped by literal Nazis.

  2. 196 exists to be a place where you post something (often but not always something goofy) when you visit. I know not everyone does and that's fine - I still love you. These things can't be offensive or hurtful, though, especially not intentionally so. Unintentional vs intentional I believe is a HUGE distinction and needs to be considered when moderating.

  3. ~~LBJ~~ LBZ exists as an inclusive, (relatively) judgment-free zone for gender-diverse folks. I intend for us to uphold that here. I say relatively judgment free because there will be people looking to start shit and mods and admins are going to have to judge their actions, but only their actions.

If you wanna be my modder, you gotta get with my bullet points...or argue persuasively why I should amend them (but that part doesn't fit the tune).The three big things I'm looking for otherwise are diverse viewpoints, if you can remain reasonably impartial, and if you can say you're sorry. The last is huge for me. As a mod, you're going to mess up. I used to mod on Reddit and I certainly did! I find it's important for maintaining the community's respect to be able to admit when you made a bad call and what you'll do to avoid it in the future.

@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone, pointers would be welcome as I think you do a great job.

Community feedback is encouraged and welcome, just be aware I'll be a little slow to respond for a bit.

PS: wow, I really DO love letters!

Edit: Corrected point three, damn autocorrect! Believe it or not, we're not an inclusive community in LBJ's corpse.

Update 20/1/25: We're replete with mods for now! Thank you all who reached out. I'll start pulling these stickies as they get irrelevant, I'm just a full disclosure kind of person so I want people to know what is/has been going on.

(page 2) 41 comments
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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Feels like it should have been 197 πŸ˜…

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[–] GuyFi@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Literally didn't know there was a blahaj 196, and now you guys are my entire feed lol. Love this fediverse lore

Also if you read this I wish you a wonderfully fulfilling day

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

It was the main one.

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[–] will_steal_your_username@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You could always just copy the old 196 rules. They work pretty well.

I wrote these rules for a venting room on the blΓ₯haj matrix, perhaps they could be of some inspiration here. A venting room on a different medium will have very different needs of course from a community like this.

Rules

User rules

  • Assume others have good intentions. Strive to keep this a safe space to vent.
  • Tangents are allowed, but the primary purpose of the room is venting.
  • Don't respond to vents if the venter does not wish to be interacted with. You can mark a vent with /dni to signify this.
  • Keep mature vents in 18+ rooms if possible. Use https://trggr.link/ if such rooms are unavailable.
  • Censor/spoiler sensitive issues and provide content warnings as appropriate. https://trggr.link/ is an excellent way to censor something. Some clients support surrounding text in || on either side of it to censor it like this: ||spoilered text||. Some clients may have a spoiler command: /spoiler spoilered text.

Issues you probably should spoiler: Slurs, racism, ableism, bigotry, suicide, self harm, abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, blood and gore.

Moderator rules

  • Use a gentle hand, don't reprimand!
  • Assume good intentions.
  • When moderating, use DMs or moderator rooms for anything beyond single-comment moderation and for anything serious.
  • Don't leave moderated users in the dark regarding issues they are directly involved in.
  • Warn, then kick, then temp-ban, then perma-ban (avoid), in that order, when dealing with non-compliant users and serious infractions. Skip steps if necessary for larger infractions.
  • Users may appeal your decisions and some arguing should be tolerated. Attempt to deescalate when this happens. Harassing you however is never okay.
  • If you feel yourself become angry at or get a bad relationship with a user you are moderating then pass on the issue to another mod if they are available.
  • Take care of yourself. You are moderating voluntarily after all.

Proper guidelines for moderators is probably key, and then for users a quick summary of the purpose of the community is important, followed by any additions to the instance rules.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Assume others have good intentions.

Solid approach! Not naming names, but let's just say some people and groups assume everyone is out to get them and moderate accordingly.

[–] will_steal_your_username@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That one is especially important in a venting room, perhaps not as necessary in lemmy communities.

It's true that mods should be careful and assume good intent when reasonable, however care should also be taken to not allow concern trolling and sealioning. I think a good approach there is a warning (preferably in the form of a gentle reminder that their comment can be misinterpreted) for suspected cases of concern trolling and sealioning and removing the offending comment if necessary, followed by a temp ban if the user continues.

Rarely, people sealion or parrot bigoted points without knowing better. Giving room for people to learn is important, but so is not getting run over by actual trolls

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[–] Cornflake@pawb.social 1 points 1 day ago

Hell yeah, let's make it happen, folks!

I'll mod a few things. If interested send me a message

[–] TheCoolerMia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I have a few ~~suckers~~ really nice people who volunteered for modding along with me.

r those the people I mentioned in my post or r there even more?

I didn't think this would take off!

yeh the community has been specially active today to make sure the new 196 grows apparently X3 I knew thatd happen the moment I saw the migration post in the old 196 tho, I love this community :3

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[–] fxomt@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

Hello, i wouldn't mind modding 196 along with you all. However i am not trans, so i may not be the best choice.

In any way, thanks for creating this and good luck with it 🀠

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I would be happy to help mod, I modded some stuff on the old site.

Regardless, here's what I'd like to see out of the moderation here:

  • I fully agree with your points on moderation, but I think it's important to add to #1 that no major decisions should be made by the mods, even if all of them are in agreement. They should be discussed with the community.

  • Semi-regular "ask the mods" post (or just one that's stickied). Basically if anyone disagrees with or has questions about a mod action, they can comment there and the mods pledge to answer any question.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Subbed!

Is there something to know about the "old" 196?

Sorry I'm out of the loop.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Alright, thanks for the behind the scenes!

I'll chug along :-)

[–] TVA@thebrainbin.org 2 points 1 day ago

The mods are mad that Ada bans people that break the site-wide rules without first consulting them and want to move somewhere where they can moderate as they please, so, they're moving (and attempting to take the community with them) to .World

That was my read of the situation anyways.

[–] clickyello@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

they migrated to lemmy.world which a lot of people took issue with because the old 196 here on LBZ was one of the biggest non-LW communities (maybe the biggest non-LW community I'm not sure)

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Thanks! So That's why the memes on going big and moving to .world, okay!

More questions what is LW in this context?

Thank you!

[–] inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (6 children)

LW is short for lemmy.world

A lot of people (myself included) have had bad experiences with world. It’s the biggest server when you join lemmy so not knowing better a lot of normie people join it and they tend to have shitty takes, and those shitty takes are backed up by even shittier mods and admins. I ended up getting banned from world on my original account for not being a democrat simp (specifically - bought out by the insurance industry owned democrat senator joe Lieberman of insurance industry owned Connecticut single-handedly tanked the single payer option of Obamacare when it was being passed.) They allow fascists to comment and ban people who hold them accountable. And god forbid you shit talk the democrats from the left…

The original blahaj 196 was a queer space run off a queer server… moving it to world is just going to invite harassment against much of the queer community. World is not friendly to queer people. They do not understand how lived experience as a marginalized person makes one not play nice with fascists, and like typical liberals they hold being polite, respectful and agreeable above all. Well I’m not polite, respectful or agreeable to people who would want me dead.

[–] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thank you for the lore, I was so confused as to why I couldn't comment on 196@LBZ, and why there was now 196@LW and a onehundredninetysix@LBZ.

I keep saying we need our version of r/subredditdrama 😭😭

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[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Thank you and yes I wondered what was happening, 196 & blahaj was good together I thought. I have an account on world mostly because my own server lemmy.mindoki.com had problems and now I have all notes on the fachos & tankies & other idiots there but I should probably use my valmond@lemmy.mindoki instead. Or loulou@lemmy.mindoki.com which is my queer and art and admin person. I'm not very good at all this.

Thanks for the info and yes fuck all the fachos and terfs and other violent people ot there!

The world could have been a so much better place without them.

πŸ’–πŸ’–πŸ’–

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[–] TheCoolerMia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lemmy.World, and LBZ is Lemmy.Blahaj.Zone :3

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Oh yes of course, I'm an idiot πŸ˜… thank you!

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[–] sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I'm willing to help with moderation if needed

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh no... Fixed it! Thanks, I think my keyboard's text correction "helped" me.

if i have any feedback then i would say that we need some proper rules in place, yeah we can just default to the instance rules but i think having some solid set of rules for moderators and users alike to follow would be a good idea. if you need help modding im interested.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago
[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz -2 points 1 day ago

Hello, drag will volunteer. Drag can confidently say drag is a very diverse voice, and isn't worried about policing other people for any personal agenda. Drag didn't like c/196 because the mods there thought they should ban people for advocating violence against Nazis. Drag would like to help build a community where those left wing viewpoints are more accepted. And don't worry, drag has no desire to silence conflicting viewpoints. Just to create a space where everyone can shitpost safely. Drag can say sorry, too.

Drag is going to post a meme to the community now.

Can a rule be "fuck spez"?

Oh wait, we don't need something so obvious.:-)

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