What are your thoughts on reddit mods? How are Lemmy mods like compared to them?
As a person who just left reddit due to being tired of reddit mods' power tripping, I asked folks here what are their reasons behind migrating here from other forums (most likely reddit too). It seems like none of the folks who answered had complaints on reddit mods. Do folks here not feel the same about reddit mods as I do?
I heard Lemmy mods are volunteers too. How do they compare to reddit mods? Did Lemmy do anything to ensure no power abuse to happen?
The thing is "mods" is not a monolith, not on reddit, and not on lemmy.
I saw a LOT of trash moderation on Reddit, and I've seen some on Lemmy as well. There's good moderation as well.
I think what makes Lemmy different is a) it's smaller so bad behavior is harder to hide. b) there are layers of administration.
If the mods on lemmy are a problem, take it to the Admins of the instance, let them decide. Admins are a problem? Join a new instance and defederate from the problem instance.
Reddit never had a model like that. The Admins were largely absent and really only took action against mods following the black out.
Reddit and Lemmy mods are just people, I do think Lemmy's decentralized model makes it easier to leave and find an alternative if your views don't jive.
I never got people's obsession with assuming that all Reddit/Lemmy/Discord mods act the same. Like, anyone can create a community if they like, there's no personality quiz you have to take.
I guess you could make a case that power inherently corrupts, but other than that it's silly to assume that they are all power tripping boogymen.
Also Reddit mods are also volunteers as well, or at the very least not paid by Reddit.
In terms of moderation, Lemmy and Reddit function basically the same. Mods have absolute power and if you don't like it you can create a new board. There's no magical tools to keep their power in check.
I guess post removals are more transparent here because they are listed? But that's not going to stop people.
... Of course, if you are talking about admins rather than mods, the power structure is completely different. Which has its pros and cons.
In general I think of reddit mods as thin-skinned cucks on a power-trip.
Haven't interacted with many lemmy mods, but I assume they'll trend in the same direction. It's a lot of work for no pay, so it's going to attract people with ulterior motives.
My ulterior motive is I want to help grow the fediverse.
If modding here ever gets as full of behind the scenes vitriol as it was on reddit I'll probably stop.
(I got asked to help out a few times over there but I lasted less than a month in one of the big ones. A lot of it's glorified data sorting of some really ick stuff).
The major difference between the forums is that Lemmy, for better and worse, have more active admins due to the nature of Lemmy. You are definitely going to have more active admins, which will influence how mods act.
I was never a mod at Reddit. But I’m a mod here for a few communities. I try to be as “hands off” as possible, and step in only when needed. It’s been 7 or 8 months as a mod, and I have not yet banned anyone…
They're people. If you disagree about something, you won't like them. If you never disagree, you never think about them. Yeah there are shitty mods, just like there are users who have earned their ban, whether or not they would agree.
just realized this is an enlightened centrist take. gotta go take a shower.
There is a lot of variation in how good or bad mods are. On Reddit you get anything from /r/askhistorians mods that are generally qualified in a particular branch of history and do a good job yeeting trash comments and on the other you have the conservative safe space mods that yeet people for not being conservative enough while screeching how pro free speech they are. All in all, I havent dealt much with most mods there.
Here though... theres a lot of automatic moderation going on. At least on the server I am on that yeets comments that say certain bad words which I think is a bit overzealous.
I've been seeing a lot more comments removed by mods lately, especially on news@lemmy.world. These don't appear to be harassing comments either, just something the mod disagrees with and wants to silence. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to see which mod is the one on a power trip though the Voyager app.
The decentralized model of Lemmy means that there won't be that weird situation where some individuals were mods for literally hundreds of subs. Mod culture on R was just insanely toxic. Fuck that place.
Lemmy mods seem almost non-existent. There aren't as many, and even the most dedicated aren't on all the time and every once in a while some seriously bad shit (like CSAM) get posted and don't get taken care of for hours.
The extra rules aside from the general "don't be a dick or post illegal stuff" things are generally more lax anyway; like the content itself doesn't have to fit in the most rigid box imaginable to the point where nobody but friends of the mods and the mods themselves can post anything that doesn't get auto mod deleted.
As to the character of the people themselves: I've interacted with a lot of the mods, even those in the biggest communities here, and only like 2 I wouldn't like to do so again because of their attitudes and stances.
Bit long but well I had one reddit mod go absolutely balastic on me for saying I suspected a love Island contestant was coming across as gay to me. Wasn't even malicious just thought it was strange he was on a dating show trying to land women.
And by ballistic I mean I got banned from that sub got about a chapter of text saying I was the scum of the earth for even thinking such a thing.
Then a day or so later I got other messages from other reddit admins banning me from the rest of reddit along with lots of other accusations that really didn't make sense I can't really remember them just thought that mods so furious he's lying his ass off.
To be clear I never once insulted the guy/contestant and only said he was giving me that impression and he really really was.
Ultimately didnt really effect me I've always had a ton of alts and vpns I switch between but made me think that mod might have actually been out of his mind maybe a relation or something.
Lemmy I haven't had an issue so far and hopefully don't.
It's the same concept. Downside here is the tools they're provided with are a bit rough and need some more polish. It's been an issue for some time. And there are less people here. That also means less moderators and that can sometimes be an issue.
On the plus side people tend to be a bit nicer here. So we can most of the time get away with it.
There is drama both there and here. Occasional disputes and arguments whether somebody deleted something out of personal motivation or because it was warranted. Some people have an attitude and don't listen. Usually everything works to an acceptable level. I'd invite you to join and see for yourself.
Power abuse can happen. I don't think there is a technical solution to make things like that impossible. It's the instance admins who are responsible to handle that.