I was part of the group that got banned yesterday, and I need to apologize to you all.

I have seen people mention previously that sometimes mods take upvotes for agreement, but I haven’t trained myself to stop the reddit habit of voting on “food for thought” things, useful-addition-to-the-conversation-but-not-my-pov posts, and placemarkers in active threads, and there aren’t downvotes here to easily mark the shitty stuff I want to come back to and learn from. I should always be opening things in new tabs instead.

I foolishly upvoted this comment as a “food for thought” comment and planned to come back to the thread yesterday evening to find it and read the responses and learn from them. instead my upvote counted as agreement and got me banned, which I know is my fault for not adapting to site culture and not foreseeing how that would be interpreted.

I totally understand, feel like the worst kind of fool, and spent my ban time thinking about what a piece of shit I am. far worse than that is the thought that any of you might think I agree with that comment, so I am posting here to apologize profusely and publicly for my upvote. I’m really, truly, terribly sorry, and idk what to do to about it except fuck off and try not to be such a fuckhead in the future.

explanation (not excuse) for those who care to understand why

I live in Ohio, which is immersed in the kind of chud culture that comment was talking about – I see my formerly borderline leftist little brother slipping into it, and it kills me. it’s a point of view I remember seeing a lot when I was in DSA and not liking then, but I lack the information and wisdom to effectively articulate my problems with it. I very much want to understand what to do about it and how to talk about this stuff with people who believe it, but I get why it was offensive and shitty to mark it for myself in a way that would default mean “this is good” to others instead of pushing back on it at all or just opening it in a new tab to look at later. I’m very sorry about doing that.

I didn’t open it in a new tab because I’m pushing triple digits of tabs open and knew it would be easy to find later because the Amber bot was inflating the comment activity. I keep forgetting to be judicious with my upvotes because I’m AuDHD and unlearning a decade of reddit habits is hard.

you didn’t know that was why I upvoted it, it just looked to you like a bunch of your alleged comrades liked that post, and I was one of them. I hope you can forgive me, but I understand if it made you think differently about me. I get it, and I’m just really, really sorry.

as soon as I figured out that I was banned and why, I sent a version of this via DM from my old account to an em_poc user who is very near and dear to my heart, but I don’t feel right only apologizing to one person when so many of you could have been hurt by my upvote, hence this post. I’m sorry that my apology to the rest of you wasn’t that immediate, but I was worried that posting it from my old account would be seen as ban evasion and make my contrition seem insincere.

I appreciate very much the kindness and compassion so many of you have shown me, and it is devastating to know that I have repaid it in this way.

I’m very, very, very sorry.

please heap your scorn and excoriation here.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    55·
    23 hours ago

    Selfcrit isn’t supposed to beating yourself up with shame. There’s no reason for users to expect bans for upbears or even consider than anyone pays attention to upbears. It’s a hold-over from reddit and it never meant endorsement of an idea even on reddit. Mods are responsible for removing inappropriate, reactionary, or otherwise unwanted posts. The moderator in this case behaved in an inappropriate and unwarranted manner issuing a punishment for something that is not against any stated rules or moderation guidelines, on the basis of a personal interpretation of another users context-free action. Their duty is to remove posts that violate moderation standards, not… whatever this is. I can’t figure out what comm this was posted in but I’m not aware of any comm that has posted rules regulated upbears.

    From Chapo’s Code of Conduct

    Remarks that violate the Chapo standards of conduct, including hateful, hurtful, oppressive, or exclusionary remarks, are not allowed. (Cursing is allowed, but never in a hateful manner.)

    Remarks that moderators find inappropriate, whether listed in the code of conduct or not, are also not allowed.

    Moderators will first respond to such remarks with a warning, at the same time the offending content will likely be removed whenever possible.

    If the warning is unheeded, the user may be "temp banned,” i.e., kicked out of the community involved to cool off.

    If the user comes back and continues to make trouble, they will be banned, i.e., indefinitely excluded.

    Moderators may choose at their discretion to un-ban the user if it was a first offense and they offer the offended party a genuine apology.

    If a moderator bans someone and you think it was unjustified, please take it up with that moderator, or with a different moderator, in private. Complaints about bans in-comm are not allowed. For sitewide decisions, posts may be made on !userunion.

    Moderators are held to a higher standard than other community members. If a moderator creates an inappropriate situation, they should expect less leeway than others. Egregious violations of our code of conduct or terms of service may result in an immediate ban.

    There are several things that need to be addressed here;

    1.) No where in the code of conduct are upbears mentioned. If they’re regulated in whatever comm this comment was made in, fine, but I’m not aware of any comms where that is the case.

    2.) The Moderator who issued these bans directly violated the code of conduct by issuing a ban without a warning. Setting aside that upbears are not regulated and an upbear is not a comment or endorsement, the Moderator who issued this ban was in violation of the code of conduct we nominally all agree to uphold.

    3.) “Moderators are held to a higher standard than other community members. If a moderator creates an inappropriate situation, they should expect less leeway than others.”

    The moderator who issued these unwarranted bans in violation of the code of conduct has created significant distress for other community members. They abused their mod powers in ways that were hurtful to others. This is not a dispute over the appropriateness of comment moderation or bans based on comments, but rather arbitrary bans for an activity that, per site guidelines and comm rules, is not subject to moderation in this fashion. This is absolutely inappropriate conduct and merits… something I have no idea what internal discipline measures the mod team has, if any.

    I use the bear button as a “I read this message” button and upvote almost everything unless it’s extremely obvious fashposting. It’s muscle memory, I don’t think about it or do it consciously. I’d rather the button be removed than have to do a close read of every post.

    The mod should be in here self-criting for this behavior, not you.

    This is inappropriate mod overreach.

    @CARCOSA@hexbear.net @Alaskaball@hexbear.net @Lyudmila@hexbear.net and any other currently active admins;

    Y’all gotta get eyes on this. Arbitrary moderation actions like this are very damaging to community trust. Many of us are barely holding on here, being denounced as a fascist by a mod issuing bans in a manner that violates the code of conduct and does not reflect site rules, comm rules, or site culture is hurtful.

    • dustbunnies [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      24·
      20 hours ago

      Many of us are barely holding on here, being denounced as a fascist by a mod […] is hurtful

      me rn

      thank you for the care, time, and effort you put into this ❤️

      I regretfully have to tell you that I deserved it for contributing to hostile site culture, but I appreciate your empathy more than I can adequately express.

      thank you. cuddle

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      32·
      22 hours ago

      So I’ll speak for myself, on my behalf and no one elses, and say I agree. I’d say the Admin Role’s ability to access more data than what was previously available to the Moderator Role, including the ability to see upvotes to comments and posts, add site taglines, approve new user accounts, etc., places into the hands of any new admin an unprecedented level control over the website. It places upon such people new levels of demand for self-restraint, mindfulness, and self-awareness. Such responsibility behooves those of us that have been entrusted with such tools to move slowly with a level of independent deliberation and consideration that can’t be influenced by the raucous demands of individuals nor being swept away by feverous mob mentality.

      I personally think this was an overstep as well. I’m sorry this happened.

    • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      18·
      22 hours ago

      It’s a hold-over from reddit and it never meant endorsement of an idea even on reddit.

      No, people said that upvotes weren’t endorsement and constantly circlejerked about how Reddiquette (margot-disgust) says you only downvote things that don’t contribute to discussion. How they were used in practice and are used here as well is as an agree/disagree button. When something gets upbears here, I assume that people agree with it. And I don’t upvote shitty things because I don’t want others to think that people agree with them.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        21·
        21 hours ago

        This is how I use the site. Basically anything that doesn’t merit pigpoop or countdown has an upvote because I don’t really assign any weight or meaning to them. If anything it’s a marker of engagement, showing that people have actually read the comment. Another factor for me is the long running “all posting is good posting” bit.

        I also use it in an assistive capacity to keep track of what I have and haven’t viewed. It makes the site much easier to parse.

        If there’s serious concern over this then we should have a community discussion about how we use upbears and how they should be used going forward. To the best of my knowledge there has never been such a discussion and I assume everyone is using them in their own way according to their personal needs.

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            20·
            21 hours ago

            “all posting is good posting” is/was/has been a joke for years. I don’t really remember but I thought that was part of why we kept upvotes instead of doing away with voting entirely, because of that joke about just upvoting everything without much thought.