No posting of personal information was in the lemmy code of conduct when I created this community. Like all communities, this one has to follow those rules and the rules of the instance. It’s since been removed from the code of conduct I believe but, as others have commented, censoring the names of private individuals seems like the decent thing to do - especially as we’re sometimes laughing at the people in these screenshots. I’ll add it as a rule of its own in the sidebar for now.
Currently I’m the only contributor here and I’m happy to continue taking the few seconds to censor full names and social media handles in the screenshots I post. I also make the effort to post the context, any follow ups and news links when possible, so there isn’t any need to go to Reddit/Twitter or wherever it’s from.
However, I’m open to feedback on the rules and how this community is run, as stated in the stickied post. Would you like me to open a vote on whether we should keep the rule about censoring identifying info (or make your own post about it)? Or we could just go by the up/downvote ratio on your comment as an indication of what the majority want. Upvote to get rid of the rule, downvote to keep it. Currently 4 people vote to scrap the rule, 10 people want to keep it.
I’ve been downvoted for saying facts just like I did with my previous comment here so I wouldn’t read into it as this is what the community for sure wants. I checked the rules and it was not there so I commented that, it’s not an opinion but people get triggered all the same because they are used to reddit’s rules and assume lemmy is like reddit. But it is not, the different instances have their different rules and communities have rules on top of that. If you want to change the rules that’s up to you. Generally a vote might be nice, one that everyone can see and it isn’t hidden in this comment chain (the OP of this chain is already hidden by downvotes) and isn’t determined by only 20 people. Personally, it’s a waste of time because you can easily lookup the tweet and find the person. But if people want it to be this way because they think it “helps”, I guess that’s how it will be. But at least the community will have a voice even if it is something I feel is a waste. I feel more irritated by the constant censoring of “bad words” and don’t care so much about the usernames, after all it can be easily looked up if you want. I wouldn’t downvote a post over it like OP said but I can see where the frustration comes from, how corporations want to sanitize the internet. Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling.
I don’t consider any good-faith conversation about the way this community is run to be just “rambling” so please don’t worry about that. Have you read my mod posts? Not just the current stickied one, but the previous? I’ve gone out of my way to say I want this to be a group effort, that every single rule and decision is open to discussion. But other than @southsamurai@sh.itjust.works offering to be a second mod, and just 2 out of 45 posts in four months being made by someone who isn’t me, I’m doing all the heavy lifting here. Pretty much the only feedback I hear is that I’m doing something somebody doesn’t like. Like asking people not to insult you for example. Somehow I got complained at about that?!
I never said your comment wasn’t factual. Before I explicitly stated I was updating the sidebar to include the no identifying info rule, the sidebar and stickied post asked all members to read and abide by the lemmy code of conduct and the lemmy.world instance rules, and I linked them. I don’t believe any of “my” rules were in addition to lemmy’s/lemmy.worlds when I created the communities I moderate. Google “lemmy rules + doxxing” or similar to see for yourself, or trawl through my comments. I’ve provided screenshots showing this previously under one of my usernames listed in the sidebar. I apologise if my reply increased the downvotes on your comment and made you feel like you weren’t being heard.
Personally I agree that censoring names doesn’t stop the determined from doxxing. It’s almost as ineffective as fucking censoring swear words! But it does add an extra little step that might make someone who’s intending to brigade/harass stop for a second and think about what they’re doing… or decide it’s too much effort. If censoring personal info doesn’t stop you personally finding the original, then I’m not sure what legitimate reasoning there is against it. Especially when I take the time to post the context too.
BUT I still offered two ways to put this to the vote to all subscribers, outside of the vote ratio on your original comment. Why don’t you take me up on one of them? I literally don’t know how I can be any more democratic about this than offering to hold the vote myself, for you to hold the vote, or for us to consider the ratio on your comment to be a general indication. Especially as I’m the only person who contributes anyway! Honestly, tell me what more you want me to do here?
I never wanted to be a mod. I have no previous mod experience and I definitely take things to heart far too much to be a good moderator. But I reached my limit with Reddit’s bullshit and if no one actually puts themselves on the line here, if no one is willing to actually create communities, moderate them properly, and most importantly regularly post content to them, then lemmy won’t prosper.
I’m making that effort and I’m trying really fucking hard to be fair and open and transparent about it. But I cannot do it on my own. So please, please instead of suggesting I run this community without listening to input, make your post and put the rule you have issue with to the whole community. I have said repeatedly I will adjust the rules accordingly to the general consensus. In the spirit of the transparency I’m so keen on - I’ll never make it against the rules to censor personal info though. So make the post about the rule. If the majority agree to scrap it we will. But it will still require someone other than me to contribute to see the change. Be that person, please!
I’m really not the bad guy here, I just want a not-completely-shit Reddit alternative. And now I’ll stop ranting. Sorry about that. It’s been a helluva month.
Admittedly I only read one mod post by you, the sticky. If the other ones are also important you can sticky more than two posts, which was the limit on reddit.
Being a mod sucks, I used to mod and I feel better now that I’ve abandoned it because I am just not suited for it. I’m sure everyone here appreciates your work into the community. I hated being the only person posting and some of my posts would get downvoted which was confusing. At least people are commenting, I didn’t even get that hah. I don’t mean my previous post to be an attack on your moderating, it’s a thankless job and you should have rules you feel is right as long as the community goes along with it I don’t see a reason to change. You’re not supposed to personally attack or insult people on your instance so it makes sense that is a rule.
I checked lemmy.world’s code of conduct and the official citizen code of conduct linked on the join-lemmy page that’s here. This is probably where we disagree about what is doxxing and why when I checked there wasn’t an actual rule for censoring usernames. If someone posts something with their real name and any other personal real info, they have doxxed themselves and I don’t think posting their name at that point is doxxing. This includes public figures too (reddit required you censor even the usernames of public figures and have banned people for posting a congress person’s Twitter handle even though their own rules are supposed to not apply to public figures, ban appeals denied). I’m not saying to post their personal address or phone number, but just the username/handle is fine because they have already provided that information. If their username is redbaron, and they haven’t posted their real name, then it is doxxing to post their real name in that case. I also don’t think censoring a username will stop someone from finding it especially if they want to do some malicious thing, I think that is wishful thinking at that point.
But all I was saying was that censoring usernames is/was not an actual rule in lemmy or lemmy.world or this community at the time. If you think that since this sub is for mocking people that you want to censor it so hopefully people don’t find the subject person to harass them then I guess it makes sense, I can see the logic. I do like the idea of holding a vote that everyone can see (I outlined why the ratio on my comment isn’t representative of the whole community). But I know it is a lot of work on one person and I am the wrong person to even bring this up, I was thinking of not commenting in this community again because the reddit hive mind is already here and I’ve also made things worse for you when you want actual contributors and mods and not people nitpicking a rule. I don’t think you are a bad guy, I’m sorry if my comments had a bad tone to them because that was not my intention.
No posting of personal information was in the lemmy code of conduct when I created this community. Like all communities, this one has to follow those rules and the rules of the instance. It’s since been removed from the code of conduct I believe but, as others have commented, censoring the names of private individuals seems like the decent thing to do - especially as we’re sometimes laughing at the people in these screenshots. I’ll add it as a rule of its own in the sidebar for now.
Currently I’m the only contributor here and I’m happy to continue taking the few seconds to censor full names and social media handles in the screenshots I post. I also make the effort to post the context, any follow ups and news links when possible, so there isn’t any need to go to Reddit/Twitter or wherever it’s from.
However, I’m open to feedback on the rules and how this community is run, as stated in the stickied post. Would you like me to open a vote on whether we should keep the rule about censoring identifying info (or make your own post about it)? Or we could just go by the up/downvote ratio on your comment as an indication of what the majority want. Upvote to get rid of the rule, downvote to keep it. Currently 4 people vote to scrap the rule, 10 people want to keep it.
I’ve been downvoted for saying facts just like I did with my previous comment here so I wouldn’t read into it as this is what the community for sure wants. I checked the rules and it was not there so I commented that, it’s not an opinion but people get triggered all the same because they are used to reddit’s rules and assume lemmy is like reddit. But it is not, the different instances have their different rules and communities have rules on top of that. If you want to change the rules that’s up to you. Generally a vote might be nice, one that everyone can see and it isn’t hidden in this comment chain (the OP of this chain is already hidden by downvotes) and isn’t determined by only 20 people. Personally, it’s a waste of time because you can easily lookup the tweet and find the person. But if people want it to be this way because they think it “helps”, I guess that’s how it will be. But at least the community will have a voice even if it is something I feel is a waste. I feel more irritated by the constant censoring of “bad words” and don’t care so much about the usernames, after all it can be easily looked up if you want. I wouldn’t downvote a post over it like OP said but I can see where the frustration comes from, how corporations want to sanitize the internet. Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling.
I don’t consider any good-faith conversation about the way this community is run to be just “rambling” so please don’t worry about that. Have you read my mod posts? Not just the current stickied one, but the previous? I’ve gone out of my way to say I want this to be a group effort, that every single rule and decision is open to discussion. But other than @southsamurai@sh.itjust.works offering to be a second mod, and just 2 out of 45 posts in four months being made by someone who isn’t me, I’m doing all the heavy lifting here. Pretty much the only feedback I hear is that I’m doing something somebody doesn’t like. Like asking people not to insult you for example. Somehow I got complained at about that?!
I never said your comment wasn’t factual. Before I explicitly stated I was updating the sidebar to include the no identifying info rule, the sidebar and stickied post asked all members to read and abide by the lemmy code of conduct and the lemmy.world instance rules, and I linked them. I don’t believe any of “my” rules were in addition to lemmy’s/lemmy.worlds when I created the communities I moderate. Google “lemmy rules + doxxing” or similar to see for yourself, or trawl through my comments. I’ve provided screenshots showing this previously under one of my usernames listed in the sidebar. I apologise if my reply increased the downvotes on your comment and made you feel like you weren’t being heard.
Personally I agree that censoring names doesn’t stop the determined from doxxing. It’s almost as ineffective as fucking censoring swear words! But it does add an extra little step that might make someone who’s intending to brigade/harass stop for a second and think about what they’re doing… or decide it’s too much effort. If censoring personal info doesn’t stop you personally finding the original, then I’m not sure what legitimate reasoning there is against it. Especially when I take the time to post the context too.
BUT I still offered two ways to put this to the vote to all subscribers, outside of the vote ratio on your original comment. Why don’t you take me up on one of them? I literally don’t know how I can be any more democratic about this than offering to hold the vote myself, for you to hold the vote, or for us to consider the ratio on your comment to be a general indication. Especially as I’m the only person who contributes anyway! Honestly, tell me what more you want me to do here?
I never wanted to be a mod. I have no previous mod experience and I definitely take things to heart far too much to be a good moderator. But I reached my limit with Reddit’s bullshit and if no one actually puts themselves on the line here, if no one is willing to actually create communities, moderate them properly, and most importantly regularly post content to them, then lemmy won’t prosper.
I’m making that effort and I’m trying really fucking hard to be fair and open and transparent about it. But I cannot do it on my own. So please, please instead of suggesting I run this community without listening to input, make your post and put the rule you have issue with to the whole community. I have said repeatedly I will adjust the rules accordingly to the general consensus. In the spirit of the transparency I’m so keen on - I’ll never make it against the rules to censor personal info though. So make the post about the rule. If the majority agree to scrap it we will. But it will still require someone other than me to contribute to see the change. Be that person, please!
I’m really not the bad guy here, I just want a not-completely-shit Reddit alternative. And now I’ll stop ranting. Sorry about that. It’s been a helluva month.
Admittedly I only read one mod post by you, the sticky. If the other ones are also important you can sticky more than two posts, which was the limit on reddit.
Being a mod sucks, I used to mod and I feel better now that I’ve abandoned it because I am just not suited for it. I’m sure everyone here appreciates your work into the community. I hated being the only person posting and some of my posts would get downvoted which was confusing. At least people are commenting, I didn’t even get that hah. I don’t mean my previous post to be an attack on your moderating, it’s a thankless job and you should have rules you feel is right as long as the community goes along with it I don’t see a reason to change. You’re not supposed to personally attack or insult people on your instance so it makes sense that is a rule.
I checked lemmy.world’s code of conduct and the official citizen code of conduct linked on the join-lemmy page that’s here. This is probably where we disagree about what is doxxing and why when I checked there wasn’t an actual rule for censoring usernames. If someone posts something with their real name and any other personal real info, they have doxxed themselves and I don’t think posting their name at that point is doxxing. This includes public figures too (reddit required you censor even the usernames of public figures and have banned people for posting a congress person’s Twitter handle even though their own rules are supposed to not apply to public figures, ban appeals denied). I’m not saying to post their personal address or phone number, but just the username/handle is fine because they have already provided that information. If their username is redbaron, and they haven’t posted their real name, then it is doxxing to post their real name in that case. I also don’t think censoring a username will stop someone from finding it especially if they want to do some malicious thing, I think that is wishful thinking at that point.
But all I was saying was that censoring usernames is/was not an actual rule in lemmy or lemmy.world or this community at the time. If you think that since this sub is for mocking people that you want to censor it so hopefully people don’t find the subject person to harass them then I guess it makes sense, I can see the logic. I do like the idea of holding a vote that everyone can see (I outlined why the ratio on my comment isn’t representative of the whole community). But I know it is a lot of work on one person and I am the wrong person to even bring this up, I was thinking of not commenting in this community again because the reddit hive mind is already here and I’ve also made things worse for you when you want actual contributors and mods and not people nitpicking a rule. I don’t think you are a bad guy, I’m sorry if my comments had a bad tone to them because that was not my intention.