this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
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This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.
Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.
Posting Guidelines
All posts should follow this basic structure:
- Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
- What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
- Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
- Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
- Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions that you have received from a mod or admin.
- Don’t use private communications to prove your point. We can’t verify them and they can be faked easily.
- Don’t deobfuscate mod names from the modlog with admin powers.
- Don’t harass mods or brigade comms. Don’t word your posts in a way that would trigger such harassment and brigades.
- Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
- You can post about power trippin’ in any social media, not just lemmy. Feel free to post about reddit or a forum etc.
- If you are the accused PTB, while you are welcome to respond, please do so within the relevant post.
Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.
Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.
YPTB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.
Some acronyms you might see.
- PTB - Power-Tripping Bastard: The commenter agrees with you this was a PTB mod.
- YDI - You Deserved It: The commenter thinks you deserved that mod action.
- YDM new - You Deserved More: The commenter thinks you got off too lightly.
- BPR - Bait-Provoked Reaction: That mod probably overreacted in charged situation, or due to being baited.
- CLM - Clueless Mod: The mod probably just doesn't understand how their software works.
Relevant comms
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Sure. I'd consider them politics as well. Those are all topics with a very high chance someone comes along with some (weird) opinion and makes the discussion derail. And then everyone stops discussing the scifi computer game or Linux, and homes in on the controversial topic with a lot of feelings involved.
I think the big cultural achievement is: Forum members have all agreed to live a certain culture. They do it together and there's some group cohesion and a pre-made agreement to all pull in the same direction. So what I've seen a lot of work isn't done by the mods, but people all identify with the rules and the next random person will step in and state "it's getting political again", and then everybody else is cautious not to add to the drama.
I think we lost that with social media. And there's also less group cohesion here. So we end up handling it out of band, mods have to delete posts. Plus we regularly have to peck out the rules again and again... I mean it's not as bad as my words make it out to be. And this isn't entirely down to design and hierarchy. But also group dynamics changed, there's more regular people online than some 15 years ago instead of nerds amongst themselves. And I think politics became way more polarized.
Ultimately, it's all part of our lives. There's obviously demand to discuss politics, pronouns, the crazy setup US Americans call a political system... And I think they're all valid topics. We just have to figure out a way to make it work. Which isn't easy. But I think the Fediverse is up to something. Our basic idea allows us to customize the experience, steer clear of some things or dive down... I think we just have to strike some balance and put in some more work because politics is such an all-consuming topic. And we're a bit of a diverse crowd here. Which is a good thing. But also makes certain things more difficult.
The person who comes along with their disruptive opinions should be moderated, not people who simply exist. Being a woman or having chosen pronouns isn't dramatic.
If someone is uncomfortable with a topic they can simply disengage and start their own thread on their chosen subject.
It's either accept that no one agrees on what's considered political, or have firm rules about subjects that can and can't be discussed.
Hmmh. I think I largely agree... There's definitely a red line. Things like disrespecting people is unacceptable. That's what misgendering and questioning pronouns is largely about. And people trying to walk the line and other kinds of behaviour are highly problematic. And done to hurt people. On the other hand I wish we'd come up with a more human way to address these things. Other than implement some super strict rules, enforce them to the letter (to be fair). And then we resort to the ban hammer as the first tool of choice.
I mean in reality there's a lot of nuance. Sometimes even I make mistakes 😉, and I really appreciate someone takes the time out of their day to confront me. Instead of just going the easy route with the delete or downvote button. I sometimes don't like to subscribe to the friend or foe mentality and be a bit harsh with people. Sometimes I'll have a different perspective because I speak a language that doesn't offer simple words like "driver" and all we have is cumbersome phrasings like "person who drives a car" to phrase it in a way that doesn't bring in the person's gender, or leaves out non-binary people. And then I'll make some snarky remark, but of course that gets people the wrong way... At times, it is a bit complicated to be a human.
Of course the people who just exist are entitled to exist. There's no reason to allow trolls (or whoever) just molest them. I'm just not really convinced that a strict, hierarchical rule-system is going to do what we need to do. (Or all that there is to it.) It's hard, though. And not very straightforward. I was a bit arguing in the context of OP's meme. And I didn't look up their post history. But I'd consider it more some slightly offensive joke, due to the timing and the current political situation. Other than that, it's not substantially different from what we enjoy on late-night TV shiws.