this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
105 points (81.1% liked)

Ye Power Trippin' Bastards

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254 users here now

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:

  1. Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
  2. What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
  3. Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
  4. Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
  5. Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.

Rules


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.


Relevant comms

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Not my account, but want to advocate for it. Because of, personally, I find it hilarious.

So, it seems like a mod with username MysticMushroom1776 @lemmy.dbzer0.com has some interesting policies about interacting with their content.

I agree that this user called PyroRondo has no content for 5 months straight. This is unusual but totally isn't against any rules of Lemmy.

As I suspect, they reacted to a few posts of MysticMushroom1776 @lemmy.dbzer0.com during random session of content scrolling. No brigading or any other types of harassment. I even suspect that these reactions were in communities connected to mod's AI art, not political ones.

And this for some reason triggered a ban in all comunities. Not in 1 or 2. Moreover, it seems like this mod uses specialized tools, that allow to track downvotes on their content made by other users with ability to get their usernames. I may be wrong, but I don't think that such tools are basic for moderators on Lemmy.

Edit: typo.

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[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 36 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Moreover, it seems like this mod uses specialized tools, that allow to track downvotes on their content made by other users with ability to get their usernames. I may be wrong, but I don’t think that such tools are basic for moderators on Lemmy.

That information is readily available. For example: https://lemvotes.org/

[–] homes@piefed.world 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you are that obsessed with individual votes on a comment or a post, you’re spending far too much time here

[–] FlordaMan@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It’s open for admins to see. So lemmyvotes either hosts their own instance or has admin access to one, and then just relays that.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 14 points 1 day ago

Exactly. Anyone in the fediverse can arbitrarily become an admin, simply by deciding to host an instance.

[–] Lirton@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

I see this thing for the first time. Interesting tool. But I think that this one is kinda wrong to exist? Aren't votes and downvotes supposed to be a mostly private and detectable only for admins?

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 1 points 13 hours ago

it's there so that people like ~~you~~ this random account that is totally not you cannot get away with running bots to mass downvote things ~~you~~ this random account that is totally not you don't like.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 21 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Nothing is private on the Fediverse.

Kbin used to publicly show them. It’s a design choice of the software not too.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago

Not really a design choice. It's just not possible to hide due to federation

[–] YarrMatey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

I was briefly on kbin so I do remember the bickering over every comment, which I hated. I wanted to defederate lemvotes since that also brought more bickering to lemmy, plus I'm not a fan of the idea. As an admin, I can easily see who downvoted me, even find who consistently downvotes me, but it doesn't really personally help me. There was so much drama with lemvotes and calling out people all the time, I think it is supposed to discourage downvoting by making people aware they are under survelliance. I poked through Mbin and could only see upvotes (boosts), not downvotes (reduces). I do wish for a way to disable downvotes on the individual community level in lemmy, the way Piefed does, then our community wouldn't need lemvotes anymore (hopefully). The votes can be retrieved through the API, but the average user just browses without it.

[–] Lirton@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks for the info. Totally different from Reddit where only admins could see this info.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

On reddit, the distinction between "admin" and "user" is whatever Reddit decides it to be.

In the Fediverse, the distinction between "admin" and "user" is whatever the user decides it to be. You are completely free to build and admin your very own instance. So can I, and everyone here. You are free to use the admin-only information you glean from that instance under the user account you are using here.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You are completely free to build and admin your very own instance. So can I, and everyone here.

You vastly overestimate my technical capabilities!

[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 14 hours ago

Brother, if I can do it, anyone can. I promise!

[–] Coastal_Explorer@feddit.online 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you want your votes to be (somewhat) private, probably the best thing to do is to create an alternative account and use that for voting without making any comments/posts.

PieFed also gives you an option so that your votes are only shared within the same instance. So, tools like "lemvotes" wouldn't be able to pick up on your voting history. In that case only the local instance Admins (and maybe moderators) would be able to see your voting history.

From this user it is fairly obvious that it was created recently. They downvoted 49 times in the first few minutes of activity. They then upvoted once a few days later.

https://lemvotes.org/user/PyroRondo@lemmy.world

Based on the first day of activity, it almost does look like this was an account created just for downvoting.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's funny how you say that's the best strategy in a thread about somebody getting banned for it.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 5 points 20 hours ago

49 downs in a minute or two and 1 upvote is a little different than the use that was suggested, I would say.

Mods can see votes on content in their communities without needing external tools too. The information is public, it's just not usually made visible to everyone.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Community moderators can also see who has upvoted or downvoted on their own communities.

[–] Lirton@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hmm... Okay, thanks for the info.

[–] Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Lemmy certainly isn't a very privacy-respecting platform.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It never pretended to be. It's a platform for broadcasting actions based on usernames not secure communications. Kinda cross purposes to think you can effectively do both. Why I liked that kbin was very upfront and let users see all engagement right from the post. It can provide a level of anonymity if you want (though community moderation resists this because strong anonymous protections just leads to abuse), but privacy for that persona isn't part of the plank.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 13 points 1 day ago

Eh, that's not really true. The concept of "privacy" has been broadly corrupted by centralized services. There is no "privacy" when you provide information to another person, let alone publish it to the world. Never has been. You never had any actual "privacy" on any platform. What you had was admins lightly concealing from you the manner in which they used the information you provided. That's not "privacy".

Actual privacy only comes when you shut your mouth and keep a thought to yourself. As soon as you put the idea out, you abandoned your expectation of privacy.

The purpose of Lemmy is communication. It is designed to share the information you provide to the general public, whether that information is a post, a comment, an upvote or downvote. It is designed to limit and bypass attempts at centralized control over the flow of that information.

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

How? I'm a mod and haven't figured that out yet (short of looking up things one at a time on lemvotes).

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Click the "..." in any post on your community and it will have a "View Votes" option

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago
[–] brave_lemmywinks@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

I remember this being an issue when I first joined, to an instance admin is a simple as performing an SQL query .

Unfortunately Lemmy is full of people who can't stand criticism and actually prefer having it this way, instead of finding a compromise.