this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
110 points (80.9% liked)

Ye Power Trippin' Bastards

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10 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
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com
unruffled@anarchist.nexus
110
Apparently, you can't downvote if you have no comments/posts in your account (lemmy.today)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Lirton@lemmy.today to c/yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com
70 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.com 61 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Yeah unless there's an actual attack where a bunch of throwaway accounts mass-downvote certain posts, banning a single individual for daring to downvote is wild

It's also my first time seeing that vote-viewing website and it's honestly a bit insane that this quirk is part of Lemmy design ngl

[–] xep@discuss.online 45 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Federated voting means both up and downvotes have to be shared.

[–] Natanael@slrpnk.net 11 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Yes but it doesn't have to share usernames to anything but the originating server for the vote and host server for the content. All others only need the sum.

This does still mean instance admins can do broad bans. There's other privacy techniques if that matters like cryptographic blind signatures for voting, etc, where you can know each user only cast one vote (and can see totals per originating server) without revealing the specific users.

In theory you could also make this ban compliant (such that you can't vote if you're banned, but if you're not and cast a vote you still can't be identified).

If you do extra fancy stuff like transparency logs with anonymous credentials and secure multiparty computation (MPC) you could do it while still allowing abuse detection. Although for now that's very complicated and compute heavy 🤷

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If you actually understand how to implement all that maybe you should go contribute to PieFed.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Piefed already tried exactly that and had to revert because it's indistinguishable from vote manipulation

[–] MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago

People just need to accept that on platforms where votes determine ranking, or worse, user reputation scores. Vote manipulation will be a real problem, and it needs to be managed or people are allowed to suppress and destroy smaller communities with alts if they so choose.

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[–] Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 6 days ago

I don't quite see why up+downvotes wouldn't be public. Everything you post is public, up/downvotes can be used by bots (and posts are actually heavily influenced by them on reddit), so it makes sense that you can see who down/upvoted what.

Of course it's an additional tool for people to abuse, but if they're the type of people who do that, then they're going to find some way to abuse something anyway.

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

it's a sockpuppet account used to mass downvote. likely ran by the person who just created OPs account. literally the only thing the account has done is downvote all but a single post.

a8OMFV6zVnoINjh.png

[–] commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Actually yeah that might be it, https://lemvotes.org/user/PyroRondo@lemmy.world shows that they essentially just mass downvoted every post of Mystic Mushroom in like a span of a minute.

Nevermind then

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

yeah, this happens probably once a week to Mystic. @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com @flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com can we get some mod action on this account, it's def a sockpuppet.

[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 5 days ago

If this account doesn't look like a downvote troll account then wtf does?

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's also my first time seeing that vote-viewing website and it's honestly a bit insane that this quirk is part of Lemmy design ngl

It's kind of in the nature of the fediverse.

For the most part though it just proves that you don't know why people upvote or downvote something until they post. Otherwise it just reveals chronic haters.

Like, I got a couple haters that downvote my post history periodically. I know it's just primarily just a proud german nationalist and an australian racist that can't stand to see my username.

But I do see that people use vote lookups to provoke fights and, well, pursue people for their votes, which is kind of silly.

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[–] Lirton@lemmy.today 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I bet 10 dollars, that mod hasn't even send a message to that person asking what that was a thing.

[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

One time I sent a dm to someone who was mass downvoting in my communities and just asked what was up. They then commented somewhere in some thread, saying that it was so inappropriate for me to send an email asking them why they were downvoting so many things. And lots of people were agreeing with them. So in my experience, sending a DM is not taken very well. So I don't. I just ban.

But hey, if you hate every single thing in my community, then you shouldn't be upset about being banned from it. You hate it anyway, right? :)

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago

They hate it, spam it, then get mad they can't look at it more.

Really telling they want to harass and spew hatred, not wanting to "support muh artists" or "stop trump only by voting for diet trump" or whatever else these Brave and Noble Knights of being shitheels.

[–] MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago

When I DM people who are engaging in vote manipulation the best response I've gotten is silence and the worst responses I've gotten is lying, hostility, and slurs. And since so many people have decided to harass me personally over moderation, or just over AI. I won't DM people over bans.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago

Why, when they're clearly a troll? Fuck em.

[–] MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (7 children)

Looks like this account and their main got what they deserved. I don't know why anyone would lie about something so easy to prove or disprove. Mods can see votes, so can admins. They're also easily viewable on Lemvotes.org.

This isn't organic voting, anyone can see that.

[–] Hadley@piefed.social 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

this looks similar to maddddddddddddddddd@sh.itjust.works, and oji@lemmy.world is the more organic kind you can see when finding someone oji hates you see theres mass downvote within short interval time

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[–] Pogogunner@sopuli.xyz 29 points 5 days ago

So in general, I agree that moderators who ban people for downvoting are absolutely PTB, and are basically engaging in vote manipulation themselves through their actions.

In this case however, we're looking at an account that has upvoted 1 post and downvoted 49 (With no comment interaction whatsoever) in the span of 3 minutes. This is a pretty clear downvoting account.

This is with you being banned from the same communities 3 days ago, which I understand is great motivation to look at the moderation practices, but the fact that you're posting about another users bans, rather than your own is suspicious with regards to the accusations in this thread of it being your sockpuppet.

If you want to discuss your bans by this mod, I would be interested in the conversation. But this user deserves the ban.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 36 points 6 days ago (24 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 35 points 6 days 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

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 16 points 6 days ago

Agreed.

[–] FlordaMan@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days 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 15 points 6 days ago

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

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[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

an account only used to downvote, being championed by a new account with no history. did your sockpuppet getting banned bother you that much?

image

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 days ago

Gotta love how Hexbear is okay with harassing our community when they support the cause.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Account made to downvote/stalk a community, they deserved it.

And fuck the Hexbear users defending the banned account because they hate the content. Fucking jackasses.

[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Yep. This happened to my communities, and STILL happens when I create a community. When I create a new one, I have to immediately pre-ban like 12 usernames that just downvote my posts, regardless of content immediately after I post.

Sure, I guess they are allowed to do that. But I'm also allowed to ban them for it. :)

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

if you want to make your comms on AN, we can set it up so that nobody can downvote posts except AN members or users of trusted instances (all our trusted instances require application to register). this virtually eliminates downvote harassment.

[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

I actually like that idea and will keep in mind. Thank you!

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[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Has noone told the mods of the 90/9/1 rule of the Internet? 90% lurkers, 9% commenters, and then the rare 1% that actually post stuff.

[–] KernelPanic@anarchist.nexus 18 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

An account that performs no activity other than issuing fifty downvotes within a single minute is highly unlikely to be operated by a human, much less a typical user. This pattern is strongly indicative of an automated sockpuppet account, which explains why the dbzer0 administrators chose to ban it once the behavior was brought to their attention.

Appreciation to @lirton@lemmy.today for highlighting the issue and enabling appropriate action to be taken.

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[–] Agesly@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I don’t produce content and I think this is my first comment. I usually just read content and sometimes vote. Nobody banned me yet for not contributing with content 😬

[–] Hadley@piefed.social 3 points 4 days ago

You have commented before and even if you didn't, your voting history is extremely regular next to people like the one in the post or someone like maddddddddddddddddd@sh.itjust.works notice the downvote to upvote ratio and timestamp of each voting

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