Hi all, as with most of you, I’m an immigrant from Reddit. I never used to go on to the NZ or regional subreddits because frankly, I felt very unwelcome and those places were extremely negative.
How then do we build a new community that is based on being positive and accepting, even of those with different points of view, political leanings, religious beliefs or lifestyles? Everyone deserves a voice, no one deserves to be shouted down or made to feel unwelcome or belittled because they have differing thoughts.
Even festering cunts like Brian Tamaki and his ilk, deserve a seat at the table. We live in a free country and that means everyone should get a voice. Everyone gets to speak their piece, even if you don’t like it.
How do we stop this community devolving into yet another online echo chamber?
I’ve upvoted you for the discussion, but I completely disagree. Nobody deserves a seat at the table. Tamaki has more than enough voice as it is. He doesn’t need to be handed one in our online communities.
Having tolerance for both bigots and the targets of their hate means very quickly that the people being persecuted leave.
Agreed. Letting everyone have an equal say just leads to shitty online forums (Facebook, Stuff comments for example) where misinformation gets spread easily, and hateful content is propagated. I don’t want to see that happening here.
There’s even a name for this - Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance.
At this stage in human history, a community or forum where all are welcome is impossible. If one leaves a forum open for those who are intolerant, then the forum effectively becomes closed to those that they are intolerant of. It’s not a problem with forums or how communities are managed, the problem is humans being humans. Maybe in a thousand years time or so …
At best communities get to choose what they tolerate. I’ve found in the past that those who demand tolerance of fairly toxic views, fail to remember that tolerance isn’t, nor should it be, unlimited.
Ignore Tamaki, he was just a useful idiot for the purposes of discussion. What I am trying to get across is that a truly open and free space for the exchange of ideas can only be hindered by restricting what can and cannot be said, and will ultimately create an echo chamber. We live in an increasingly divided world; we are divided politically, religiously, ideologically and plenty of others. Restricting what ideas can and cannot be spread can only serve to widen those divisions as those who are being restricted to retreat to their own echo chambers and find more and more extreme ideas.
If we want to create a truly open place where people can come and share their experiences, their thoughts and their ideas, then we do ourselves a disservice by restricting what can and can’t be said, or who can and can’t say things.
So, that’s nominally a good goal - but what do you do when the Kyle Chapmans of the world come and try to make a home here?
But it’s okay if the Nazis come in and restrict it for us by chasing away the people they hate? No thanks. A truly open place can’t permit people whose agenda is quite literally anti-diversity.
100% agree
To be an accepting place, it is necessary to not be accepting of intolerance. A community that does not mute/ban intolerant people becomes a sewer.
Honestly if you’re willing to let people like the Tamaki family in, I don’t want to be here and will look for/create an alternative. Zero tolerance for bigotry is the only way to run an online community IMO. Otherwise you end up with a different kind of echo chamber, one full of bigots because everyone else got chased off.
Nope. To paraphrase IamRageSparkle:
If you don’t kick the Nazi out of your bar, you end up running a Nazi bar.
For your listening pleasure:
- Manic Street Preachers: If you Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next
- Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off
Edit: removed suprious formatting tags
Completely disagree. Who decides if you’re a nazi, you? Not everyone you disagree with is suddenly a nazi.
Start with the people carrying the actual fucking swastikas, because that’s somehow a thing nowadays.
I disagree. If you kick the Nazi out of your bar, he ends up going to the Nazi bar down the road and becomes even more extreme. If you let the Nazi into your bar, you have a chance that they will see the error of their ways and not be a Nazi any more. By the same token, if the Nazi in the bar starts shit, you can still kick them out of the bar.
Also, great music choices.
This is way too idealist though. It would be nice if it happened that way, but in reality (and to continue the metaphor) the Nazi will just bring all their Nazi mates to the normal bar, drive minorities away, smash some shit, and turn the normal bar into another Nazi bar that recruits more Nazis.
The people who come to online communities with far-right (in this case) extremist ideals aren’t doing so with the possibility of changing their mind. They want more eyeballs on their horrible ideas so that they spread - and turn from online hate to real-life hate.
It’s exactly how we end up with stuff like the riots at parliament, and LGBT youth centres getting burned down. It starts online.
Yeah it’s also the thing that has ruined most of the other Reddit alternatives that have popped up over the years - it turns out that most people don’t really want to be exposed to in depth discussions about why certain groups of people should all be killed.
The problem is the stench of nazis permeates your bar for the rest of time whether you succeed or not.
Sure. Nazis are super-prone to self-reflection, and definitely never have any adverse impact on the communities around them.
And then someone else comes in, sees the Nazi sat at the bar and nopes right back out. Next one comes along, they see the Nazi and think “this is my kinda place” rinse and repeat and then there’s no one left in your bar except Nazis and Nazi sympathisers.
Your desire to be good is admirable but we’ve seen this happen again and again on Reddit where subs went from entertaining content to alt right echo chambers. Let’s not make the mistake of tolerating the intolerant.
Some political views are incompatible with “no one deserves to be shouted down”. That’s what fascism and neo-Nazis are all about.
I think you’re trying to get at the idea that we should be more worried about behaviour than beliefs, but unfortunately some beliefs drive some very undesirable behaviour. You can’t really say things like “all gays should be killed” in a behaviour-neutral way.
You avoid trying to be anything like /r/nz. I’ve been unsubbed from that place for ages because it was shit. And part of the reason it was shit is because the mods there did nothing about the brigading and “just asking questions” and dog whistling from users who coincidentally all tended to be pretty active on /r/ck. Funny that. Basically the “welcome to all ideologies” thing can get in the bin, because there are some dickheads who don’t deserve a chance because they’ll just fuck things for everyone else.
@Dave@lemmy.nz has already stated that he would rather not over moderate (I don’t want to put words in his mouth either), and I love the idea of free speech… but, and a big but it is, I wouldn’t want to see this become a home to bigots.
I had spun up a Lemmy instance before I saw Dave had created this one. The NZ community I put in place was very deliberately called !aotearoa@no.lastname.nz and not NZ.
@Dave@lemmy.nz has already stated that he would rather not over moderate (I don’t want to put words in his mouth either)
I don’t want to give the impression of a low amount of moderation. Rather, calling people out on poor behaviour* as a first step and resorting to bans only when discussion fails.
* we don’t have to put up with or waste our time on obvious trolls, I just don’t think banning anyone that says something in good faith that we don’t like is the way to build a welcoming community
I understand your policy on calling people out / trying to get people to change before banning them. I personally disagree with that approach, especially in the case of more extremist stuff, but will be happy to admit I’m wrong if it works out.
However, I think you might want to be clearer on what kinds of things are/are not acceptable. I know you don’t want to give a lot of specifics, and that’s fine. But right now, I think you’ve given the impression that there will be very little moderation, and all but the absolute extremes will be tolerated. I am already noticing people here who seem to think this is going to be a haven for whatever they want to say, and I think it can quickly get out of hand.
I would suggest being clearer that hate speech is not allowed here (which I think is the case?). The Beehaw admins have recently made this crystal clear: https://beehaw.org/post/524300. I suggest a similar statement would help people to understand your position on moderation.
I personally disagree with that approach, especially in the case of more extremist stuff, but will be happy to admit I’m wrong if it works out.
I don’t want to give the impression that this is welcome. In general, “extremist stuff” discussions cannot be had in good faith.
I am already noticing people here who seem to think this is going to be a haven for whatever they want to say, and I think it can quickly get out of hand.
Lemmy has a reputation. Until about a week ago, the vast majority of people using Lemmy were people that were kicked off reddit (and to be fair, this is true of most non-mainstream alt communities). Because Lemmy is federated, and other servers exist that will allow this content, we can politely but firmly point people in the direction of a more suitable community. We can also prevent federation with these instances, to reduce the amount of this content people see in the All feed.
Lemmy.nz also has open registrations. Many instances do not, and you are required to apply for an account. I fully believe as we grow we will end up needing this.
I would suggest being clearer that hate speech is not allowed here (which I think is the case?). The Beehaw admins have recently made this crystal clear: https://beehaw.org/post/524300. I suggest a similar statement would help people to understand your position on moderation.
Thanks, this is a good suggestion. I feel it strikes a nice middle ground - it makes it clear that hate speech is not allowed, while not requiring a spoonfed itemised list of what is and isn’t ok - I don’t want a community of people who require such a list. If you need a rule to tell you not to use hate speech, then you’ve already broken the rule about not being a dick.
I will work on something, which can be updated over time. When we eventually require registrations, it will make a good starting point for entry requirements. To be honest, I’m not sure where the line is. I think I need to start a discussion on e.g. whether hating on Christopher Luxon is ok.
Thanks, sounds good. There’s no easy answer to where the line is, and there’s not really even a “line”, every case is different.
I’ didn’t want to imply that it would be low moderation to the point to where it falls apart, and I another comment I linked to the thread.
So far Dave I think you are doing well to get across what your intentions are.
I agree with the principle that we don’t want to recreate r/nz but come at it from a very different perspective.
For example, when national came out against bilingual road signs, the conversation devolved into a debate about whether one of our official languages should be neither seen nor heard. That is unacceptable to me as I am intolerant of intolerance and there should be no room for debating the right of any person to exist.
I feel like those designs were intentionally shit so they could come back with the realistic solution of having English on top and let people feel like they’ve won.
If this place becomes tolerant of obvious trolls and becomes a right-wing shithole, I’ll find another instance to use and I hope others do the same. Have no interest in listening to idiots who parrot the same selfish crap all day long.
That aside, I think r/nz’s biggest failure was the overwhelming negativity towards everything. I noticed it became particularly bad during the 2021 lockdown and then never got better. Yes house prices suck and politicians suck and crime sucks yadadada. But sometimes people fail to see the bigger picture. At the end of the day I consider myself lucky to live here and not in some festering third world shithole, and am proud to call myself a kiwi.
Having politics siloed off to one part of the site is probably a good step. It doesn’t all need to be political. More importantly, repeating the stuff that upsets you in every fucking thread does no good. Perhaps we need a space like r/casualnz as well, something for specifically lighthearted discussion. Some positivity to balance out the negativity that will inevitably come from discussion here.
All excellent points. There is the offtopic NZ chat, which I think will encompass that light-hearted niche you’re talking about.
My view is simply this:
We are a small community (so far). If you see something you don’t want in your community, report it. Whether you think others would agree or not.
When there are too many (good faith) reports for the moderators to handle, we can then as a community discuss the path we are on and the path we would like to be on, and how to get there.
Considering there have been a grand total of 2 reports, one about a post on another community and one about a post that started a discussion leading to the creation of !offtopic@lemmy.nz, so far it seems to be working.
This is a very reasonable and rational response, Dave.
In terms of the negative whiners that populate r/newzealand, I don’t think there’s an easy solution. The people with the most extreme views are always going to be the most vocal, and terminally online doomers will always have more time to spend online than productive members of society.
The best we can do is laugh at them.
Post things you like. Discuss things others post. Be nice. Its a small community users tend to keep each other in check. If users start to see the vibe shifting they can make discussion threads to introduce and set rules.
Useful rules are limiting repetitive topics/complains/rants to a weekly/monthly discussion thread. This is important as topics posted over and over affect people’s perception of how prevalent an issue actually is. A small handful of users can whip an entire subreddit up into a frenzy by posting the right topics.
Can we get a header image for the community? Something not very tall, but uniquely NZ
Good idea! Any suggestions for what it might be?
I’m gonna steal that for !aotearoa@no.lastname.nz
I’m really keen to hear from the admins/mods of this instance on this - I feel like the community has expressed a pretty clear feeling here and I’d love to see that reflected in how this community operates
Have a read of Moderation
In the end the moderators make or break the community. If you want to avoid the mistakes of /r/nz you have to make sure none of your moderators are one of their moderators.
Aside from that here are some ideas.
Moderation transparency: Publish every moderation action.
Meta Moderation: Allow people to somehow decide whether or not any moderation act was justified.
Hold people responsible for their words and actions. This of course would include moderators. This one is tricky as often the only real punishment you can dole out is a ban.
The fact you’re asking not just for user bans by moderators but also the community can ban moderators will lead to the situation where people are afraid to even moderate. Dave has the right idea here. You don’t ban people for opinions even if you don’t agree.
I just think there should be a mechanism to hold moderators responsible and democratic action seems to be the best way. Meta moderation doesn’t have to result in a ban, maybe if enough people complain they can be stripped of moderator status.
In the end the moderators make or break the community. If you want to avoid the mistakes of /r/nz you have to make sure none of your moderators are one of their moderators.
I’m keen to hear what people didn’t like about them (and just as keen to know if you didn’t mind them)
Moderation transparency: Publish every moderation action.
Moderator actions are published in the Modlog. Note that because servers are federated, the Modlog has lots of actions by mods on other servers.
Meta Moderation: Allow people to somehow decide whether or not any moderation act was justified.
I guess this is possible through creating a topic about it (if mods remove it then you’d know from the Modlog)
Hold people responsible for their words and actions. This of course would include moderators. This one is tricky as often the only real punishment you can dole out is a ban.
The first part of holding people responsible is calling them out. Then yes, temporary or permanent bans are about the only escalation option available.
The mods at r/nz seemed pretty reasonable.
Agreed
I’m keen to hear what people didn’t like about them (and just as keen to know if you didn’t mind them)
As I said the subreddit is shaped by them so if you don’t like the subreddit the blame lies only with the moderators. As far as I can see there were several problems. One was that they were arbitrary in their decisions. There were rules but they didn’t matter. If they liked you then you could violate any rule, if they didn’t like you they banned you. Another problem was that they used alts to participate in the subreddit and again if you got into an argument with one of them you had no idea you were arguing with a moderator and consequences could be severe. Finally some of the moderators were downright bad people. They harassed people, threatened people, online stalked people, doxxed people etc.
Moderator actions are published in the Modlog. Note that because servers are federated, the Modlog has lots of actions by mods on other servers.
That reduces the utility of the such a log. You should be able to filter them for any server or even any topic.
I guess this is possible through creating a topic about it (if mods remove it then you’d know from the Modlog)
I guess this is a workaround. I would prefer a proper system like they had at slashdot (don’t know if they still have it, I haven’t been there in ages).
The first part of holding people responsible is calling them out. Then yes, temporary or permanent bans are about the only escalation option available.
Maybe some creativity needs to be applied to see if there are other actions that can be done. Maybe tagging? Maybe some sort of tally of reports on the user? Maybe posting their karma next the name etc. This is a good opportunity to engage the community.
As I said the subreddit is shaped by them so if you don’t like the subreddit the blame lies only with the moderators… Finally some of the moderators were downright bad people
If you don’t like any of our team, please feel free to DM me! If you don’t like me, you can still DM me (or another of the team). We try not to be bad people.
That reduces the utility of the such a log. You should be able to filter them for any server or even any topic.
Ultimately Lemmy is new, and many things are not fleshed out. This should get better over time.
Maybe some creativity needs to be applied to see if there are other actions that can be done. Maybe tagging?
Lemmy doesn’t yet support tagging people or posts.
Maybe some sort of tally of reports on the user?
This makes me think of the way people on reddit try to get as many downvotes as they can…
This is a good opportunity to engage the community
I feel it’s too early. Once there are problems, then we can look at solutions.
If you don’t like any of our team, please feel free to DM me! If you don’t like me, you can still DM me (or another of the team). We try not to be bad people.
I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking about the moderators on /r/nz.
I know! But if it gets like that here, I do want to know!
As I said the subreddit is shaped by them so if you don’t like the subreddit the blame lies only with the moderators. As far as I can see there were several problems. One was that they were arbitrary in their decisions. There were rules but they didn’t matter. If they liked you then you could violate any rule, if they didn’t like you they banned you. Another problem was that they used alts to participate in the subreddit and again if you got into an argument with one of them you had no idea you were arguing with a moderator and consequences could be severe. Finally some of the moderators were downright bad people. They harassed people, threatened people, online stalked people, doxxed people etc.
All of that sounds like it would be resolved by a lighter moderation approach with fewer rules. Additionally, it’s way easier to fork a lemmy community when things get weird. People can tell when community leaders are bad. “Hospitality Club” and “NZ Mushroom Growing” are two that jump to mind where the ego of the leaders makes the communities difficult to participate in the community. People leave when they figure it out.
You are right. Distributed communities do allow you to jump ship but I suppose the same arguments got made on reddit as in “make your own subreddit”. Unfortunately on reddit the mods camped on all the NZ related subreddits. They set all of them up and the same set of people ran all of them.
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