Will it be effective?
Spoiler
No, it was not very effective.
EDIT: The banning event continues. Please consult the modlog to observe.
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&modId=7121342
If you scroll down to about a day ago, you might be able to observe an emerging behavior from this mod.
EDIT 2: The mod in question moderates a total of 108 Lemmy communities. How deep does this conspiracy run? Is this mod a lost Redditor? More to come!
EDIT 3: The mod has now removed my comment all together, one might assume because it was still receiving upvotes in the 2 hours following my ban. Are there similarities here to Watergate? You be the judge!
EDIT 4: The mod in question has now been removed as a mod of the !vegan@lemmy.world community, as a result of their abuse of power.
https://lemmy.world/post/19731457
This was their response:
EDIT 5: This will be my final update, since as far as I see it, the issue this thread focuses on has been resolved. To quote Beaver herself in a very ironic comment she made directed towards someone else:
Clearly this was all just a case of…
Am I missing something here? The vegan community is for vegans and people to ask questions about being vegan but is not for debating about any part of being vegan. That is their rule 5, which I see people break every day thinking it is ok to shit all over vegans there. If you don’t want to hear about vegans then block the community.
Well yeah if seeing vegan content upsets you enough to break their rule 5 then it is not a good community for you. And that is ok, honestly I get grief in real life about me trying to be vegan. Having place amongst other vegans and people not anti-vegan is nice. I also don’t know the context being the post so if there is something I’m missing feel free to tell me.
I personally believe this particular mod may be abusing the community’s rule 5, stretching it to suit their agenda. But I’ll leave the interpretation up to you.
Note that others are reporting being banned by simply downvoting community posts. Suggesting further overreach.
I got banned (rule 5) for downvoting a meme with misleading information. I’m not vegan, but I like the idea in general so I did enjoy seeing content. But things have gone off the rails recently.
Fwiw, anyone giving you grief irl is a jerk, unless you’re trying to convert them.
Away from the internet, I know a good handful of vegans that I gladly cook for. Not regions everyone hates y’all for living your beliefs.
And, just for full disclosure, I troll vegans online. That’s where most of the jerks that are vegan do their thing, not irl.
Me and you, if life threw us together, I’d make you my vegan chili, and we’d chill. But I’d still troll you online if you did the usual online stuff that gets vegans painted as crazy.
Which is my best effort at saying that that’s probably what you’re missing. Even people like me that have no problems with the precepts of veganism per se, we can get tired of the vegans that take things too far, and then the entire belief system gets colored by that brush. It creates a general fatigue, then a general stereotype, and that turns into assholes going to vegan spaces and being assholes (as opposed to only doing it in other spaces). That in turn makes militant vegans go on the warpath, and you get stuff like this drama lol
It’s a cycle of annoyance and limited perception. That cycle attracts the worst elements of humanity
but is not for debating about any part of being vegan
If that’s the case, I want to know why perfectly innocuous comments are still removed. Seems like they operate on a whim.
Depends on the context maybe? Idk I am not a mod. I’ve just seen comments about arguing for eating meat or saying something like “I’m going to eat 2 hamburgers now because of you” which are just annoying. I thought that was what this was about. I’ll leave my comments up for anyone else confused.
Cause over the last few weeks, a bunch of debates over moderation drama have been full of people attacking vegans over the cat taurine debate. That drama is over and it reached a consensus resolution between the mods and admins. If they’ve made an executive judgement that the moderation drama is no longer relevant and baits carnists into breaking rule 5, then removing that debate is a valid application of rule 5.
The problem is, in my opinion, that they post memes that are clerly provoking non-vegan people for discussion.
It’s weird to jump under a “here are my 15 ways of cooking asparagus” post with anti-vegan content. But “look at these carnovorous clowns” memes are clearly offensive.
I don’t think it’s intended to provoke non-vegan people, I think it’s meant to be a ‘for us, by us’ community. PSA to all: there’s a block community button for communities that are not hateful or illegal (you should report those) but are things you’d prefer not to see on your personalized feeds
That’s what private communities are for. Calling people names while perfectly aware of it leaking into the public feed is a provocation. And it worked.
If they indeed promoted vegan diets for carnivores then I’m for a ban of the mod / community too. That’s very much animal abuse.
I’ve responded to this before and no one cared but here is the original thread since everyone has greatly exaggerated what was said about cats who are obligate carnivores not obligated to eat meat per se.
Also the notion of “owning” another animal is speciesist.
I’m not sure I can take the people in that community and what they claim seriously.
The mod isn’t banning people for debating in the comments. A lot of people the mod is banning (myself included) are people who only downvoted posts. Considering that a large portion of the posts are blatantly antagonist things like this, it easy to see why they’re getting downvoted. If you’re going to insult 90% of the users on an instance, then you’re going to get downvoted.
The mod could have made the community private so they could insult people without consequences, but instead, they decided to remain public while banning anyone who downvotes their insults. They want to continue to antagonize the instance while removing the instance’a ability to respond. They want to artificially lower the number of downvotes they get, so it doesn’t look like their antagonistic bullshit is as unpopular as it is.
Everyone could block the community, and if you choose to do that, that’s a reasonable response, but it shouldn’t be the only response. We should be able to express our opinion about the content in our feeds, even if it’s just downvoting it. Why should an entire instance be expected to hide from one abusive community?
Consider the absurdity of that statement for a second.
How can a non-vegan ask a question about the lifestyle without engaging in a debate? How do you actively interact with information without debating it?
Debates don’t have to be antagonistic. When both parties are genuinely interested in questioning their own values and opinions they can be incredibly rewarding. I can understand a rule against antagonism, but disallowing debates inherently precludes honest questioning for people interested in growing their knowledge on the lifestyle.
Well it gets fatiguing to debate all the time, especially when some people are just trolling. But you can ask questions like what do you do for protein, B12, iron, etc. without debating. What are some staples that vegans eat, is it easy to make vegan food, how expensive is vegan food, what does a balanced vegan meal look like, what are some recipes, etc. Even asking can a person thrive on a vegan diet through all stages of life and you’ll probably be given an article or recommended to watch Game Changers.
I think they want to stop the antagonistic people, especially if all they want to do is say: it is only natural to eat meat/we evolved to eat meat, humans have dominion over animals, animals don’t have feelings, vegans are just being overemotional aka only logical people eat meat, it is ok to kill animals, killing animals in factory farms is ok because it is efficient, there isn’t enough land to grow vegan food for everyone, etc. Just shit that’s been responded to a million times and at this point seems bad faith since it’s been debunked before. Maybe they could have a sticky or wiki about these common arguments, idk I am not a mod.
It also matters what your tone is and that can be the difference between someone asking questions in good faith vs someone doing an antagonistic debate. But yeah at this point vegans do not need to question their values or opinions when it comes to their diet and lifestyle. You cannot convince a vegan it is ok to kill an animal for food but you might be able to convince a non-vegan it is wrong to kill an animal for food. Anyway that was just my thoughts on it.
this vegan drama is dumb as shit
the top three vegan communities by users are hexbear, .ml, .world
hexbear has news, opinions, questions from a vegan pov
.ml has similar
.world has a lot of shitty memes
if you are looking for a serious vegan comm go to hexbear or ml. if you are looking for shitty memes go to .world
if you are not a vegan and just want to lolpost ‘but bacon is delicious’ keep it to your fucking self
Yeah I’m not vegan, but if vegans want to be insufferable in vegan spaces I think that’s ok. That’s where it’s supposed to be. If you want to be anti vegan in those spaces you’re an asshole for it
There is also !vegan@vegantheoryclub.org, their own instance
Which Hamid has made just as bad as beaver did here, but I guess at least he’s transparent about ban hammering and comment removals. He’s insufferable and is the instance mod, not just community mod.
It is starting to look like the only place a vegan community mushroom can grow and flourish is on an even bigger pile of shit. It’s a little crass to say, but it ought to tell you something when the most defederated and blocked instances is where your group hangs out.
I just want to read vegan recipes and see like minded people discuss a topic in a civilized way, you know, like basically every other community.
Oh boy, it looks like they’re posting the “you should feed your obligate carnivorous pets a fully vegan diet” garbage again.
Most people aren’t vegan, so vegans are a minority. That’s not difficult to understand, so we have to assume you’re reading in bad faith. Stop it please.
Edit: veganism isn’t a diet either. Quite easy to find this out if you even stick the word into a search engine.
There are certainly vegan diets. People who still eat animal produce may still be interested in vegan alternatives without becoming vegan or vegetarian. And I don’t think being part of a small community of a certain life choice isn’t really making you a minority in the political sense (I assume that’s what the minority part is trying to imply here, that there’s some sort of entitlement for a minority protection).
Also, promoting vegan diets for carnivorous pets is indeed animal abuse and should not be defended or promoted. That’s typically a telltale sign of veganazis, which are generally a terrible thing even for actual vegans as they put the whole lifestyle into a bad light with their overly aggressive rhetoric and disinformation.
There are certainly vegan diets.
Yes, and there are Muslim diets I’m sure, but Islam isn’t a diet either, for example. Just stick “veganism” into your search engine of choice and the credible sources won’t call it a diet.
And I don’t think being part of a small community of a certain life choice isn’t really making you a minority in the political sense
I’m arguing that they may not have meant that. The criticism should be “that’s clumsy wording because it sounds like you mean minority in a political sense” or “surely you don’t mean…” rather than “you’re comparing yourself to (minorities in the political sense) and therefore vegans are bad”.
Also, …
Honestly, I suspect your willingness to assume the worst of what a vegan’s said, and that you bring up a minority view even amongst vegans out of context, betrays a prejudgment that plays as much, if not more, of a role as how aggressively some vegans argue in how you’re approaching the whole thing.
To put the shoe on the other foot, how would it sound to you if someone on the Carnivore diet, or on the Atkins diet called themselves a minority?
It just doesn’t make sense, because dietary choices, are just that, choices. While actual minorities, like POCs and LGBTQ people, are born the way they are. They don’t have any choices in the matter.
Don’t get me wrong, dietary choices can be a super serious matter, and I am not saying that people aren’t discriminated against for them. I just think its wrong to call someone a minority based on any sort of dietary choice, at least in the same context that minority is usually used.
Again, veganism isn’t a diet (this is painfully easy to find out if you just quickly look it up!) and if you interpret minority in a literal sense, it’s true and relevant because it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the majority if you’re in the minority, which is what the person posting seems to be worried about.
Religion is a choice, does that make religious minorities not minorities? It’s a strongly held ethical belief system.
This might be a language barrier thing, but in most english-speaking countries when you use the term “minority” to refer to a group of people, that typically refers to a group who is a minority based on race, sex, ethnicity, gender or some other inherent trait. You might say, “a small community” to refer to a group within a group, but you wouldn’t say, “a minority community” for that unless you were trying to imply that the community in question was a racial, ethnic, gender, or other form of minority.
I was curious, so I had a look, seems like it still leads to violence in some occurences
A Florida man was recently arrested for allegedly stabbing his cousin after a heated debate about whether whole cow’s milk or almond milk is superior.
The debate over whether to consume animal products, like meat and dairy, or go entirely plant-based (vegan) is a hot-button issue, often filled with vitriol and name-calling online and in real life.
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-do-angry-vegans-meat-eaters-fight-so-much-2020-2?op=1
Yeah, but c’mon, that’s Floridaman. He’s a meth head who’d murder someone because he wanted to fuck an alligator and thought he needed a human sacrifice to do it.
The modlog should at least contain an identifier of the mod. Maybe not a link to their account but something that can be tracked across communities. To see who is abusing their power.
I’m pretty it’s Beaver. I’m now banned (and I appear to be blocked by Beaver as well) and I’m pretty sure the only recent direct interaction I’ve had with the community was downvoting the recent articles about how vegan diets are okay for carnivorous pets.
The info is there. You can tell who it is by using the filters (e.g. logs filtered on me as the user that were modded by beaver: https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&modId=7121342&userId=36)
It’s a pain in the ass but it works.
Modlog does contain the info, it’s just not displayed on the website. You can get the full data from lemmy API
Example:
{
"mod_ban_from_community": {
"id": 19651,
"mod_person_id": 7121342,
"other_person_id": 8043739,
"community_id": 1309,
"reason": "Rule 5",
"banned": true,
"expires": "2024-09-19T21:03:47Z",
"when_": "2024-09-12T21:05:15.205847Z"
},
"moderator": {
"id": 7121342,
"name": "Beaver",
"display_name": "Beaver [she/her]",
"avatar": "https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/5801e891-c371-459d-a262-84e476040930.png",
"banned": false,
"published": "2024-04-11T00:47:49.008680Z",
"actor_id": "https://lemmy.ca/u/Beaver",
"bio": "Human/Animal Rights Supporter \n\n🇵🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇬🇪🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇲🇩\n\nWe Need Proportional Representation Badly\n",
"local": false,
"banner": "https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/fea3cd18-4600-49b1-a0b9-be394adeab83.jpeg",
"deleted": false,
"matrix_user_id": "@ralimbahere:matrix.org",
"bot_account": false,
"instance_id": 251
},
"community": {
"id": 1309,
"name": "vegan",
"title": "vegan",
"description": "Please also check out [vegantheoryclub.org](https://vegantheoryclub.org/) for a great set of well-run communities for vegan news, cooking, gardening, and art. It is not federated with LW, but it is a nice, cozy, all-in-one space for vegans.\n\n***\n\nWe ask that the you have an understanding on what veganism is before engaging in this community.\n\nIf you think you have been banned erroneously, please get in contact with one of the other mods for appeals.\n\nModerator reports may not federate properly and may delay moderator action. Please DM an active mod if an abusive comment remains after reporting it.\n\n***\n\n## Welcome\n\nWelcome to c/vegan@lemmy.world. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on [intersectional](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality) topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.\n\n## What is Veganism?\n\n> 'Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...'\n\n— abridged definition from [The Vegan Society](https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism)\n\n## Rules\n\n*The rules are subject to change, especially upon community feedback.*\n\n1. Discrimination is **not** tolerated. *This includes [speciesism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism)*.\n2. Topics not relating to veganism are subject to removal.\n3. Posts are to be as accessible as practicable:\n\t- pictures of text require alt-text;\n\t- paywalled articles must have an accessible non-paywalled link.\n4. Content warnings are required for triggering content.\n5. Bad-faith [carnist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnism) rhetoric & anti-veganism are not allowed, as this is not a space to debate the merits of veganism. Anyone is welcome here, however, and so good-faith efforts to ask questions about veganism may be given their own weekly stickied post in the future (see current stickied discussion).\n\t- before jumping into the community, we encourage you to read [examples of common fallacies here.](https://yourveganfallacyis.com/)\n\t- if you're asking questions about veganism, be mindful that the person on the other end is trying to be helpful by answering you and treat them with at least as much respect as they give you.\n6. Misinformation, particularly that which is dangerous or has malicious intent, is subject to removal.\n\n## Resources on Veganism\n\nA compilation of many vegan resources/sites in a Google spreadsheet:\n\n* [vegancheatsheet.org](https://vegancheatsheet.org/)\n\nHere are some documentaries that are recommended to watch if planning to or have recently become vegan:\n\n* [You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3u7hXpOm58)\n* [Dominion (2018)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko) (CW: gore, animal abuse)\n\n## Vegan Fediverse\n\nLemmy: [vegantheoryclub.org](https://vegantheoryclub.org/)\n\nMastodon: [veganism.social](https://veganism.social/)\n\n### Other Vegan Communities\n\n#### General Vegan Comms\n!vegan@lemmy.ml\n\n!vegan@hexbear.net\n\n!vegan@vegantheoryclub.org\n\n!vegan@slrpnk.net\n\n#### Circlejerk Comms\n!vegancirclejerk@lemmy.ml\n\n\n#### Vegan Food / Cooking\n!homecooks@vegantheoryclub.org \n\n!veganrecipes@sh.itjust.works\n\n!recipes@vegantheoryclub.org\n\n",
"removed": false,
"published": "2023-06-09T20:05:49.639993Z",
"updated": "2024-09-03T01:09:32.860483Z",
"deleted": false,
"nsfw": false,
"actor_id": "https://lemmy.world/c/vegan",
"local": true,
"icon": "https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/22056785-18ee-40dc-a6da-03af986f2d3b.jpeg",
"hidden": false,
"posting_restricted_to_mods": false,
"instance_id": 1
},
"banned_person": {
"id": 8043739,
"name": "mushroomstormtrooper",
"banned": false,
"published": "2024-05-27T16:10:30.690962Z",
"actor_id": "https://lemmy.world/u/mushroomstormtrooper",
"local": true,
"deleted": false,
"bot_account": false,
"instance_id": 1
}
}
Nice… thanks. I had indeed just checked the website. I think it should then just be on the website. Especially if they are exposing votes then open this up too.
I’m not a vegan or even a vegetarian, but even I can see that my vegetarian friends get questioned uncomfortably all the time for their diet choice. When you do something differently, you inevitably get bullied.
I used to be a vegetarian for a decade and then a pescetarian before apathy fully set in and I saw how pointless it all is.
Vegans and vegetarians can be some of the most judgemental gatekeeping assholes out there. Many of them aren’t, but the ones that are militant and overbearing are the worst and only push others from their cause. Those ones desperately want to feel better than others, so become borderline eating disordered to elevate themselves to some holy god level in their minds because they eat beans and lentils.
They aren’t in the same class as minorities. They choose to eat the diet they do. And no one can visibly tell they are vegetarian/vegan until they tell others they are.
They are not in the same situation as minorities, but if they stay true to their ideals, they get bullied just like minorities. The fact there are assholes among them just like in any other group of people changes nothing.
Yeah vegans should not consider themselves as a minority.
The ANIMALS are the minority group. Not YOU. The entitlement speaks to an ego trip and is a vicious representation of the cause.
They should have their platform removed because they are hurting the image of the vegan movement
This is coming from a vegan btw
The ANIMALS are the minority group. Not YOU.
I knew this would end up here.
I wanna add that I like your community, I like how you stood up to that rogue admin, I like when you annoy carnists, I like your ban of OP, and I also like that c/fediverselore has posts like this. This community is a tool for calling out mod decisions, and some of those decisions will be good ones that don’t need calling out. It’s still better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
For the record, I think you contribute a lot to Lemmy, and I really appreciate it. OP’s being melodramatic because blocking a community chock full of content they’d rather not see on their personalized feed (and isn’t hateful, illegal, etc.) isn’t good enough for them. I guess they also need to troll and police different perspectives and how many posts they comprise on this great fedi platform. That’s good for Lemmy /s. Someone should post a PSA about blocking communities that don’t break rules but just aren’t one’s cup of tea. The behaviour helps Lemmy grow and stay diverse. For similar reasons, lemmynsfw (ie, the main porn/adult instance) removed downvotes: because minority communities (eg, rarer kinks) were being downvoted into oblivion - stifling growth and frustrating community members and mods - by people downvoting stuff they didn’t like on their feed versus blocking it
Not a vegan, but what’s the point from the other side?
It seems like non vegan people downvote the posts from that community without contributing at all, and then are surprised they get banned
If you guys are willing to debate vegan topics, why not create a !vegandebate and post content there?
Or just block the community and move on
It’s not the vegan posts people are down voting, but there’s been a huge amount of “memes” that do not contribute to the vegan discussion but just try to divide the community
And what about those commenting on good faith?
And what’s the problem with voting on public posts on a public forum?
I’d love to see vegan content, not … whatever meme shitshow that community has become.
We can always ask for better.
I mean, it was kinda inevitable lol.
It’s one of those things where once you go full jerk, it gets attention. Unavoidable really, unless instance admins want to totally ban “drama” communities, which would just end up as posts on instances that don’t ban drama communities :)
Preemptive banning is a perfect example of prime drama.
Welcome, and thank you for joining us.
What are your motivations behind posting these memes? Are they not slightly provocational?
Not a vegan, but what’s the point from the other side?
It seems like non vegan people downvote the posts from that community without contributing at all, and then are surprised they get banned
If you guys are willing to debate vegan topics, why not create a !vegandebate and post content there?
Or just block the community and move on
I thought the memes were funny though I suppose from the meat eater view they can be seen as slightly provocative.
The memes we’re referring to seem to have resulted in an increase in moderation action. Is this inadvertent, or were the posts intended to drive up or surface critical commentary?
The users at lemmy.world basically already drove the mods in that community to suggest vegan communities on other instances to basically not have to put up with the rest of lemmy.world. It’s a dead community walking and the whole ordeal convinced me to block .world. I’ve seen less content, but damn has my experience on Lemmy gotten a whole lot better.
You’ll probably never see this, but I applaud you. Isn’t that the whole point of the fediverse? You can control who and what you see, and if you ever change your mind you can easily undo it. (And I get it, everybody needs a safe space sometimes.)
