Is there anything that can be done about troll powermods?
Is there anything that can be done about troll powermods?
I logged into Kbin today to see 18 notifications where the same guy banned me from all of their magazines for downvoting them.
I was only subscribed to 1 of those magazines, but it's still annoying to wake up to 18 ban messages from someone who got easily angered from a downvote.
(Side note: IMO, this is why being able to see downvotes is bad. Even if anyone could see them by spinning up their own instance, that's a lot of work compared to pressing 2 buttons.)
I've blocked the guy, but is there anything that can be done to stop this from proliferating across the site?
this is certainly very very worrying. this sort of behavior has to be handled some way or another. @ernest.
honestly, someone like that has already shown they would not make a good moderator, they mass banned over something so petty and small, i don't think it would be unreasonable to revoke their ability to make mags for some time (or indefinitely) and give his mags to someone else who is more mature. he already swiped up some big name mags, do we really want someone like that running popular magazines? no.
edit. honestly fuck it, this deserves to be called out. @Deliverator, this is unacceptable and very childish behavior. you should not be running magazines. reconsider your behavior and grow up, please.
edit. looks like we may not have the full story here. @Deliverator, we would very much like to hear your side and your reasoning for this.
edit. i noticed some people have gone and mass-downvoted Deliverators posts, PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS. do NOT stoop to that level, do NOT contribute to the problem of mass-downvoting, even if the other person has done it, or you are no better and have no right to criticize it.
Looks like he may have just been removed from his mod position on a few magazines, as his profile only shows him modding 14 now. Hopefully the other magazines he's on realize what he's doing and do something about him.
EDIT: Maybe not, I just checked the modlog, and OP was only banned 13 times, not 18. Unless 5 of those were removed and no longer show up in the log for some reason? I feel like there might be more to this story than what we're seeing.
Other people have also been downvoting the mod in question, but OP is the only one who seems to have been mass-banned like this, as far as I can see in the modlog. I don't even see any threads where OP or the mod have interacted before, so I'm doubting that this was caused by just downvoting somebody's comment.
Maybe everyone should pump the brakes on this witch hunt for a sec.
Nah fam, it’s the inter webs, we hunt witches and burn them. And this guy definitely floats in water.
The 18 number is the number of unread messages I had at the time. They were all "you have been banned." I just went back and counted; I have 18 messages (across 2 pages of notifications now).
It's possible that they extended the length of the ban and doing so gave me another message; the bans were all different lengths. Or it could be some duplication happening server-side.
There definitely needs to be a set protocol to remove mods like this. If the user did something to be removed from a specific mag, that's one thing, but removing them from every mag you're a mod for is an overreach.
In theory the protocol is to first report it to the instance admin and otherwise avoid instances that allow such behavior. I'm aware it's easier said than done.
The only "set protocol" is that the protocol is up to the instance admin to set.
That said, it would be nice to have a standard place for instance admins to post that protocol so that everyone can see it and decide if the instance meets their standards.
i noticed some people have gone and mass-downvoted Deliverators posts, PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS
Not to be a i-told-you-so but this is why you don't name and shame on the internet. You can influence a person but masses become this uncontrollable horde that does stuff like this.
I actually disagree with this being an example of why seeing downvotes is bad. I also think it's good we can see which mod is doing the banning; I've noticed the standard lemmy moderation log doesn't show that. This kind of transparency allows for poor behaviour to be discovered more quickly and remedied with less speculation about who did what.
Edit: For example, I can also see this person has gone through your entire comment history and downvoted every comment. I didn't see any troll-like comments from you though. I hope this person is doing OK mentally, but this isn't OK community leader behaviour on their part.
Edit 2: I can also see that OP has downvoted every single one of the other person's comments too. On the same day as the other person did to OP. Uh... I don't know what conversation spawned this entire exchange, but I dont think that downvoting all someone's comments outside of their contexts is productive.
Edit 3: And for the couple of other accounts who are going through the post histories of the people involved and downvoting because of this thread? Also not helpful behaviour. Be better.
This is why we can't have nice things.
This is exactly why transparency is great. These people are ridiculous and lose credibility. Keeping everything visible is the best defense against manipulation
Agreed, if somebody is spam downvoting comments (Which is honestly quite the pathetic act), then people should be able to see that, and block/report them
Yeah, and being able to see who downvotes you will hopefully lead to people being encouraged to actually leave a comment if they disagree instead of just downvoting everything they disagree with they see. People still are not aware that downvoting is public, so still fall into old habits of using downvote as a I disagree or I don't like you option.
I avoided some of the finer details because the downvoting isn't the point - the bans are. Especially from so many magazines.
But - to give the full story:
I have a Tampermonkey extension which hides posts after an upvote/downvote. Because of this, I'm voting on basically everything in my subscribed feed.
I downvoted something of his - I don't even remember what, exactly. I made some comments and noticed when checking replies later that I had been downvoted on a bunch of them.
Curious, I checked to see where the downvotes were coming from - all of them were this guy. I checked their profile and saw that I had already downvoted one of their posts, hence my guess as to why he was mad.
Usually I'd let these things pass, but I found it a bit childish and I was feeling petty, so I did it back to them. You can judge me if you like; I'm not exactly proud of stooping to that level but I was already in a sour mood that day.
I haven't been on Kbin for a couple days, but I checked back this afternoon and saw 18 messages, all of which said "you have been banned." Evidently they got angry and decided they weren't going to let me participate in any of their communities.
I got pissed at this and banned him back - which is, again, perhaps childish on my part. At the same time, I've been a mod for a long time across multiple platforms, and I have a low tolerance for BS at this point. I've seen folks like this start spamming communities in retaliation to perceived slights - something like that happened on the first forum I ever ran, way back before Reddit even existed - and frankly this guy has already proven to be acting in bad faith.
One reason why I didn't delve into details is because this is going to devolve into petty he said/she said arguments, which frankly isn't the point.
The point is that this guy got pissed off at something I did and decided I wasn't able to participate in any of their communities anymore. Like I said, I was only subscribed to one of these communities anyway - so it didn't really affect me - but I worry what would happen if these weren't small communities. What happens if a powermod that runs multiple big magazines decides to ban people for perceived slights?
I know this was a issue on Reddit (awkwardtheturtle), and I'd hate for it to be an issue here, too.
The downvoting isn't the point
It actually seems to be central to the point. If I take your account as the truth, it appears that by using the dislike functionality to leverage your personal UI extension side effects, you have actually had the effect of delegitimising this person's contribution. Because downvotes on kbin also affect everyone's content sorting.
This person may have felt harassed by those actions, even if it wasn't your intent. While you have asked for us to excuse your actions as childish retaliation and an attempt to defend your communities from bad actors, you have also cast the exact same actions from the other person as being "troll powermod".
That seems problematic. If i were in your position, I would look at modifying the tampermonkey extension to provide a hide function which only affects your client. And also retracting downvotes which it created, as a show of goodwill. I hope you can both get past whatever it is that happened here.
Downvotes not having reasons attached allows for a lot of room for misinterpretation and uniformed assumptions. Instead of hiding the downvotes, perhaps we could all just be more mindful of how we use them.
I hope you all have a better time from here on out.
I have a Tampermonkey extension which hides posts after an upvote/downvote. Because of this, I'm voting on basically everything in my subscribed feed.
I do want to call out some concerns here. I'm not excusing op's behavior, but indiscriminate downvotes is the kind of thing I'd say we don't want here and I'd say you're both in the wrong even if one of you is farther down the path.
The script is causing poor behaviour by subverting the purpose of the up/down vote system.
The downvote button should be used to indicate a post doesn't add to the conversation. It isn't a dislike/disagree button, your supposed to comment in those situations.
I try to put effort into my comments, when they get randomly downvoted for no reason it can be upsetting.
Obviously you upset the mod and they overreacted, but your behaviour triggered the event.
All of the downvotes/upvotes are public via the ActivityPub protocol. That's part of the system. Hiding it on the front-end for kbin only obscures the mechanism.
That's just the limitation of the current technology.
I feel the downvote is equally as important as the upvote, sometimes bad posts and comments just need negative reaction
@EnglishMobster This week, I will take a closer look at the topic, and additional options for the blocklist may be required. To be honest, I cannot guarantee that it will happen right away, but the improvements will definitely be gradually introduced. The priority, however, remains the stable functioning of the website and data security due to the significant changes prepared by contributors. I don't want to do anything faster than necessary, but I realize how important what you're writing about is.
wait, can you see who downvotes you?
Yes, if you click on "more," next to "reply" and "boost." Click on "activity" from there.
Imagine having the time to actually look at all that nonsense just to find out who clicked an arrow icon halfway around the world.
I don't think people really understand just how privileged it is to be here dawdling at all, given time, technology, access, etc ... nevermind dawdling maliciously over something so petty.
Then again you could easily make bots to check all that shit, do the cross referencing, and pump out a black list of folks you don't want to interact with. I can see there's a lot of use in that for moderation and administration, but as a user? Begging for problems. It won't ever create positivity to have people able to see that. I understand the protocol won't hide it, but apps can.
Edit, Wait, I'm not even sure the protocol allows for downvotes anyway, that's specific to the apps isn't it? So there's a conscious decision going on to show them? That's a miss.
Gave you one to check
yep, it's just standing there... menacingly
Click more on any thread or comment and click activity. "Reduces" are down votes.
a TIL for me too. I can't see who downvotes from the comment icons themselves, not sure where people are finding that
That info is public available on kbin (this post was federated from kbin.social).
On lemmy, I believe only the admins have access to this info by looking at the database itself.
@EnglishMobster every day on there's a main character on the internet, and you never want to be it. @Deliverator, how about instead of this getting totally blown out of proportion, you ease up and unban the guy, as well as make it a personal policy not to ban people from every magazine you own over a petty grievance. Going nuclear like that should be reserved for something extreme like CSAM, not just doing something that irritates you.
He went as far as downvoting all your comments and posts. That's some Kindergarten level pettiness. Yeah, based on that they shouldn't be a mod.
To be fair, wouldn't an admin always be able to see your downvotes, even without the current completely open view of it? Admins in general usually get information you're not privy to on sites.
That said, your best bet would be to just find magazines that offer the same thing, just not run by him. Or make a new one. If he keeps it up you'd likely get traffic.
This wasn't an admin, just a mod.
Well if someone made a magazine that's absolutely unique in history and cannot be duplicated then yeah that might be a concern. But, honestly why not make a rival mag or find a simliar one to migrate to? There's plenty of magazines in the sea. If this guy has 18 that are squarely in your wheelhouse and there are no other options, you could make 18 new ones or boogie on over to the next instance.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be fussy about admins being adults and acting fairly. Just that we're still early in the ballgame here and the whole thing of four-mods-owning-800-subreddit things or whatever really shoudln't happen here for any good reason.
Seeing downvotes is not the problem. It is a positive attribute of the platform as it increases transparency and accountability. Do not try to shift the blame off of the person. The person who used the system to do this to you is the problem. It is good that you have a way to track this behavior, but if people start clamouring for closing avenues of transparency, it will lead inevitably to a platform that does not allow you to make these observations.
Ngl this sounds like everyone ever who has defended a terrible thing and instead blamed an individual.
For example: “Guns aren’t the problem, the people with the guns that are the problem.”
You just tried to make and equivalency between "guns" and "transparency and accountability". Try to realize that.
Your example: "Guns aren't the problem, the people with the guns are the problem." "Transparency and Accountability aren't the problem, the people that abuse it are the problem."
An arguments construction has nothing to do with it's parts so even if my argument is constructed in the same way it does not make them the same. Try not to build strawmen with flawed logic.
As an aside here's a better statement:
Guns are the problem and People are the problem. Transparency and accountability are not the problem.
Yep. The transparency is the key takeaway here. Being able to see upvotes / downvotes is important. If people are going to retaliate against people for downvoting then, that's just part of the system. Block those people and move on. The issue here I feel is one person making over a dozen magazines and then banning this user because they've been slighted.
There should be a moderator code of conduct, where your bans and moderation needs to be justified, else you get a booting from the admins
looks like he's owner and sole moderator for several magazines
Toxic behavior like this is something that needs to be reported to the server admin (Ernest in this case). We're at the size where reporting this stuff can still be handled on a case by case basis
Which guy is that? The mod of /c/synthesizers?
Are you ok?
Looks like he got you for a couple more just recently.
Looking through your post history, I don't agree with the "Troll" statement being tied to those bans...
I see nothing has changed from reddit with these childish, power hungry mods. That's such a shame.
Lol, will you even still be alive in 80 years?
Wow, banned from a magazine or banned on the entire kbin.social? If an admin is doing that, I'd leave asap and open an account elsewhere.
Most likely the dude just created a shit ton of Magazines that have 0 users
Yep, there are plenty of accounts like that. They must see it as some kind of land grab, not realising that creating redditsubclone1, redditsubclone2 etc on instance A that are empty does not mean they own those names across the fediverse.
just a regular dude who made a bunch of mags, NOT AN ADMIN