I tend to browse /All and by New on Lemmy. I went to respond on a thread on !vegan@lemmy.world to thank someone for a recipe that looked good, and found out I had been banned.
Odd, considering I hadn't posted to that sub at any point in the past. I checked the modlog to find that "Mod" had banned a bunch of people citing "Rule 5."
Their Rule 5 states: Bad-faith carnist 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).
I (and hundreds of others) seemingly broke rule 5 of this community without ever posting there. What is going on?
And my apologies if this isn't the place for this, but I had no idea where else to post the question.
Well, remember this is social media - we aren't here to read, but to talk. This gives something for people to talk about, sharing their opinions and such. Also, if it were even possible to read the comments in time order, you'd see people solving the puzzle as it went - first a question was asked, several people put forth different answers, and it snowballed forward from there.
As for why people care - why do any of us like anything? Books, games, movies, etc., it's all a variety of entertainment to distract us from our real lives:-P.
Eh. If you look over the mod log for the months before the incident, it makes sense why they just started banning anyone with negative interactions. People were just dropping in to harass them.
Also, some social media spaces are closed for most - i.e. you can only read and not comment unless you've been approved...
Fair. I don't really care either way, but do feel like mods of communities like that have a hard job. I wouldn't sign up to do it.
I did not do that look, but indeed that sounds bad. And yes, it might be nice to have at least the option to create a closed space.
Part of the issue though was whether the mod was banning people for offering so much as a singular downvote - crucially (imho): in some other community. Downvotes are part of the normal functionality of the Fediverse, but if people thought that they could be banned for such, then they could avoid them, thereby lessening the functionality of the Fediverse.
And all the more so when the decision was not reviewed by human eyes. And again even more so when the mod in question was becoming unhinged, refusing to communicate with their fellow mods. And even more so again, trying to ban even instance admins who literally own the machines upon which the Lemmy code is being run.
So... lots of drama. Just like watching a TV show I guess.