this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Lemmy.World Announcements

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MODERATORS
 

Hey all,

In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.

We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we've done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.

ToS Additions

That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.

Regarding misinformation, we've tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:

  • Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
  • We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
  • When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
  • Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
    • Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
    • Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.

We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.

We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.

By-laws Addition

We've also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.

This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we've created as a result of what has happened over the last week.

Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.

https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation

https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/

Sincerely,

FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team


EDIT:

We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.

EDIT 2 (2024-08-31):

We've posted a response, sorry for the delay.

👉 https://lemmy.world/post/19264848 👈

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] lettruthout@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Thank you all for doing this.

[–] lwadmin@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks, we're trying to do our best.

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[–] debil@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

And now the incident's "debate" is here.

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[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (18 children)

This is a bit learning the wrong lesson from what happened, isn't it? The problem is admin overreach. There was some disagreement on a sub, no big deal. I don't even care what it's about, I have no opinion on it. But now this admin comes in like Eric Cartman "Respect mah authoritah!". What am I supposed to make of that? Nobody was advocating animal abuse. I worry about admins who can't just let something go, who can't handle disagreement, like a cop always looking to escalate.

So thanks for the rules clarification, I guess, but what about:

  • won't this general guideline of 'do no harm' stifle discussion in case it isn't clear which is the harmful position? For example covid
  • is there a process in place when an admin does something in the heat of the moment, that the admin team can let them cool off for a bit?
  • is removing mods going to be the norm?
  • will there be more rules when another admin disagrees with a mod?
  • why was this escalated like this? Don't you think removing mod status is an overreaction (procedure wise)?
  • does the 'anti animal abuse' statute apply to animal consumption and animal products? Vegan community has a point there
  • what about rooki?

All in all, please don't kill this instance by telling people what to think. There is healthy discussion and people don't always have to agree. That doesn't make me a 'free speech absolutist'. I think removing moderator privileges was quite out of bounds. Again, nobody was advocating animal abuse at all.

Mods and admins are here to keep discussion healthy, not impose their views on everyone else, right? So don't! And don't cover for others who do!

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[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 21 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

What a mess. Thank you mods and admins for doing the work.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not vegan so I won't take sides in this particular debate (to me it seems like a trolley problem whether risking the harm of a pet is worth reducing the systematic harm of animals at-large), nor do I have any specific comments on the new rules...

I will say though, that these incidents are opportunity for growth and learning for both users and admins when it comes to running a grassroots online community. Whether people agree with the new rules or not, I think all of Lemmy is better for it if we have examples of how large instances can be run and how conflicts can be addressed cordially.

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[–] TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 19 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Not my instance, but after perusing those links, what's the point? "Generally" this, "generally" that, paired with vague obligations. Doesn't matter a bit if you have an actual problem with a member of the administration time and the rest buddy up and play silent.

Let me ask you this, you've been up for quite a while, you've had staff rollovers, you must have had issues with at least one of your admins. Have you been transparent about them and reached out to anyone who might have been affected by them and publicly apologized and addressed any actions on their behalf, or have you played coy and just ignored them and kept quiet about them, releasing at best only excuses that have kept any internal drama hidden lest they affect the donation/income streams?

Not really launching any accusations, but actions speak louder than words. Look at Reddit, it has a decent community guideline, and it means shit except whitewashing when it comes to actual enforcement.

[–] BigBenis@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

There's a fine line between misinformation and "subjectively offensive information". To me, this seems like it was a pretty clear case of abuse of power regardless of where you stand on the original issue and retroactively changing the rules to excuse that abuse does not bode well for this community.

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[–] uservoid1@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.

Even in shitpost/meme communities?

I understand this intended mainly toward health and news communities but as a site rule there might need an exception for other type of communities.

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