This was a case of harassment from one user to another. That one is a developer of a successful app and the other is the moderator of a successful community has nothing to do with it. Izzy was asked on numerous occasions to stop derailing every conversation and stop targeting the user. You can not like something, you can be critical of something but at least try to be constructive. They were relentless. And when a warning was given by the admin they came back guns blazing, now also making accusations towards the admin team.
We have NO financial connection to Sync. We do not accept ANY money or other incentives from anyone exactly for this reason also, about how it might look if things go south.
Normally we don’t talk about the bans in public because whatever we say people will twist the story make their own versions of it and run with it. So I posted what we had to say about that and locked the thread.
So finally I just want to say that it is unfortunate what happened but there were MANY occasions where Izzy was offered the chance to prevent this from happening. And as a moderator of a big community he has to be an example. Moderators should be held to a higher standard than normal users.
All this because he was expressing his dislike for ads in the Sync client?
I don’t see why its not allowed for a moderator to have opinions about ads, as long as he is not exploiting his moderator position to remove posts that disagree with his opinions.
Anyway, I know I don’t understand the situation fully so I shouldn’t really say anything about it. At the end of the day, each instance makes their own decisions about these things.
For those who missed this. Izzy, the (only) mod at the science fiction community, was banned by admins.
The reason is him often complaining about there being ads in the Sync client for Lemmy.
Admins take that as toxic behavior and harassment, and ultimately banned him. Which… Take it as you wish, the modlog and comment histories are available.
Izzy came back from another account to say their goodbyes, as they no longer wish to be involved anyway. This post seems to have disappeared.
Then a bit later, admin came to SF to make a post looking for new mods. When people brought up the situation, they locked the thread.
Was he as obnoxious with the sync rants as the admins said he was though? The way they said it seemed to me they were complaining about it everywhere. Although I’m not sure how that got admin attention. Maybe lots of users reported them?
Definitely adamant, but from what I’ve seen, nothing out of the ordinary on Lemmy where everyone is free to bring to certain topics and bitch about them constantly and anywhere (Reddit, Musk, cops…). Like everyone is free to pile on and brigade against Unity right now, so I don’t see the difference.
If anything, I’ve definitely seen more toxicity from some defensive Sync users myself.
Back when lots of apps were coming out, I was also questioning how weird it is to have a closed-source ad-supported client for this platform that’s all about open source and privacy, and was called all kinds of names. I’ve blocked quite a few people at that time rather than reporting, that’s what I prefer to do.
I asked an admin directly several times if there was anything else than these kinds of incidents, and couldn’t get a straight answer.
you start to form coherency of how some users act across different communities, which allows for much better discussion since it’s not limited to one-off comments in a single thread. The better you know people the better and more nuanced discussions you can have with them.
Or, like you mention, you may see a pattern and know to disregard and not engage with them based on that.
Guess not, but then don’t be surprised if the others don’t get a clear picture, don’t complain when the information is incomplete, and don’t be a hypocrite by assuming someone else’s motivations.
That it was about the same thing every time does not mean it wasn’t harassment. You got your answer when you came on matrix but you didn’t seem to understand that we expect moderators of communities to be respectful to others. How can they moderate a community and be acting like that? And now you are here as if we didn’t take time for you to explain things.
And saying “sync users are more toxic” is something you said on matrix yesterday too which was like… definitely A take.
But isn’t that the beauty of an open source platform? That anyone can do anything with it?
If Sync is closed source and wants to add ads, sure. If beehaw wants to use activitypub and create their own little isolated mini-forum, sure. If hexbear wants to be… Well, hexbear, then sure.
I have thoughts about how certain things are run, and I complain about it here and there, but it’s not in every single post I make, nor do I actively seek out posts discussing it so I can jump in and try to steer the convo there. It’s subjective, but there is a line somewhere.
It’s the dumbest reason though. The reason Sync has ads is because the person who made Sync wants to make money off it. Just like they did for Sync for Reddit.
That’s why they put ads in.
Unlike every other Lemmy client, which lacks ads.
This dude deliberately picked his hill among many other options, walked their ass voluntarily all the wall to the top, then shot themselves.
Not in the slightest. I’m saying why complain to the void when you know nothing will change. The complaining mod chose to use an app with ads and then complained about the ads when they could have chosen an app with no ads.
Dunno if that’s the motivation from his side, not that many people bother with stuff just to be annoying to others. I think he had some different sort of motivation
You know, I thought nothing about it for a second until I remembered a conversation I was in a couple days ago…and sure enough, there is Izzy in my inbox complaining about Sync having ads.
I had said something along the lines of their stance being a weird hill to die on, but it looks like die on it they did.
I would just like to chime in here as I helped Izzy mod c/sciencefiction for a couple months and left the mod team a couple weeks ago. I decided to leave that community mostly because I just wasn’t that interested in the subject matter but also because I wasn’t vibing with Izzy. I noticed a lot of their posts about Sync and yes, they were pretty relentless popping in many threads just to shit on the ad platform. It was a lot. I also noticed some, what I feel are toxic comments, in some posts about COVID and I ultimately decided I didn’t want to involve myself with them any longer. Now I only know what Antik and Izzy have stated, there hasn’t been any additional given in mod channels so I know as much as you all, but I believe there is more that Izzy was doing in private messages that led to their ban. They were polite to me in our personal conversations but I can see them taking it too far with the admins. Take that for what you will, just my opinion. But I thought I’d at least say something having been a mod in that community as well.
Of course, I had quite a few conversations with Izzy dealing with modding that community and I followed them probably closer than many other users did so I wanted to share my POV on the matter.
Pretty biased take. The guy WAS toxic, I had dealt with him before. He’d just jump on any comment concerning sync to get on his soapbox, regardless of whether it was relevant. The community’s better off without that nonsense.
Powers-that-be on this instance seem utterly bewildered by unremarkable events. As if the internet is fresh and new, and they’ve never considered that people might have opinions. Or snippy disagreements. Or objections to real-world implications… not naming names.
I replied to you a bit lower here too and this will also be my last post about this because if you don’t understand it now you never will and i will accept that.
Izzy came back from another account to say their goodbyes, as they no longer wish to be involved anyway. This post seems to have disappeared.
All Izzy’s accounts are banned. And the reason they posted was not to say “that they didn’t wish to be involved any longer” because that’s a bit after-the-fact right. They wanted to cause more drama.
Then a bit later, admin came to SF to make a post looking for new mods. When people brought up the situation, they locked the thread.
I posted what we had to say and closed the thread immediately after. You are twisting the timeline of events to use it in your favor, pure sensationalism.
You seem to feel a certain way about the admins on this instance. You are a moderator and you would be welcome to interact with others in our moderator discord server and at least make an informed post but seemingly you prefer not to interact with the others and instead to make up your own version of things.
But to end this on a positive note, we had people reach out to become moderators on !sciencefiction and we’ll hook them up with eachother so they can get things going again.
If you want to accuse people of twisting words, you need to look into the mirror as well, Antik. As you say, I talked to you on Matrix and couldn’t get an answer to a question I asked 3 times, and then you deliberately misinterpret what I say.
So also don’t tell me that I don’t try to communicate, when I did exactly that. And you don’t know what I do to coordinate with other people around Lemmy. I don’t talk to admins because I don’t want to bug you people with every little thing when I’m sure you’re busy with other stuff and everyone is trying to talk. And I literally can’t use Discord because it’s a broken POS. Yet I still was in your Discord server before you had this official one.
All I wanted in this thread is to provide information to people who didn’t know what happened. As accurately and sparsely as possible to let people make up your own mind, and I definitely don’t think I twisted anything, much less the timeline. You say I misinterpreted things because I don’t see it from your perspective.
Whatever, we are all humans, have our own point of view, but don’t accuse me of sensationalism or some other motivations. That’s like, one of the last thing I ever want, and I don’t like it when people accuse me of motivations that are completely off. Like what do you think I’m doing, trying to take over the server or what would be the point of sensationalism and transforming reality?
I don’t even “feel the certain way” about the admins, I told you that you do a fine job in general. But true, there’s a general attitude on Lemmy that tends to put a sour taste in my mouth, and I’ve always tried to do my part to not be a part of it. The “don’t say the wrong thing or you’ll get banned” and “suspect everyone is out to just make drama” among those issues.
And of course as a mod I know what a fine line that is. Shiit, when I talked to my co-mods about this thing, the first thing I asked was if I’m not hypocritical. I try not to be. So please try to not look for the worst in people. Most are just trying their best to make this site a better place, just like you, and everyone is passionate about different things.
It is also about the way you communicate. You joined the Matrix server (or Discord, I’m not sure which, as they are interconnected) last night, and the first thing you asked was: “So, anyone wants to talk about admin-banning Izzy of science fiction? Cause it looks pretty bad honestly.” Meanwhile, other conversations were ongoing. Most people typically introduce themselves or at least say hello to everyone.
Antik responded to you, but you didn’t agree with his answer. You followed up with “And btw the Sync users are more toxic and defensive than anyone… Just sayin.” and then you left the server.
It’s evident that you joined for a specific reason, and your comment about the Sync users gives us an idea of where you stand on this issue.
It’s perfectly fine to have differing opinions; just express them in a respectful manner.
I didn’t know this is like Beehaw where you need to come hat in hand with an introductory essay before you can ask a question.
Fine, I apologise for not saying Hello, I was tired. But if you need more than that, then well I’m not your person. I was in the scifi thread, got upset, then realised I should ask the other side as well. I was trying to get a picture, couldn’t get it, we both said/agreed the debate is over, so I left because I was getting more tired and upset and didn’t want to say something bad and frankly got worried that someone would make it about me, like it’s here. Guess that’s wrong?
I wanted to sleep on it, but when this meme showed up, I tried to recap the situation here as neutrally as possible for people, tried to avoid saying who is right (ed: at first at least. Stress on “tried”, whether you believe it or not.), didn’t call out any particular admin, told people to make up their own mind, and i’m still the bad guy. I really don’t know what you expect from someone to recap the situation. “The great diligent admins banned the toxic harasser who’s been nothing but spewing vile”, was that what I was supposed to write?
Despite what you may think about my motivations, I don’t have any stake in this other than trying to help make Lemmy a good platform, but for quite a while it’s been pointless due to all this toxic positivity where everyone has to walk on tiptoes.
I didn’t know this is like Beehaw where you need to come hat in hand with an introductory essay before you can ask a question.
Funny…
…told people to make up their own mind, and i’m still the bad guy.
We replied to your post. That’s all there is to it.
…all this toxic positivity where everyone has to walk on tiptoes.
I believe you can express nearly anything you wish. Why mention walking on your tiptoes? We’re engaged in a discussion about something on which we hold differing opinions. That’s perfectly acceptable. However, we are permitted to present our perspective.
But I think we have now spoken to you at length enough on this subject. For me, this is a case closed.
There isn’t one (that’s a good thing). Choose a instance that is semi small and close to you or your interests. I found this website helpful: lemmyverse.net
You should still be able to access the same content assuming it isn’t blocked by the instance admin
Huh. I thought the name sounded familiar, went back and checked my history. Yep, he was trolling a sync thread and getting into arguments over ads a month ago. Some stupid take about better to have no free software than ad supported. Can’t say I’m too surprised to hear this happened.
I would rather have a smaller, more serious community that allowed for meaningful conversations if it meant we could keep all the meaningless, distracting drama away. I don’t want a 1:1 Reddit replacement. I want something that was better than Reddit.
According to the one comment I read from some mod or admin on the sci-fi community, one of the mods was starkly against some feature and supposedly would derail the conversation with criticisms every time it came up. They were kicked for 1 day and allegedly threw a fit, demanding repercussions and apologies, and crossed a line in their appeals, so they were permanently banned.
Don’t know everything though, this is literally just one second or third hand perspective.
Edit: whoops didn’t realize someone else already described it haha. Take a look further down the thread (or higher depending on how you have it sorted)
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