this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
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86 users here now
This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.
Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.
Posting Guidelines
All posts should follow this basic structure:
- Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
- What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
- Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
- Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
- Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions that you have received from a mod or admin.
- Don’t use private communications to prove your point. We can’t verify them and they can be faked easily.
- Don’t deobfuscate mod names from the modlog with admin powers.
- Don’t harass mods or brigade comms. Don’t word your posts in a way that would trigger such harassment and brigades.
- Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
- You can post about power trippin’ in any social media, not just lemmy. Feel free to post about reddit or a forum etc.
- If you are the accused PTB, while you are welcome to respond, please do so within the relevant post.
Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.
Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.
YTPB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.
Some acronyms you might see.
- PTB - Power-Tripping Bastard: The commenter agrees with you this was a PTB mod.
- YDI - You Deserved It: The commenter thinks you deserved that mod action.
- YDM new - You Deserved More: The commenter thinks you got off too lightly.
- BPR - Bait-Provoked Reaction: That mod probably overreacted in charged situation, or due to being baited.
- CLM - Clueless Mod: The mod probably just doesn't understand how their software works.
Relevant comms
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A lot of people complain about MBFC, but when I ask them "Great, show me a source they say is questionable that is not and I'll stop using it."
Silence.
Generally people get hung up over what they flag as right or left and that doesn't enter into our decisions on whether to remove a post or not. Right/Left/Center doesn't matter as long as it's a reliable source and that's one thing MBFC does that Ad Fontes does not.
"But, but, it can't be 'Right' AND 'Reliable'!"
Sure it can, look at National Review, which has been the gold standard for conservative thought for decades.
Al Jazeera and MSNBC. They both have the same factual rating as the New York Post, for transparently ridiculous reasons.
If by "questionable," you mean "unreliable and thus forbidden for posting," I'm not aware of one, although I could search. Would it make a difference?
The other side of the question -- a source they say is unquestionable which in fact is highly questionable -- is even worse. They produce an objective degradation in the quality of /c/world by allowing garbage sources like Newsweek (which they rate "mostly factual," a tick above both MSNBC and Al Jazeera.)
MBFC literally has a "Questionable" category, this came up the last time I removed a bullshit link from Mint Press News.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/mint-press-news/
New York Post and MSNBC are not "Questionable":
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/msnbc/
"Medium Credibility".
Got it, fair enough. But why are we suddenly moving the goalposts to "Do they regard as questionable a source which is not?" instead of "Do they regard as un-questionable some sources which are questionable?" or "Is there an objectively better list we could be using instead?" I mean I'm happy to search and see if there is some that meets that first criteria, but the other two criteria also seem highly pertinent.
(Also why on earth is the New York Post not "questionable"? Does that mean it's allowed? Mint Press is literal Russian propaganda. Is that the bar now?)
Generally, anything questionable is 100% removed.
Medium credibility is up to mods discretion, but the New York Post has a history so I generally just remove it without question similar to the Daily Mail.
Despite the reliability rating, they crossed the line from news agency to tabloid ages ago. A step above "Clinton Meets With Space Aliens", but not that big a step. :)
Sounds good. Why are we moving the goalposts away from the questions “Do they regard as un-questionable some sources which are questionable?” or “Is there an objectively better list we could be using instead?”
I haven't found one, and like I say, when people bitch at me and I go "But how are they wrong?" I get either silence or the typical teenage angst answer of "They just ARE! GOSH!"
What? No you haven't. I'm not the only one who has been sending very detailed explanations, but I've sent you some specific objections in this comment thread. I keep raising them and you keep changing the subject.
For one thing, they count Newsweek as not questionable when it's trash. For another, the New York Post. It sounds like your strategy is to use MBFC, and then override them when their judgement is obviously (cartoonishly) wrong, like it is for the Post. I would say that means they're not reliable to use. But, you still rely on them for some things. Like Newsweek.
Glancing now at Wikipedia's list, I see some other sources which are commonly posted on .world which they regard as unreliable since an ownership change or other slippage of standards. Raw Story is on that list for example.
It kind of sounds like you're not interested in hearing this. Okay. If you're planning on persistently pretending that this is teenage angst, I'll go do something else.
No you won't, because you can't help but respond. You seem to have this insatiable desire to have the last word, which I will make no effort at pretending I don't like triggering.
Sounds like I got under someone’s skin lol
Next step is usually going back through my comment history downvoting a bunch of my stuff. Be my guest!
I did that because I'm enjoying this, and we had a little bet to see if you would snag the bait. You're not even close to being witty enough to get under my skin.
Correct, like I say, if they're questionable, it's removed, full stop. But for other certain sources, it's left up to the mod.
This is also clearly stated in the sidebar:
"Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed."
Note the key word "may". Not will be, may be removed. I think people miss that a lot. I get reports all the time with the reason being "Opinion Article" and I'm like... So?
Opinion articles can be fine or they can be objectively wrong, I'm not going to remove it just because it's opinion.
Now, if the "opinion" is "Russia is doing nothing wrong, Ukraine doesn't exist, Zelensky's a Nazi..." Yeah, that shits getting removed with a quickness because it's propaganda, not because it's opinion.
Like I said, it sounds like you’re just not interested in hearing this. Okay.
Mintpressnews, the people reporting on Israeli spies writing American news and backing it up with evidence, is not reliable?
Your definition of reliable is "believes everything I believe".
Well this is a straight up massive lie. You have been provided with a ton of examples in the past by many different users. Including many times in this very community.
Give me an example of a site MBFC says is "Questionable" that in reality is reliable. I can wait.