There should be some moderators looking after this community.
The sidebar should be filled with at least a description of what this is for, and some basic rules.
Also posts/comments that are off-topic or break server/community rules should be removed.
I think 3 mods to start would be OK, they can appoint more mods if needed.
If we can't find moderatos, we'll have to close this community.
Also posts/comments that are off-topic or break server/community rules should be removed
This creates an echo chamber. If they break rules, that's a different story, but removing "off-topic" comments is too broad of a statement and could lead to mere disagreements/differing opinions being removed, which I don't agree with.
Edit - And I'm just getting around to the flood of spam posts, I'll add rules and clean it up. I am basically only on from 7am-6pm EST and most of this happened overnight.
I just woke up to this drama. This whole site is going through some growing pains. It's hard to establish a "niche" for this place when within 48 hours the place is getting brigaded by people who are clearly just upset that the community exists at all.
I'd prefer to not take a heavy-handed moderating approach. I don't want to create an echo chamber, so as long as posts are on-topic and comments are civil, I'm happy. That shouldn't be controversial. If Lemmy is the kind of place where moderators are expected to ban any users who disagree with them and site admins hand-select mods or shut down any community that slightly upsets users, then it's no different than Reddit.
Yeah, I mean the fact that an admin, at 2AM EST decided the community was under moderated because it was brigaded from an asklemmy post and made their own post and appointed a moderator doesn't bode well.
I think it would be a fun feature to have a quick copypasta like "I see you've posted something critical of conservatives in the conservative community. We'll allow it because we support free speech, but try posting (insert link to negative article about dems) in r/politics and see what happens!" Either that or we say "this community is for conservative members to discuss conservative issues" and link them to something like c/debateconservative
I’m happy to help clean up offending posts/comments if you need help. I’m also of the opinion that discourse is important and mods should be focused on rule breaking behavior or things that are actively inhibiting discourse.
But is that not how communities should operate here? As long as they follow the instance's rules, they get to make a community with their own rules..
If you want to make a community about spongebob memes where people are only allowed to post spongebob memes, you can do that and remove any post that post things which are not spongebob memes..
If conservatives want to create an "echo chamber" where only conservatives are allowed to post/comment, they are just showing that their stated values about "freedom of speech" and "opposition to censorship" are not genuine...
If they want to allow "civil discourse" only to then backpaddle, they will also not look very good..
And this instance's rules are clear, this isn't like reddit back in the day that allowed any post. If people spread transphobia or hate, they get banned, and if we look at other "conservative only" communities on other sites, they probably won't be able to stick to those rules anyway..
If conservatives want to create an “echo chamber” where only conservatives are allowed to post/comment, they are just showing that their stated values about “freedom of speech” and “opposition to censorship” are not genuine…
No one here wants to create an echo chamber, that is the point
Well if you don't then my worries will be proven wrong and I would be positively surprised. But as an open leftist who has tried to share personal views on things in conservative and right-leaning communities before (always trying to be as respectful as possible), my experiences have made me a bit more pessimistic. People will claim to allow freedom of speech, but eventually pull out the ban hammer at the first excuse they have..
Even here, the conservativesonly sub, which states in it's sidebar that "Non Conservatives may comment unless it is apparent that they only came here to harass others who do not share their viewpoints" is just arbitrarily deleting some of my comments without explanation.. When I asked the mod, the reply was basically "this is a conservatives only community, we will maybe perhaps potentially allow some non-conservative comments if we feel like it..".
Stuff like that does not make me remain sceptical..
I have passed ownership of this community so I can't speak with absolute certainty, but the moderators that I have added (including the new owner) all share this view of mine, that free discussion, even differing and disagreeing opinions can and will always be permitted.
You're more than welcome to post and comment here. In the first day or two some disagreeing comments were removed and I re-approved them and told the mod that removed them that it wouldn't how this community is moderated.
The only posts I've removed are from a user that came here as part of the brigade and spammed dozens of posts that were not even tangentially related to conservatism (more so conservative hate/mocking). I was going to leave a few up, but upon issuing a temp ban to the user for the spam, the option to remove all was presented which I used. A single post that disagrees with conservatism would never be removed as long as it's done to incite discussion and not to incite hate.
You’re more than welcome to post and comment here.
That's good to know.
The only posts I’ve removed are from a user that came here as part of the brigade and spammed dozens of posts that were not even tangentially related to conservatism