General Discussion @lemmy.world tatterdemalion @programming.dev 1y ago

How to handle "bad" moderation?

I just commented on this post and it got removed very quickly. Then I noticed that all of the comments had been removed and the post is locked.

I cannot understand why this happened, as the comments section had seemed pretty reasonable to me.

This seems like bad moderation and I'm now less inclined to post or comment in the world news community. What should I do?

I tried messaging a mod that is seemingly online and actively posting, but I got no response.

22 comments

Looking through the mod log, I don't blame them for nuking the whole thread. Your comment seemed respectable enough, but the others were devolving pretty quick.
- Something I always hated about some reddit mods is when they'd just lock and nuke a whole thread instead of targeting the people who were the problem. I get it's a volunteer job and you can't do that when it's two thousand comments but sometimes they're important topics on an important forum, I'd rather see a "unmoderated" flag put on a thread that has gone out of control than see it completely shut down.
  
  Maybe some alternatives to completely nuking threads, like an "unmoderated" tag for large threads that have gotten away from mod teams that they don't want to just kill, could be a unique feature that could be implemented. Apps could give a "this thread is unmoderated and it's contents might not follow community guidelines" warning, which users could disable if they wanted. It'd be a nice alternative to shutting down discussions entirely.
  
  "Y'all can't behave"
- It does seem heavy-handed though. If the mod had had enough of the cat-fighting, they could have simply locked the comments instead of removing the post itself.
  
  The only reason to go that far would be if the submitted content contravened the community's rules.
- I think I saw a couple comments where people were "getting into it" and not contributing to the discussion. I just don't get why the mod didn't remove those and leave the rest. They gave up on the post too early IMO, but I guess I could be asking too much of a volunteer.
  
  I always appreciated when Reddit mods that locked a post explained why in a pinned comment. Is that possible here too? That would help the clueless users like myself who find a post late through RSS.
- How do you check the mod log?
  
  If you expand the sidebar, down at the bottom where all the mods are listed there's a 'modlog' button.
  
  It's in the sidebar of every community (on the web at least)
They probably removed them in general since that is probably a controversial topic. The reasoning was "This post should not have comments.", not "Those specific comments are bad, and I will remove them all".
- That seems heavy handed IMO, especially since most of the posts were on topic and following the rules as far as I could tell. Why clear it out and lock it if nothing bad has happened? You can see what was posted in the modlog if you're curious.
Post it elsewhere. And start the discussion. ✌️💛
Is there a way to 'DM' the mod?
- Yea I tried that. Sorry I only recently edited my post to include that detail.
Well, the platform changes, power tripping mods don't. Post it elsewhere and let the badly moderated community slowly fade into obscurity.
- I guess I could have posed my question differently. I'm curious what I should do about this situation in general. Like maybe this time I'm wrong and the mod is just doing their best. Maybe another day mods start really fucking up and it's not just me noticing. What happens then? Do you message an admin or what?
  
  Maybe another day mods start really fucking up and it’s not just me noticing. What happens then? Do you message an admin or what?
  
  In this situation (supposing fucking up means like outright harassing community members and otherwise), you'd reach out to the admins, yeah. If the instance you're interacting with has a support community you may try posting there, but tbh I think it'd be wisest to DM or contact the admins via whatever means they may recommend (e.g. email/Matrix/etc.). Here on Lemmy.world for instance, there's [email protected], but they also suggest emailing [email protected].
  
  I was replying in general - post it elsewhere, let the bad mods run the community into the ground.
  
  You move to another community or make your own. Mods have created and manage the community. Unless they break the site's rules themselves, not sure why admins should interfere. (I mean unless they want to, admins own the instance so there's that too.)
  
  Remember what happened at Reddit when the admins were trying to force mods to do they want?

22 comments