I've been waiting until after Christmas day to make this post, but some of our communities recently have had a lot of noise and upset over someone that uses neopronouns that most people are unfamiliar with.
So I want to make this clear. A persons pronouns are to be respected. This is true when the user is using neopronouns that you're unfamiliar with. It's true even if you think someone is trolling. Pronouns are not rewards for good behaviour. They aren't only to be respected when you like the person you're interacting with, or if their pronouns "make sense" to you. Trolls, spammers, twitter users, it doesn't matter who they are, your options are to respect their pronouns, or to not engage with them.
I really want to re-iterate the importance of this. Gender diverse folk are undermined, invalidated and questioned at every step of our lives. As a community, we need to be working to undo that, not creating more of it, and that means there is no space for treating pronouns (including neopronouns) as a reward for good behaviour.
This isn't a free reign for trolls and spammers. The rules still apply. Trolling, spamming, etc will continue to be dealt with, but it's not an excuse to act as if respecting someones pronouns is optional.
Here are 3 users’ comments just on this post concerning the contextual behavior of a specific user whom I presume to be the impetus of this whole discussion. I obviously cannot source other comments that may have been deleted or removed:
“it felt trolly and disingenuous the way that dragonfucker was going about it”
“My only concern is that people (or one person in particular) aren’t genuine, but are doing to to discredit trans people, and the concept of gender fluidity in general… I’ve read some of their comments that set off some red flags for me that maybe this person isn’t being genuine.” Continued “(also some other red flags like about how there is clearly some sort of kink aspect to this for them and their dragon partner), and gets people banned for questioning it.”
“The reason people say these one or two users are trolling is not because of their pronouns. It’s because they demand accommodations that go well beyond pronouns and most of their posts are playing the victim.”
And here are 10 modlog remarks by your instance’s mods pertaining to the contextual behavior of the same user. There are additional modlog remarks by mods of other instances to similar effect. Please do take a look through them all:
2x: Banned: reason: Trolling
Banned: reason: history of misgendering and encouraging suicide
4x Banned: reason: Encouraging suicide, bad faith accusations, moderator harassment. Not Appealable
Banned: reason: encouraging suicide
Banned: reason: History of encouraging suicide
Removed Comment: reason: Advocating violence, encouraging suicide
Many users and mods alike believe that the user’s actions have made it clear that they are trolling and intend harm upon the community, yet they remain unbanned (edit: clarification: unbanned from the instance). As admin, have you scrutinized your users’ and mods’ listed concerns over this apparent repeat offender prior to now? Does the admin team have a direct line for users to report bad actor users and their actions? I do not expect you to “sense peoples intentions with unerring accuracy”, but do you distrust the acuity of your userbase and modteams over and over again? If the user is a troll, you are doing exactly what they want you to do; if the user is not a troll, many people have taken measures to avoid hostility from them. Even if this user were genuine with their gender expression/identity/etc., is the rest of their behavior acceptable and undeserving of an instance ban?
You will get trolls on this instance. You will get trolls anywhere online. It’s naïve to assume genuineness as the default online; don’t wait for a troll to break character. If you want this instance to be hospitable and to live up to the protectiveness, the anti-bigotry, the empathy, and the inclusion that it prides itself on, the instance needs admins who take less iffiness to guess when a user is trying to take them for a ride.
I had already blocked this user who knows how long ago. Their behavior doesn’t affect me anymore. I’m also not part of a demographic that needs this instance. Go ahead and ban me for speaking out for those who do need this instance. But this user —and any other users whom the admin team shies away from calling trolls— they will affect the new people who come to this instance who do need a safe place, and those new users will be deterred from here by the hostility and unfettered trolls that are tolerated.
Hello, drag can clarify the modlog claims.
Mods think drag is a troll because drag uses neopronouns.
Mods think drag encouraged suicide because after Donald Trump was elected, drag told suicidal trans people it's better to die in battle than to do the fascists' job for them.
Mods think drag misgendered because Flying Squid's daughter wants to use she/they pronouns but he accuses anyone who calls her 'they' of misgendering because he's not a good parent.
You know anyone can create a community on Lemmy and use
curlcommands to create fake modlogs, right?hmm, could this be patched? or it's used by .ml or grad but it's unlikely so i think it might.
I think drag is talking about using the API or network tab in browser to create bans when a person hasn't posted in a community before, as far as I know there's no way to create fake modlog entries, other than doctoring screenshots of the modlog (something you'll be busted on very quickly) or possibly by screwing with the database as an admin (something that you'll also be busted on since it won't federate).
Comment removals can't be faked or screwed with unless doctored, because the comments removed must actually exist to appear in the log.