this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
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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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
- Keep the comments in YPTB posts about the moderation action itself, not about the general topic in which the moderation took place.
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.
YPTB 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.
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There's a number of negative things about the Lemmy devs as well. This isn't a whataboutism, or deflection. One of the lead Lemmy devs account is named for a genocidal dictator. I will give them acknowledgment and props for not perpetuating larger systems of oppression through software. Instead choosing to gleefully micro manage their own fiefdoms by hand doing it.
Point being if you're using the threadiverse, you're not going to find a major backend that isn't it developed by someone with a toxic relationship to power. And ultimately a tool is still a tool regardless of Who develops it.
Your comment is whataboutism and a deflection. Saying something isn't what it is doesn't make it any less is.
This isn't whataboutism. Someone asked why people still use Piefed, and for a fair number of people, that is the reason. I personally only noticed the Piefed controversies bubbling up recently. The problems with the Lemmy devs have been known for years (at least to me). And some people may see what Piefed devs do as the lesser evil, whether you agree with it or not.
It's definitely whataboutism.
I asked why people use piefed despite the drama, Eldritch's argument was that lemmy devs are bad, and hey, aren't all developers kinda bad?
That's like if I asked why some people like shit on their chest and they said "some of us don't like getting pissed on."
Your assessment of the Piefed's Devs' actions being worse than those by the Lemmy devs is a subjective one. That's precisely the point: one could argue that what Lemmy devs do is worse than what Piefed's devs do. And to be fair, not everyone knows about every alternative (although I will use the moment to shoutout Mbin, which, as far as I know, hasn't had any such issues - at least not yet).
I never assessed such a thing.
Comparing one thing to shit and the other to piss is indirectly an assessment as to which is worse. I may be going out on a limb here but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people (without a scat fetish) find shit worse than piss.
Whataboutism would be using the problems with the Lemmy devs to distract from or justify what the Piefed devs do. If someone says Piefed devs are doing A but Lemmy devs are doing B which I find is worse, so I would rather go with Piefed, that's not whataboutism, that's chosing the lesser of two evils.
It depends on what you're into, what you're wearing, and the ambient temperature.
https://theconversation.com/whataboutism-what-it-is-and-why-its-such-a-popular-tactic-in-arguments-182911
No my comment was strictly with regards to you calling out users of a particular software. When it comes to rimu. 100% ptb unfortunately. I can't support the authors of Lemmy or piefed. But people are free to use whichever tools they choose in this instance. But good luck constructing that straw man.
This has got to be the worst use of "straw man" I have seen on lemmy so far. And I've seen some bad ones.
Just a tip, you can't call every argument you don't like a straw man. It has a meaning.
What about kbin/mbin? I haven't heard anything terrible about them at least.
As someone who persistently forgets to give kbin a try for years already, I'm wondering if the lack of notable drama is in part at fault of why people don't know about it / don't use it...
...Or, with any luck, it's just me.
I really don't ask for a HUGE amount, I think:
The main maintainer of the codebase isn't a power trippin' bastard (if they are a PTB, then I don't trust them not to surreptitiously inject malicious code into it at some point)
The person who owns/runs the instance isn't a power trippin' bastard (if they are a PTB, then I don't trust them not to basically function as a malicious man-in-the-middle attack at some point)
The instance isn't hosted in the USA (if it is hosted in the USA, then I don't trust the instance to be resilient against governmental overreach and spying) or any other untrustworthy countries
That's kind of it, really. But so far, I'm struggling to get past point 1. Both Lemmy and Piefed seem to be maintained by nutjobs. I'm honestly considering going back to Reddit. Maybe kbin will be OK...
EDIT: I mean mbin. Apparently kbin is dead.
I dunno that the original dessalines counts as genocidal, despite his attempts to rid haiti of whites. It was more or less a mass murder, and outright unnecessary since he had other options, but I don't know that genocide would be the right term for it? Maybe, I'm not fully convinced either way, just starting a tangent
That tangent is that the real dessalines was.... complicated. He essentially became a central figure in Haitian liberation. One can argue that the revolution might not have succeeded without him. He was certainly effective.
He was also effective as "emperor" (in quotes because it's hard to be an emperor of a single nation) for the most part. Made Haiti pitchy officially an independent nation, declared slavery abolished, stripped colonialists of property, and generally kept things running.
Of course, part of keeping things running was treating Haitians like slaves, just without the label.
Which shows both why the dev dessalines might have chosen the name, and why it doesn't really fit. Plus, you know, the whole emperor thing being contrary to socialism being weird.
Fwiw to anyone here for the tangent, there's been a goodly number of books about the real Dessalines. Likely available at your local library, or on the high seas. He was a fascinating figure.
Most genocide is Mass murder. You are basically making an argument of ability and scope. Genocide is a genocide. And it doesn't even require murder all the time. Though generally it does include it.
The fact remains that not only did he target what had become a minority group on the islands and wipe it out. Basically genocide. Worse they had been allies fighting alongside him.
And the United States certainly weren't the good guys in the whole situation either. They did their normal thing showing up just long enough to kill a foreign leader. Even if the large portion of Haitian population desired is removal. It still doesn't excuse what France did afterwards and how America followed along buddy buddy enabling France.
I would definitely argue that there's a bit of wiggle room on freed slaves offing their oppressors though. It wasn't just him.
My hindsight take is that it was a justifiable action considering the history of humanity and how slave revolt tends to be handled. Wiping out the overlords instead of exiling them is a form of preemptive strike.
The American Civil War was actually the oppression of a South American minority group (white European slave owners)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haitian_massacre first sentence.
I don't know why he chose that name but it seems like a deliberate provocation. That violence begets violence, and still without violence we cannot resist the oppressors. And that you can only liberate yourself and others by getting your hands dirty.
So I think it's hypocrisy to reduce the historical figure Dessalines to a genocidal dictator. To use a thought terminating cliche about simplistic "good vs evil" ethics and derail a discussion that was about something else.
Every time you start a war you accept that war crimes will happen. It is inevitable in wars. There are no clean wars. War is slaughter, and when soldiers or the oppressed are put into extremis some will act like animals.
So how much of the guilt for the massacre lies with the slavers?
Yet liberals pretend that they do not put people into extremis. That their reasons were justified and intentions noble, that their wars and their hands are clean. But violence begets violence.
That is what the name of the user tells me, and what that comment tells me.
Yup, that's the main event under discussion.
A genocidal dictator? Do tell, which one? Hitler? Netanyahu? Bush??
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Oh so that makes it okay that they rounded up all the white polish etc minority on the island that had fought alongside them. And then exterminated them? That's some moral relativism right there if I ever heard it.
I differentiate between the people of Haiti and their first self-proclaimed emperor. My sympathies lie with the people of Haiti. After fighting one revolution for their freedom. They had to turn and cooperate with bad faith actors like the United States. To assassinate their own ruler so they could actually have it. Only to then be fucked by France and the United States for the next Century afterwards.
Famously the one group that was spared.
The US and France had fucked over Saint Domingue long before Dessalines was overthrown. It was Dessalines who was forced to sign the treaty which indebted the entire nation as price for their freedom. It came with support from slaveholders like Jefferson who correctly, saw the Haitian Revolution as an existential threat to their way of life.
The point is to highlight the concept of Critical Support. Dessalines isn't someone to idolize like Toussant, he was a ruthless thug. But Napoleon rejected the alliance that Toussant offered. So faced with the choice of re-enslavement under Napoleon and Rochambeau, I would've taken Dessalines any day.
Interesting you'd mention the one white group that was completely spared due to allying with the revolutionaries.
Internet be hittin today, bruh
When one of the lead devs of the Lemmy backend names their online presence after the enactor/leader of said alleged genocide, it's bound to come up at some point.
I'm legit surprised it doesn't come up more. Yeah, Dessalines the OG is a bit more obscure than Louverture, but the fediverse in general and lemmy in particular run heavy to folks that appreciate revolutionary history.
Hell, I'm not even that into Haitian history, and I've read a little bit here and there. Been ages, but still enough to recognize the name when I saw it. When you also consider some of the drama around lemmy dessalines, that nobody looked it up is surprising too
And I thought wiki holes were fun. Like I've seen that name before on here. I had no clue about the history of it. Lemmy drama is so interesting and tangentially informative.
And Hitler was a vegetarian and loved dogs.
Personal lifestyle choices are totally the same as the liberation of an entire nation of people from slavery.
This is the least intellegent response I've gotten in a while.
Kinda weird that you don't mention the whole former slave who led the resistance to abolish slavery and free his country thing.
Oh that totally justifies his genocide then.
Okay, see? That's a strawman. Now you know.
Do you even know the history of Haiti and why it is globally relevant? You CANNOT divorce that from the context of this.
Yes. And if he hadn't slaughtered his White allies. Or been so oppressive to his own people I would probably think he was a pretty decent guy. He wasn't. Like people in general he was a complicated and morally problematic person. How was slaughtering his white allies winning freedom for him and his people? Or do you view it as impossible to do wrong in pursuit of revolution?
I didn't say any of those things, I am pointing out you are carrying water for european slavery empires by stripping the context.
If you cannot get over the individual to understand the context, your understanding of people and history will continue to be egregiously broken and myopic.
No explicitly not. I've condemned France and the United States in plenty of places elsewhere in this thread for their behavior related to this. My critique of Dessalines is not defense of them. Or their empires.
I don't really think you have done what you say, and if you have in this thread it has been from a defensive and reactive standpoint that concedes context and nuance rather than willingly invoking them.
Your belief means nothing. Did the Haitian massacre occur or did it not? If it did that is a genocide. And that is wrong regardless of who. That's like saying I couldn't criticize George Washington as being a human trafficker and slave owner. Simply because he freed the Americas from England.
The Haitian massacre did occur, but you're making claims that white allies were killed. You specifically cited the Poles in Haiti who were among the population of whites granted amnesty and citizenship for their role in rejecting the French.
You were categorically wrong and are trying to breeze past it.
Okay so, since you didn't quite understand it before:
That's a strawman.