this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
181 points (100.0% liked)
Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
1859 readers
102 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.
- 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.
Relevant comms
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
You are right, I did not make the right call on this one.
I have been neglecting the instance very aggressively due to being busy this summer. I was scanning through the report backlog and this post was reported for 'transphobia'. I skimmed through, clicked on a whitehouse link that said "RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT" in big letters, and instead of doing more due-diligence I applied a rule that I rarely apply as the discriminant to process it quickly. The rule being, as you mentioned, that the 'Science' community is meant to be for discussing science itself. It is a meta-community.
In practice, I stopped enforcing this rule for the most part, which means that in this case it was an excuse I used to process the report quickly without needing to validate whether I personally think it is 'transphobia' or not.
Sorry
Some things:
I'm glad it was a mistake and that you corrected it. Politics is a tricky subject and nebulously saying no politics isn't a good strategy because everything is political.Politics has an influence on everything in life both good and bad. So I think a better goal would be to target the political behaviors that hurt people. The ones that are anti-science by nature. Just my opinion.
I'm glad to hear it was a simple mistake.
If I could make a suggestion restoring the post, and banning users such as 'hoohoohoot@fedinsfw.app' who had commented, an account with prior history of multiple actual transphobic comments in their history, might be a good start to move forward.
Also if you don't mind, could you please DM me with the information for who made the 'transphobia' report? I've noticed some other issues with false reports on some of @TRAHR@quokk.au's posts and I would like to further keep an eye on what accounts are doing this to Quokk.au's users as it may be part of more targeted harassment.
Oh.
I checked the reports, and what I see is a sequence of 6 reports reporting hoohoohoot's comments. I do not have a vivid memory of the moment as I was just processing the back-log, but what must have happened is that In haste I interpreted this as 6 independent reports of the post, not noticing that the reports were of the comments, and so when I opened the post I was operating on what I mistakenly thought was a very high signal. I still did not want to claim 'transphobia' in my reason without verifying that, so, as I explained, I used the loophole as an excuse.
Usually, if this would really have been 6 independent reports of the same post, removing it would have been very likely the correct move. This contributed to why I was careless.
Here are 4 of them, I removed the names because these are not false reports:
That's fair, thanks for clearing that up :)
I don't know you by reputation or anything about your personal beliefs which have been hinted at here. I am only judging you on this apology and reasonable explanation.
Well done, Salamander.
As the great 21st century philosopher, moralist, and tiger cub, Daniel Tiger, says: "It's okay to make mistakes. Try to fix them and learn from them too!"
I appreciate you responding to this and explaining what happened. Being busy is understandable, is adding mods with more time something you’re open to? I can’t volunteer my own time, but someone might be able to step up.
Yes, of course! Moderators are gold. I need to make a better effort at recruiting.