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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • No idea honestly mate, but what I meant when I brought up the illegality was really that it’s usually very disturbing content, which mods catch and remove before loads of people have to see it.

    If it’s a new account posting that stuff, I don’t know how the system we’re discussing would prevent loads of users having to see it - altho I guess if those blacklists of users were collaborative and the person or team whose list you’ve “subscribed” to catch it, maybe that solves the issue?


  • Ah yeah I hadn’t thought about legal authorities. I guess that would entail local police forces monitoring Lemmy and blacklisting and subsequently investigating specific users or bots once they post something illegal, which seems not so feasible sadly. But, definitely up for a more democratised system of modding generally!


  • Oh, that’s an interesting idea. It’s more nuanced than just relying on upvotes, and sort of democratises the role of moderator! I was thinking maybe reporting would come into it somewhere but I see that the idea you’re describing has more depth than I was picturing. I’d be up for using a system like that, I think!

    Re this, though:

    It could also be dictated to you, in the case of legally forbidden stuff.

    Is that just admins? Does that decision sort of shift mod responsibility upwards, leaving a good majority of decisions in the hands of the public but ultimately leaving a few powerful people with more global “modding” capability still? Not trying to nitpick or be antagonistic, this sounds like a cool system to use, I’m just trying to understand


  • Voting could replace mods in some ways, but in others it would be less effective (I know, not all mods are effective).

    For instance, combatting spam; more users would have to see the spam and downvote it to have it removed (presumably in this system, a post could be removed when it reaches a certain downvote threshold? Not sure how else it would replace mods).

    Additionally, content moderators and admins do actually do at least one other good thing; they look at and remove illegal or seriously upsetting material. Unfortunately, Lemmy has had several issues with csam being posted by presumably bots – good, active content moderators remove this as quickly as possible, protecting more of the users on their instances than a downvote threshold.

    Outside of having some sort of threshold, I’m not sure I have a good picture of how downvotes could replace mods? Human oversight is really key to a lot of accurate and effective decision making; I’m sure we’ve all dealt with fully automated systems and know the pain of that.


  • I think it is important to recognise people as people. I’m not making excuses for intentionally malicious wealthy or powerful people – but the wealth or power itself isn’t the whole problem (although the various systems that perpetuate and enable certain wealthy or powerful people are problematic of course), and we shouldn’t give these adults that as an excuse.

    They’re wealthy, yes. They’re also human beings who choose to be cruel, callous, selfish, uncaring arseholes.

    They’re powerful, yes. They’re also adults who know what they’re doing and consistently make the decision to harm people with their choices.

    Netanyahu’s political power wouldn’t be as much of a problem in and of itself if he wasn’t choosing to enact a genocide. Murdoch’s wealth wouldn’t be as much of a problem in and of itself if he didn’t choose to use it to buy media outlets and push right-wing lies to millions.

    No excuses for cruelty; the money and power didn’t “corrupt” these people, because we don’t live in a fantasy world where money and power are magic cursed items. These people intentionally decided to be cruel.



  • Congratulations on 90 days! Huge achievement, you deserve to feel proud. I’m also going through a bit of a journey with sobriety.

    Around the three month mark was a bit of a difficult time for me, too. I’d gotten over the constant temptation, but was still tempted while IN bars. I was isolating socially, and spending more time alone.

    Having that time alone, and having some free headspace rather than focusing on not drinking, led me to boredom and restlessness. There was a lot of ruminating on mistakes I’d made, or on things I’d missed out on, or on how I absolutely had to make the most of my free time. Lots of stress!

    I picked up some new hobbies. I’ve found it satisfying to start trying things that I was always too self conscious to do before; running, taking photos outside, writing music. I walk a lot now. I listen to podcasts, and I wander around my area. I booked a bunch of little events for Halloween, so for instance today I walked two hours into the center of the city and went to a talk about medieval manuscripts, and then spent another two hours walking back.

    I text myself ideas. Ideas for cool little visual designs, or photographs, or songs, or games I’d like to try to develop. Whether I revisit them, hmm… less often, but making the notes is enough for me right now. I think about my finances, and try to figure out where I could be saving money. I think about people I haven’t spoken to for a long time, and wonder about what small changes I can make to my life just to see what happens.

    It’s hard to exist without occupying or distracting our minds, because the human mind tends to exist in a slightly negative emotional state when it’s not actively engaged with something (I think it’s called the Neutral Mode Network if you’d like to find out a little more about this). It’s uncomfortable, but sitting with my thoughts in a (hopefully mostly) healthy way was ultimately positive for me.

    I’m only a little further into sobriety than you, 198 days, but I can honestly say these past two months have been sincerely transformative for me.

    I hope you can find something in my comment, or in other comments, that helps. There is a stopdrinking community here on Lemmy which seems supportive, so that could also be worth checking out. Otherwise – stick to it, you’re doing a great job! Best of luck! 👍


  • It might work but it’s really not a long-term solution. Confrontation is uncomfortable and I know you mentioned he has personality issues but is there somebody who could talk to him? When the guy I work with joined, he would constantly tap his feet and it would shake my desk, and the desks of like four other people around us. Eventually we just asked him to stop – he didn’t even realise it was bothering us because nobody said anything.

    Granted, he’s actually friendly, but still… Someone might just have to ask Noiseguy (nicely) if he could maybe be a bit quieter? Or poke your head in and say “you okay? Oh, sorry, I could hear you from across the office.” - just something to maybe remind him like, hey, keep an eye on your volume. This might not get solved by just closing the door!


  • If you want to avoid confrontation, find a reason to talk to him in his office and then calmly and “accidentally” close the door on the way out. As long as everyone else works with their doors closed, you can laugh it off as a mistake if he even notices.

    Some people really are just accidentally obnoxious though, he might genuinely not know he’s being a pain in the arse. We have a similar coworker. Always with these shitty unfunny quips, often plays air horn sound effects interrupting other people’s conversations if they think something positive has happened… Just so much fucking noise from one person.

    They’re on holiday this week and I’m over the fucking moon lol