I made !pleasantpolitics@slrpnk.net to test a new moderation approach which is designed to filter out a lot of the crap. I think you should try posting some articles there, and see whether you see the same hyper-critical anti-Biden content. I think I know what you're talking about, and I think the filtering bot will probably be able to detect and ban almost all of the users you're talking about.
That didn't take long.
Criticizing the foreign policy of the US can be done openly in every part of Lemmy that I'm aware of. it's the majority viewpoint. The issue here is that you're being a combative jerk about it.
You were supposed to be banned because of the overwhelming downvotes you're getting. There are some technical problems with the bot's classification of new accounts, so you're still here. Ironically, it got held up because I was having issues getting it to be strict about new accounts without excluding dissenting opinions from people who were willing to be level-headed. Your viewpoint here is far from unpopular, but there are cases where someone's expressing an opinion about veganism, or not voting, that really is unpopular, but they're being level-headed enough that I don't want them to be banned. It's taking some time to get that determination right.
You can expect a ban as soon as I figure it out, because you're being so obviously unproductive that the downvotes are universal. I just updated the FAQ, trying to find the right words, because I don't think this is the last time this will come up.
It’s not hard to accumulate more weighted upvotes than downvotes. In the current configuration, 97% of the users on Lemmy manage to do it. If you are one of the 3%, it’s because the community consensus is that your content is more negative than positive.
The bot is not making its own decisions about you. The community is. If you are banned, it’s because you are being downvoted overwhelmingly. The viewpoint you are expressing is probably not the issue. The Lemmy community is very tolerant of a wide variety of views. Some people may disagree with you and you may find that oppressive, but the bot will not ban you simply because some users argue with you when you say certain things. Those users are allowed to have their view, just like you have yours.
If you find you are banned and you’re willing to hear suggestions about how to present your argument without everyone downvoting you, leave a comment. Reducing your downvotes will help the bot recognize you as reasonable, but it will also probably help you get your point across more successfully. In order for the bot to ban you, you have to be received overwhelmingly negatively by the community, which probably means you’re not convincing very many people of what you’re saying.
If you’re not willing to hear those suggestions and simply want to insist that it’s everyone else that is the problem, the bot is being evil to you, your free speech is being infringed, and I am a tyrant if I don’t let you into the community to annoy everybody, I would respectfully request that you take it somewhere else.
This usually only happens when threads hit the front page of the all feed and people that are not subscribed to the community see it, vote on it and start commenting in it (which then becomes a self-reinforcing system that pushes it further up the “hot” rating on the all feed).
This community is currently too new and small for that to happen.
I'll wait until I can put in place the throwaway account sniping, and more testing, before I try to do much more to promote it. The wider level of attention from !newcommunities@lemmy.world seems to be a good test which the bot hasn't caught up to be able to handle completely.
As for pro-Zionist comments… if they come from an account that is not only posting such and it isn’t outright genocide denial, I agree that it can stay up.
Yes, that user posts almost all normal content, with a tiny minority of unpopular but still "normal" political views, and a couple of posts that are openly Zionist. They're nowhere near posting a majority of inflammatory content, and the comment wasn't even that bad, it just seemed shocking because it was so pro-Israel, which usually doesn't happen.
But this will likely need human intervention and can’t be left to the bot to decide.
I completely agree. I didn't plan to have the bot replace human moderation, only provide another tool to automate one part of it.
Anyone who is breaking the few rules that do exist, I was planning to ban. I also just edited the sidebar to make it clear that comments must also follow the slrpnk rules.
I made this system because I, also, was concerned about the macro social implications.
Right now, the model in most communities is banning people with unpopular political opinions or who are uncivil. Anyone else can come in and do whatever they like, even if a big majority of the community has decided they're doing more harm than good. Furthermore, when certain things get too unpleasant to deal with on any level anymore, big instances will defederate from each other completely. The macro social implications of that on the community are exactly why I want to try a different model, because that one doesn't seem very good.
You seem to be convinced ahead of time that this system is going to censor opposing views, ignoring everything I've done to address the concern and indicate that it is a valid concern. Your concern is noted. If you see it censoring any opposing views, please let me know, because I don't want it to do that either.
It's difficult. A downvote from an account with no history does nothing. Your bot has to post a lot of content first to attract upvotes from genuine accounts. Then once you've accumulated some rank, you can start giving upvotes or downvotes in bulk to the accounts you want to manipulate. It's impossible to completely prevent that, but you have to do it a lot to have an impact.
I think this model is more resistant to trickery than it would seem, but it's not completely resistant. I do expect some amount of trickery that will then need counter-trickery. On the other hand, the problem of tricking the system also exists in the current moderation model. You don't have to outwit the system to get your content posted or ban your enemy if it's trivial to flood the comment section with your content from alt accounts and drown them out instead. I don't know for sure that something like that is happening, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was one reason why there are so many obnoxiously vocal people.
It could also be an attempt to probe which ways of having fun by being a jerk are still available here.
If it gets deleted, then it's an illustration that all the people who are telling me that I'm creating an echo chamber are right, and they can complain.
If it doesn't get deleted, it's an open door for people who wants to have a "free speech safe space" for things that aren't welcome anywhere else, indicating that they can come in and disrupt the conversation as much as they want to with topics that are more about stirring controversy than making progress, and that's fun, too.
It should have been deleted, but only because it was posted by a throwaway account. The bot didn't do its job, which I will fix, but in the meantime I'm leaving the topic alone and letting it run its course. If any.
You're not banned or even close to it. The ban list is surprisingly lenient in terms of people's differing political views. You have to habitually make enemies of a lot of the people in the comments, one way or another, with a big fraction of what you post. Most people don't do that, wherever on the political spectrum they might fall.
Whether that's a good idea or not remains to be seen. I had some surprises today.
Here are examples of things you got positive rank for, politics and argumentation:
- https://midwest.social/comment/10357782
- https://midwest.social/comment/10246105
- https://midwest.social/post/13347310
Here are examples of things you got negative rank for, not directly political interpersonal squabbling:
- https://midwest.social/comment/10412423
- https://midwest.social/comment/10413376
- https://midwest.social/comment/10432272
Maybe this is harsh, but I think this is a good decision by the bot. The first list is fine. Most of your political views are far from unpopular on Lemmy. The thing is that you post a lot more of the squabbling content than the political content. You said you're being unpleasant on purpose, don't plan to stop, and that people should probably block you. I feel okay about excluding that from this community.
If in the future you change your mind about how you want to converse, you can send a comment or DM. We can talk about it, make sure you're not being targeted unfairly, but in the meantime this is completely fair.
Look at him, he's so happy.
Maybe it should be Bernie smiling, instead? I didn't want to be openly partisan.
Do you mind if I give some examples? What you're saying is valid in the abstract, but I think pointing out concrete examples of what the bot is reacting to will shed some light on what I'm talking about.
I think it's a good test.
- They phrased it in deliberately inflammatory language, but there's a strong case to be made that their underlying point is valid. If they had set it up and phrased it differently, it would be interesting to conduct a contentious discussion here and see if there's any difference between how it looks in this community, and whether it goes off the rails, as opposed to in some more traditionally moderated community.
- As it is, I can't see anyone joining the discussion. Something about the way it's phrased makes it guaranteed to drive people away and collect downvotes. That means it will be the first test of the throwaway account detection with post and comment deletion, which should kick in any minute now depending on when the post garners enough downvotes to activate it. I'm surprised it hasn't yet, but it hasn't.
OP, you're not completely wrong, but you need to work on your delivery. Sorry. You probably have a ban incoming, but you can probably reverse it in a few days by participating outside this community with more normal content, and then try again without using the energy that sounds like you're challenging the whole community to step outside with you and fight. DM me if you have questions.
I agree. It's working well at what I intended it to be, in my opinion, but the name is flat-out wrong at this point.
I made a post with my evaluation of the bot's ability to create a space where people can disagree without being horrible about it. I think it's succeeding at that, and these contentious topics are a good test case, since it's not meant to create a space for only pleasant topics. The name is misleading. I don't know why I didn't expect this, but I didn't.
What do you think? I'm interesting in hearing feedback on how people are receiving the content they're seeing here. If the bot is working in my opinion, but the result from the reader isn't good, that's an issue.