Background:
August 26, 2024 a dbzer0 instance admin instance banned a user, @marcie@lemmy.ml per “Sanctioned mod due to slanderous & unsubstantiated community ban and zero response to appeal. Ban to be lifted once issue is resolved.”
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=9924804
From what I could gather, she received the instance ban after banning an instance member from a community (!transgender@lemmy.ml). Whether or not the community ban is justified doesn’t really seem to be an issue here, an instance ban is an extreme response to a community ban and is inherently an unbalanced action that has vastly different ramifications. This means that no local users can interact with or see the instance banned user compared to one local user not being able to interact with one community on a different instance. The instance ban has much deeper implications than a community ban and should not be used rashly in response to a community ban.
https://lemmy.ml/modlog/14758?page=1&actionType=All&userId=892112
Something that may be worth to note is that the community banned user is a dbzer0 instance admin; however, I don’t see how this could be much of an issue here, especially in terms of moderation, as there are other unbanned instance admins that can access that community. It just seems that this ban was done for personal reasons, possibly in revenge, that perhaps don’t align with this instance’s userbase’s interests.
In fact, being an admin here seems to be part of the reason why it occurred. i.e. Would this instance ban have occurred if the moderator had banned a non-admin user?
If an instance ban on a moderator banning a local user is an appropriate course of action in this instance, then why is this not the case for any other users banned? I have never received an instance ban for community banning users, but should I be banned? Should db0 be banned from dbzer0 for community banning users? Should all community moderators be sanctioned?
Obviously, there isn’t a precedent for this here, and I particularly don’t want one and this is not a proposal to enact one. This is a proposal to reverse an instance ban on a user who I believe is unjustly banned, as an instance ban is not an appropriate response to a single community ban.
Although, if the admin is upset about the community ban, I implore him to visit !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com rather than pinging the user who’s replies cannot even been seen here due to the ban (https://lemmy.ml/post/22023367/14664616) (https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/14455427).
It might have been helpful if you included some of that reasoning in the ban reason.
Are we able to see your removed post? It might help to understand the context here a bit better. You might have been transphobic either in that post or somewhere else, but I’m not the one who banned you so I wouldn’t know. I’ve seen that you are cis from some comments (please correct me if I am wrong), so please know that you might have accidentally said/done something iffy even if you didn’t think that was the case. I’m not accusing you of being transphobic, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t that per se. I’m inclined to trust a trans mod’s judgment here for a trans community.
Regarding your edit, I contacted db0 beforehand in regards to the nature of this proposal. I was told that this was within scope of this community. I didn’t know about the matrix chat, but feel that this should be a community decision rather than behind closed doors and obscure modlog entries. I also didn’t want this to be a drama-fest so I did not post this to yptb.
The original comment was as follows:
I acknowledge I probably shouldn’t have posted it in the first place, it was a bit of a troll. For context we were having some inter-instance drama at the time. But to be clear there’s absolutely nothing there that is transphobic, though I do regret posting it now.
This is what I got in response:
I got a short Rule 1 ban from Dessalines and that was that, or so I thought. Two months later, Marcie takes over the community, still holding a grudge. Then trawls though the modlog looking to conduct a “purge” of “transphobes”. And now here we are.
Edit: Around the same time she labelled the ml admin nutomic transphobic and demanded he step down, and then encouraged all the trans users on ml to migrate to hexbear because it was a “safer space”… so you know, it was a weird time lol.
So I understand that this is like petty drama, but it’s not clear to me why this justifies an instance ban.
It seems briefly summarised:
It seems that the last action is just out of step. Instance banning makes sense to protect users from harassment, spam, or harmful content but here it basically seems like instead of blocking a user annoying you a tool to silence a community hazard is deployed against an individual whom you merely disagree with.
Has this user behaved in ways which necessecitates protecting the entire community from them that are not part of this?
I feel i’ve been quite honest and open about this whole thing and provided as much detail as is needed for someone to make up their minds at this stage. Some/most folks think it’s was a reasonable call and some don’t. I’m committed to accept the outcome of the vote, but not to get into a protracted discussion about it.
Well in the absence of evidence that this extends beyond an interpersonal drama I have to say that it is my opinion this is a bad decision.
OK, then just vote for your preference and try to convince others likewise. That’s why I added the democratic system here, so you’re not beholden to the whims of the admin team only.
I appreciate you posting some receipts and acknowledging that you probably shouldn’t have commented that.
I think there might have been an issue with this:
It kind of implies that you don’t see hexbear as a trans-friendly place which is very strange as they have very strict polices regarding transphobia. You can argue all you want about not wanting people to migrate to hexbear, but they are undoubtedly a trans safe space. It comes across as disinformation which might be why you copped a ban. The ban might have also been for other reasons not apparent in your screenshots, but we ideally need a dialogue between both parties to understand better.
Not to pile on but it’s morning and I’m in a waiting room so I thought I’d add to this and it didn’t feel fair to edit my comment when you probably aren’t checking the thread a ton.
I wanted to ask; why are you repeatedly attempting to justify the behavior of the person who instigated this exchange (eg, maybe you said something transphobic and didn’t realize it, maybe you were actually banned for disinformation) while holding the person responding to a higher standard?
Not trying to insult anyone here but I feel like what we’re looking at is the same as when you have two kids fighting in school. Unless you’re taking this same approach to the person who threw the first punch as well as the kid who reacted badly, that’s not really justice.
I didn’t think you opened this topic to litigate users’ opinions of hexbear?
Your editing kind of removed all the context from the quoted sentence, so I feel like I’m being straw-manned a bit here because you’re responding to your own edit.