I've seen a lot of instances of people on Lemmy saying you can get banned from Blahaj for forgetting someone's pronouns. And then Ada has to come in and explain why they're wrong in their interpretation of the rules. These people were banned for good reasons, they're transphobes. But I think they misunderstand the rules of Blahaj for a legitimate reason.
It's because Blahaj doesn't have rules. It has two guidelines. Very subjective ones. People want to know what will get them banned, so they try to understand the rules of that subjectivity. The rules for what Ada considers to be empathy and inclusion. The rules of Ada's psychology. Because like it or not, with highly subjective guidelines, Ada's interpretation and understanding of that subjectivity is the rules.
And Ada didn't write the rules of her psychology in the sidebar. So people have to speculate. And people are speculating wrong, and starting arguments about it.
I think a ruleset should be a transparent explanation of how a mod team thinks about acceptable behaviour. By not having rules, Blahaj is being opaque about how the mod team thinks. And the only way for people to deal with that is to practice amateur psychoanalysis. Which is unpleasant and creates division.
If people understood how trans people think about acceptable behaviour, they wouldn't be transphobes. So the result of this system is that everyone who is banned for transphobia doesn't understand why and needs it personally explained to them. If the sidebar explained acceptable behaviour in a way everyone can understand, they wouldn't misunderstand it so often.
I think the current system is creating pointless drama.
No, that's ridiculous. The admins can just change the rules to close the loophole.
That's how the government does laws. They don't just wave their hands and say "don't misbehave". Problems like police brutality are more likely to happen when enforcers don't clearly understand the rules, and aren't held to them.
But the government still makes an effort to control corruption by having clearly defined rules, and that's good. That leads to less abuse of power.
Blahaj is supposed to be a safer space for trans people than the streets of most countries. It should be more careful about the rules, not less.
Laws need to be stringent because governments involve lots of people, and people's livelihoods and well-being are on the line.
No one's livelihood is on the line here, worst case scenario they get banned and then they find a new server.
There's only two (really one) admins, and they enforce the safe space according to their own judgement. This isn't a government, it's a Lemmy server. Fleshing out rules would only invite rules lawyering which bigots love and is a headache for little practical gain.
There's no need to "control corruption" or prevent "enforcers not understanding the rules" when the person making the rules is also the person enforcing them.
Ooof, that's a bit unfair don't you think?
While it is true that I do the majority of the work keeping our servers running behind the scenes for you all, it's still a bit rough to say Ada doesn't pull her own weight! 😊
Yeahhh I didn't really think through how I worded that one, sorry. I was trying to say that Ada is essentially the face of enforcement and I haven't seen you going out and banning people, but that hardly means there's only one admin.
I really appreciate you keeping this place running for us!
Ada, by far, has the most moderation experience and level head of the both of us.
If I was moderating this place it'd be a barren wasteland with salted and scorched earth as far as the eyes can see and a list of rules as long as your arm which keeps getting longer every time you look as I try to keep up with the rules lawyers.
When we first setup Blåhaj Zone with Ada, we discussed exactly this scenario and Ada said that you'll never create a set of rules that are comprehensive enough to defeat those that are intent on being horrible human beings and trying to make a safe space for queer and gender diverse people unsafe. And instead of keeping the space safe you'll spend all your time and effort refining and defending the intricacies of the rules.
Instead of doing that, we want a safe space, so the guiding principle is don't make it unsafe.
Obviously some people need more clarification on what safety means to us, but really if you need more than what we have provided to "get it", then you are the kind of person who would make it unsafe just by being present.
Most decent human beings can grok "be kind and respect each other" as a set square.
When I first joined I didn't think much of "rules vs principles." But this thread did give me some perspective of using more principles, rather then specific rules. It just makes it easier to moderate, and not having to worry about forgetting to list something specific in the rules when taking down bad posts and banning hateful users. If you used rules, and a user did a bad thing and wasn't covered, or even hinted at as being covered they could claim something negative against the enforcers. For enforcing rules not written. (seems like what they are wanting.)
Principles with some examples of what might be covered, is better. I wasn't thinking anything about it personally, when just joining the instance and reading them. One of the first posts I seen on here was this one, and I was like, "hey op, you are trying to sound like you're trying to making sense, like saying 'hey we need more rules.' But just looking through the server, seems peacefully as is, no complaints as a new user. Not as familiar with longer term activity on the server.
You might maybe want to add some principles that basically say, don't break laws in the instance's hosted country, which might be reasonable idk, but that's probably the only thing if anything I would suggest to add ontop of the principles, just to cover yourself legally, but probably won't even have to do that as the community seems to do good on its own managing itself. Which suggests that this approach is actually working, and it stops the trolls.
That's exactly when you most need to control corruption. You're talking about the legislative and executive branches of governance. Most states separate those TO control corruption. I don't think it's practical to control corruption that way on an internet forum, but that's why the other controls need to be stronger to pick up the slack.
People like PugJesus think they're controlling corruption. PugJesus is a transphobe, the specific decisions he thinks are abuse aren't. But people like him don't have the ability to read Ada's mind, so she's got to explain it to every single one of them or they'll all start rumours about what the secret rules of Blahaj are. And Blahaj certainly does have secret rules. They're the rules of how Ada thinks. And everyone is interested in knowing them, since she won't explain them.
There it is. I'm pretty convinced this is either someone from one of his discord channels or actually him under another alt.
The DGGers have been flailing recently.
You shouldn't doxx people, it's not nice.
How states are run with rampant corruption, subjugation, and bigotry in spite of meticulously crafted systems and rules seems to me an argument against, not for, attempting to replicate such systems on an instance that is intended to be a space for trans people and allies.
This isn't a state. There is no corruption. There is no need to prevent corruption on a private forum. If it happens, we leave and tell Ada she's an asshole on the way out.
Shame and shunning are the only actual tools for social change. You can't "teach" this PugJesus out of his bigotry. Shun him and move on with your life. Either he takes the hint or he dies alone. Either way, you did your part. The rest is up to everyone else to follow you. Lying to yourself that you or anyone can do more is just self harm
My point is that rules do nothing to "control corruption" as you put it.
In an instance like this where there's only one active admin, the rules are fundamentally just a courtesy to the users. The owner can just do whatever they want.
It doesn't ultimately matter what their rules are. Anti corruption laws exist IRL so they can be enforced by the government on its own members, but when the "government" is one person what are they gonna do, say "welp I made a rule against corruption, guess I gotta stop being corrupt." The very concept of controls is silly.
Ada owns this space, so she decides how to run it. I like that because it means there's no room for arguments over what's technically within the rules or not. Are you transphobic/potentially harmful to the safe space? You're out.
Writing down a million rules to explain Ada's internal logic for banning people would be ridiculously infeasible because it's such a personal thing. But for people who like the way that Ada runs things, it's a nice space. Anyways, I don't particularly want "polite transphobes" here who are capable of following the rules if written out but would be horribly transphobic otherwise.
EDIT: what even is "corruption" in this context? I feel like your government analogy doesn't apply very well to this situation