this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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196

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Community Rules

You must post before you leave

Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).

Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.

Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.

Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".

Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.

Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.

Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.

Avoid AI generated content.

Avoid misinformation.

Avoid incomprehensible posts.

No threats or personal attacks.

No spam.

Moderator Guidelines

Moderator Guidelines

  • Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
  • Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
  • When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
  • Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
  • Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
  • Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
  • Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
  • Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
  • Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
  • Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
  • Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
  • Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
  • First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
  • Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
  • No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
  • Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
  • Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.

founded 1 week ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm kinda regretting not naming it oneninesix, but here we are. I guess I love letters.

~~To anyone wondering what's up, I did this on my phone while out in the "big city", so I'm still waiting to get home to do anything serious. I have a few ~~suckers~~ really nice people who volunteered for modding along with me. Anyone else who is interested, drop me a line. I'll be picking mods when I get home in a few hours. Sorry for the wait and I'll do my best to put out any fires in the meantime. I didn't think this would take off!~~

For those wondering, here's my take on moderating the place.

  1. Moderation is to facilitate an experience for its users in line with the goals of the community and the instance. It's not to push a personal agenda, give you a bigger hammer in debates, set up a digital fiefdom, etc. You certainly can and should include your mod experience on your dating profile, though. Unilateral decisions are not cool except in a few situations, like if 100% of your userbase is usurped by literal Nazis.

  2. 196 exists to be a place where you post something (often but not always something goofy) when you visit. I know not everyone does and that's fine - I still love you. These things can't be offensive or hurtful, though, especially not intentionally so. Unintentional vs intentional I believe is a HUGE distinction and needs to be considered when moderating.

  3. ~~LBJ~~ LBZ exists as an inclusive, (relatively) judgment-free zone for gender-diverse folks. I intend for us to uphold that here. I say relatively judgment free because there will be people looking to start shit and mods and admins are going to have to judge their actions, but only their actions.

If you wanna be my modder, you gotta get with my bullet points...or argue persuasively why I should amend them (but that part doesn't fit the tune).The three big things I'm looking for otherwise are diverse viewpoints, if you can remain reasonably impartial, and if you can say you're sorry. The last is huge for me. As a mod, you're going to mess up. I used to mod on Reddit and I certainly did! I find it's important for maintaining the community's respect to be able to admit when you made a bad call and what you'll do to avoid it in the future.

@[email protected], pointers would be welcome as I think you do a great job.

Community feedback is encouraged and welcome, just be aware I'll be a little slow to respond for a bit.

PS: wow, I really DO love letters!

Edit: Corrected point three, damn autocorrect! Believe it or not, we're not an inclusive community in LBJ's corpse.

Update 20/1/25: We're replete with mods for now! Thank you all who reached out. I'll start pulling these stickies as they get irrelevant, I'm just a full disclosure kind of person so I want people to know what is/has been going on.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The canonical name being written out in words makes sense if you or Ada didn't want to take over the existing community (which IMO would have been preferable). But I would strongly prefer that the display names of both communities make it clear which it is. So !196 would become "196 (archive)" and !onehundredandninetysix should just display "one hundred and ninety six", or at least "196 (new)". This is just so it's very clear at a glance, regardless of where in the UI you're seeing it, which community you're looking at, and helps differentiate it visually from the LW one.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Do you not see the instance name after it? For me, it shows up as "[email protected]", which makes it distinct from "[email protected]". It doesn't need to be distinct from the old one, because they locked that one to new posts.

I agree that it would have been much better if we could have just taken over the old 196@lbz but here we are.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

[email protected] and [email protected] show up as similar in a few menus as they rely on display names and not ID

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

That's the main problem, definitely. A secondary problem is that in some places it might show the instance name, but it's not quite as prominent as the community name. So it takes a second longer to figure out which one you want. If that second can be entirely removed by one easy change, even if it is only one second, that's a good thing to me.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That depends HIGHLY on which app/client you are using and in what context you are viewing it.

Sometimes display name is all that shows.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

One rule I think might be a good idea is that mods aren't allowed to moderate their own posts/comment chains. Not that it's really been an issue on 196 in the past afaik, but there are some communities where the mods will get into an argument with another user and then remove comments for incivility or a similar rule which obviously has massive potential for abuse. Assuming there are enough mods where it's not an issue to do so (which seems very likely based on the number of people interested in moderating) preventing situations like that entirely seems beneficial.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

I cannot agree more. Good call, I appreciate the input.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Literally didn't know there was a blahaj 196, and now you guys are my entire feed lol. Love this fediverse lore

Also if you read this I wish you a wonderfully fulfilling day

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago

It was the main one.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

[email protected] used to be the only (or at the very least largest) community of the type. Recently, its mods unilaterally decided to move the community to [email protected] and lock 196@LBZ (essentially squatting on the name). [email protected] is a replacement under new management.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Feels like it should have been 197 😅

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

nah that one's the kid friendly. 196 is for antagonizing children and authoritarians

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You could always just copy the old 196 rules. They work pretty well.

I wrote these rules for a venting room on the blåhaj matrix, perhaps they could be of some inspiration here. A venting room on a different medium will have very different needs of course from a community like this.

Rules

User rules

  • Assume others have good intentions. Strive to keep this a safe space to vent.
  • Tangents are allowed, but the primary purpose of the room is venting.
  • Don't respond to vents if the venter does not wish to be interacted with. You can mark a vent with /dni to signify this.
  • Keep mature vents in 18+ rooms if possible. Use https://trggr.link/ if such rooms are unavailable.
  • Censor/spoiler sensitive issues and provide content warnings as appropriate. https://trggr.link/ is an excellent way to censor something. Some clients support surrounding text in || on either side of it to censor it like this: ||spoilered text||. Some clients may have a spoiler command: /spoiler spoilered text.

Issues you probably should spoiler: Slurs, racism, ableism, bigotry, suicide, self harm, abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, blood and gore.

Moderator rules

  • Use a gentle hand, don't reprimand!
  • Assume good intentions.
  • When moderating, use DMs or moderator rooms for anything beyond single-comment moderation and for anything serious.
  • Don't leave moderated users in the dark regarding issues they are directly involved in.
  • Warn, then kick, then temp-ban, then perma-ban (avoid), in that order, when dealing with non-compliant users and serious infractions. Skip steps if necessary for larger infractions.
  • Users may appeal your decisions and some arguing should be tolerated. Attempt to deescalate when this happens. Harassing you however is never okay.
  • If you feel yourself become angry at or get a bad relationship with a user you are moderating then pass on the issue to another mod if they are available.
  • Take care of yourself. You are moderating voluntarily after all.

Proper guidelines for moderators is probably key, and then for users a quick summary of the purpose of the community is important, followed by any additions to the instance rules.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Ahem. Can I propose a dumb rule in the spirit of the community's name?

  • All numbers shall be written out in full here.

One hundred and ninety six.

Two thousand twenty five.

The Kessel Run can be run in less than twelve parsecs.

The universe was made thirteen point six billion years ago and was widely considered a bad move.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I vow to make this comm 1000% more trans and leftist if appointed mod 🤓

I am in cahoots with the international trans mafia. I will not show anyone any quarter. (I already mod shit on here)

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

if i have any feedback then i would say that we need some proper rules in place, yeah we can just default to the instance rules but i think having some solid set of rules for moderators and users alike to follow would be a good idea. if you need help modding im interested.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

I would be happy to help mod, I modded some stuff on the old site.

Regardless, here's what I'd like to see out of the moderation here:

  • I fully agree with your points on moderation, but I think it's important to add to #1 that no major decisions should be made by the mods, even if all of them are in agreement. They should be discussed with the community.

  • Semi-regular "ask the mods" post (or just one that's stickied). Basically if anyone disagrees with or has questions about a mod action, they can comment there and the mods pledge to answer any question.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

I'm willing to help with moderation if needed

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Subbed!

Is there something to know about the "old" 196?

Sorry I'm out of the loop.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago

The mods are mad that Ada bans people that break the site-wide rules without first consulting them and want to move somewhere where they can moderate as they please, so, they're moving (and attempting to take the community with them) to .World

That was my read of the situation anyways.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (12 children)

they migrated to lemmy.world which a lot of people took issue with because the old 196 here on LBZ was one of the biggest non-LW communities (maybe the biggest non-LW community I'm not sure)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Alright, thanks for the behind the scenes!

I'll chug along :-)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have a few ~~suckers~~ really nice people who volunteered for modding along with me.

r those the people I mentioned in my post or r there even more?

I didn't think this would take off!

yeh the community has been specially active today to make sure the new 196 grows apparently X3 I knew thatd happen the moment I saw the migration post in the old 196 tho, I love this community :3

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Lemmy UI shows this as 196@lbz in the feed which is amazing UX xd

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Ah yes, one nine six at lesbianz. Truly an inclusive experience. 🏳️‍🌈🤗

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

trans lover of memes and progressive politics here!

I would love to help out Blahaj Zone Logo

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The only experience I have is small leadership roles in some discord (🤮) communities, but I’d be willing to try my hand at moderating here. I’m trans, I like to think of myself as a good listener, and while my neurodivergence sometimes makes me “not get the joke” I generally think it forces me take a step back from my emotional response to things and look toward community reaction for guidance on various posts and issues. First and foremost I’m glad this community was made to help us stay on LBZ, and I’d love to help contribute to it even though I’m not a frequent poster.

I guess I’ll add a strong affinity for privacy, opt-in centric policy, self governance, and mutual accountability, as core tenants of digital communities. Especially in leadership roles I want to hear from my members, and create systems that work for them, not work the way I maybe envision them.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I'll mod a few things. If interested send me a message

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Hell yeah, let's make it happen, folks!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm a bit late on the wagon, but if you're still in need of mods, I would gladly help curate this community and do my best to maintain onehundredninetysix as we know it ^^

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (17 children)

Sorry, but I have to withdraw my offer. I am currently struggling with mental health and can't handle any more toxicity or drama.

The last few days have shown me that stuff like this is not good for me at all.

So, good luck and happy rules.

~~Hello! It's me, Roflmasterbigpimp! The lovable rascal from communities like [email protected] and, since yesterday, [email protected].~~

~~And to some degree even [email protected] for a whopping two days, until feddit.de (and therefore my account) died.~~

~~Even though I have barely done any moderation at all over at [email protected], I still want to help out and perhaps sort things out further. I tried to do my best on the .world 196. I encourage you to check my comment history about this topic and form your own opinion about me.~~

~~I can 100% understand if you decline my offer, but I really like this community and want to make this work.~~

~~Furthermore, I would advise adding a rule along the lines of "All decisions affecting the community and its members as a whole must be backed by a public vote." This is something that could have prevented this whole disaster in the first place.~~

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

This is part of the deal you make when joining a community with active mods, admins, and rules. Not everything is up for debate. I know firsthand that this can be quite frustrating sometimes, but we can’t act like everything else has always been subject to election up to this point. It simply was not.

https://lemmy.world/comment/14556651

Not sure that really shows you under the best light

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Hello, i wouldn't mind modding 196 along with you all. However i am not trans, so i may not be the best choice.

In any way, thanks for creating this and good luck with it 🤠

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Feedback: no more ‘fuck tankies’ in banner or rules. It’s divisive because it has no consensus definition and I think we should make all leftist feel welcome and just use mod action if someone is being harmful to the community.

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