Hello.
I don't want to mod anymore. I can't offer this community what it needs and it took the banning of /u/kkllee for me to realise why.
I've set a precedent that, if someone makes an argument that the majority of the community disagrees with, that person has to change their opinion or leave. I don't want to continue to contribute to the realisation of something I fundamentally disagree with, and I will if I remain. I am not a natural leader, and representing those other than myself has always been difficult for me. I believe in both pacifism and free speech, and my inability to balance them means I no longer have nor wish any business as the mod of this community.
I hope that someone else can move the community I love to a better place, but I don't feel comfortable simply nominating that person. As such, I'd like it to be put to a vote. I will prepare a Google form ballot, and anyone wishing to have their /u/ placed on said ballot should PM me before midnight AEST on 9/4, which will be 10am EST on 8/4 for those of you in North America. You will all then have a week to cast your vote.
I will continue to be active in the community here, of course. It's been wonderful working with all of you, and I'm glad to have made this sub into a better place than it was before I came. Thank you all.
~ T-V
For anyone wondering, this is not an April fool's joke. It's an unfortunate coincidence and I am being entirely serious.
I, for one, do not accept your resignation.
You are a great mod, and did what you felt was right at the time, in light of what a vocal part of the community was calling for. If you are having second thoughts about that decision then simply just ...unban him. Furthermore, as mod of this sub, the decision is up to you to run it as you see if. If you disagree that someone should be banned, you have final say in that matter. If the other users disagree with that, they are perfectly capable of making their own subreddit from which to ban troublesome users.
You are everything a moderator should be: active in the community, offer good, thoughtful comments in threads, and post quality submissions of your own. I think the worst thing you could do for this subreddit is step down.
Not every comment is valid while we strongly disagreed with much of what he did no one called him a troll that first time. While I completely agree with the non-censoring part, I think your reason for banning him was not to censor him. He was a troll, a very hard troll to identify, but one nonetheless. Other groups, like feminists, and the transgendered have "allies" who come in and say things like "I can't keep supporting you if you don't do X" These people are a detriment to the "cause" and should not be considered allies. It is a hard lesson to learn about folks who are "just trying to help" for their own reasons.
You didn't make any sort of precedent, and have not banned folks who come here with a differing view in the past and no one has asked you to in the past.
Did you ever PM Kkllee to ask him to change his tone and discuss why he was having a problem here? I'm curious if he ignored that as much as he ignored everything else asked or suggested to him.
All that said however, I know I'm unlikely to change your mind and I thank you for your service.
A very hard troll to identify so much you couldn't really tell it was a troll and we're still not really sure, but thank god we got him!! Fucking trolls!!!
No one thinks Tundrovyy-Volk was trying to censor anyone. It doesn't change the fact it's one of the net effects, something was lost here, and those who voted for it to happen had more than one thing going on in their heads.
Umm, yea, so I guess the outcome of a troll was folks getting all pissed off around here and deleting? Sounds like the results of trolling to me.
The results of a successful troll, indeed.
Hey T-V. I know what day it is, but given your sense of duty, I take it this isn't an April Fools joke.
Maybe there's more going on in the background than I realize, but from the looks of things, you're the only active mod around here. And all things considered, under your guidance, things have been going along quite well. I don't think the problem here is you; I think the problem here is that it's just you.
Might I recommend a /r/zoophilia triumvirate? By having a team instead of a sole leader, there's less pressure on any individual, such as yourself. And, ideally, a team of leaders promotes discussion that will lead to a more agreeable consensus.
Just some thoughts, take 'em or leave 'em. You've been doing a more than respectable job around here for as long as I've seen. I'd be glad to get my name on that ballot, but I'd feel even better if your name was on there as well.
I'm sorry to hear that you're stepping down, I think you've been a fine moderator. I feel I should say, though, that the majority of people objecting to /u/kkllee's posts weren't objecting to what he was saying, but rather to how he was acting and presenting his arguments. It's the difference between someone who makes a reasoned, polite post questioning the ethics of zoophilia and someone who just spews forth vitriol and bile. Both may have the same opinion, but only the disruptive one gets banned, because it's how you act, not what you say, that determines how willing a community is to hear you out. It wasn't /u/kkllee's opinions that most people found offensive and objectionable, but the arrogance with which he presented them and the stubborn refusal to listen to what members of the group he claimed to be trying to help were saying.
I don't think that any precedent has been set. This wasn't a mob shutting down someone because they didn't share his opinions, it wasn't an attack on free speech (at least, no more than banning someone who only posts abusive comments is an attack on free speech). It was a community having it's hand forced to prevent an outsider from continuing to disrupt and upset things. It is not the first time someone has been banned for acting like a jerk and upsetting people with their attitude and sadly it probably won't be the last, but it's a far cry from censoring opinions or curtailing free speech. There's a world of difference between objecting to what someone is saying and objecting to how they're saying it.
It wasn't anywhere near as hostile as you people made it out to be. I had no problem with it if it was kept to one thread. You see a lot worse. It's your perception of him and oversensitivity to the web that made him into a witch. No reason for a ban. You couldn't tell if he was a troll. That says everything. What kind of community targets people instead of ideas and spends time weeding out 'concern trolls'. A slippery community with poor focus.
To say this was separating manner and content is disingenuous revisionism already. Almost nobody was doing that, the responses were plain as day. Taking things personally: https://www.reddit.com/r/zoophilia/comments/30wb26/ukkllee_an_intervention/cpxe26z . The line between them was not clear-cut to begin.
A point of view was erased to satisfy personal comfort levels. That are too high to begin with. I thought reddit being a melting pot of thousands of self-governed subboards showing the multitudes possibilities of decent and awful management styles and through the power of sheer exposure to diversity might finally give zoos a clue on how you run and don't run communities and what's most important. But especially, precisely, how to control their own selves. I was so wrong.
This was the definition of mob rule.
I never said that he was hostile, I said that he was arrogant, stubborn and disruptive. Whether he was deliberately trolling or not is beside the point; he was asked to stop behaving in that way and he refused, over and over. You ask what kind of community spends time weeding out concern trolls? One that cares about maintaining its own voice and not being derailed, sidetracked and hijacked by outside influences with dubious motivations. As for "targeting people instead of ideas," isn't that sort of the entire point of a ban? When someone is being too much of an asshole to be allowed to continue? And wouldn't targeting ideas instead of people be far more likely to lead to actual restriction of free speech?
As for "erasing a point of view," can you actually put your finger on what that point of view even was? What position, exactly, has been banned from discussion on the subreddit? As far as I can see, all that's happened is that one person, who behaved in an unacceptable manner, has been prevented from continuing to do so. His threads are still here, people are free to comment on them and discuss them as much as they like. The topic is not the issue, but the high-handed, egotistical and ignorant way in which it was presented.
I'm curious under what circumstances you feel a ban is warranted, because from your tone and some of the things you say ("You see a lot worse," mentioning over-sensitivity) you seem to be of the opinion that everyone needs to just suck it up and stop being babies and we should allow anyone to say whatever they want here. If this is your position, it confuses me somewhat, because surely the entire point of a zoophilia-focused subreddit is to provide a safe space for zoophiles to discuss things. We have the entire rest of the internet for when we want people to be able to act like dicks to us with impunity.
As for mob rule; if a moderator acting according to the wishes of the community he represents is mob rule, then should he or she instead just do whatever he or she wants regardless of the wishes of the community? Or do the opposite just to spite them? Or just do nothing, ever? Aren't moderators selected by the community, in order to be their representatives and protect their interests? If not, then what are moderators even for? I don't understand how you think a moderator should be selected or behave, unless it's simply "he or she should take the course of action I agree with, not what the majority of the community want."
Disruptive. That word again. Disruptive to whom? Not to me. A single thread at a time on a subreddit with robotically-stated somewhat crass rules is disruptive? What did it prevent you or anyone from doing? Tells a lot more about the populace than the poster, and where the real problem is.
No, I obviously don't mean censorship. Debate the idea, not the person.
Not position, point of view. A perspective from a non-zoo with a controversial but interesting take, I didn't care for but it doesn't matter. It's gone.
Rarely. Spam, overt intentional trolling that adds no information equating to spam. Extremely rare bans are warranted for someone who had that much to write.
How did that one thread by one robotic guy make your whole space less safe? It was nothing. It's in your mind.
They spend a lot of time there of their own accord. There's more irony than I have time for.
It's by definition mob rule. Democracies make agreed-upon rules beforehand to prevent it, protect individuals. They do it while emotions aren't going through the roof.
Interestingly, he came on to that thead not about his rules and asked me to disprove his rules again. That was what my comment was about, it had nothing to do with taking anything personally. At that point I simple stopped trying to engage him and refused to feed the troll, deleting my first comment on that thead and adding that comment that i was not going to let him try to turn this into "his rules" and derail the conversation.
Again, HE came onto my comment, prompting that response. Nothing personal or heated in it. I simply had decided to not bother feeding his ego.
If you wanted to try tar me, better to choose some of my highly sarcastic comments from the actual thread. Edit for iPad spelling
Fine, I misinterpreted that one. Strange place to put it. There's 500 others to pick from and yours are loaded.
Unfortunately, I decided to act fast because I'm busy and got a life, the comment was less informative than it could be but is there because that is the thread I deleted the comment I refer to. I simply didn't want to feed the troll. I am perfectly willing to admit that my comments became acerbic once I figured out it wasn't a discussion.
How did that fool even become a mod in the first place?
Serious question.
Edit; I meant kkllee was the fool
Certainly not with needlessly inflammatory comments like this one.
EDIT: No harm done, I thought the question seemed rather out of character when I first read it
Shit - i meant kkllee was the fool (!)
T-V has been nothing but awesome.
Sorry for the mix up
Ah, that makes more sense. Yeah, kkllee was never a mod.
he was a mod?
Never mind i guess; i was mistaken
ah, no worries.
IMO, reindeerpone's suggestion is something to consider - having more than one mod to help spread out the stress. hate to see this bothering you so much, tundrovyy-volk, but i think you've done a great job here.
I'm honestly surprised to hear that T-V has been the sole active mod for so long. I assumed that at least one of the three other mods would have been helping out too, but I guess I was mistaken. Having a team of mods who can discuss things and share the responsibility sounds like a fine idea to me.
You banned someone because the vast majority disagreed with his ideas. Not because he broke any rules or used harsh language or attacked individual members, but because he "rocked the boat"
I know some of his purposed rules were asinine (the dog knot removal thing) but if the only reason you gave him the boot was because you bent to the will of the majority than you are truly unfit for modship.
[deleted]
I hope you realize this only makes it worse. They voted by definition through mob rule to ban someone that offended them (I don't know that, I'm assuming you tallied). Now you give them a vote to elect a leader while tensions are this high? Oh boy.
Gonna take a page from someone else's book. Disagreement is healthy and great. But I'm too tired for this broken record. Too much deja-vu. It's a lost cause once the shit turns into policy. Can't count on time or exposure to make it mature, that's my lesson. But fuck it not my responsibility either, and places to be without regressive policy.
Tundrovyy-Volk, this was disappointing because I didn't think you'd do it. But I thought you were a relatively good mod before. Which means good odds you'll be replaced by someone worse.
-dr aka others
I don't know why you're defending the dude so much. we still have free speech in this sub and anyone is allowed to post here if they're respectful to the community.
Sorry to hear that. I personally think you were/are a great mod.
Sad news to see :( You've done an amazing job as mod for the time I've been lurking/involved here for a few years. Sorry that this is bothering you so much. I agree that, no matter what, multiple mods (even if it's only two, since this sub isn't too big?) would be a better idea than just one. Maybe you could get some people to help you out instead of stepping down completely? I also agree that if you do step down you probably shouldn't put the new mod to popular vote...
I'm personally fine with the ban, he was repeatedly asked to stop being arrogant and disruptive and he refused every time. And like Yearningmice mentioned, he tried to start arguments on threads NOT about the rules, too. I'd think someone behaving like that would get banned in most online communities. It's not what he was saying that prompted a ban, but how he was saying it. If he hadn't been disruptive or rude there would've been no reason for a ban, but he was.
I hope you don't decide to step down completely, you've done so much good with this place and I don't know if anyone else could manage it as well as you have. (Or if I could trust anyone else to, honestly...)
Either way, thank you for everything you've done for this community. You should be proud of everything you've accomplished.
Something of an outsiders' perspective:
My experience dealing with you as a moderator has been rather positive. I would be disappointed to see you go.
As far as /u/kkllee goes... I've been in various situations, dealing with various moderators, who apply rules in varying ways. My experience tends to be that those moderators who think carefully about difficult decisions, and who examine their options thoroughly, and who make attempts to discuss the issue, are the moderators that I think are the best, even when they sometimes make decisions that they are unhappy with.
By that standard, I think that this incident actually shows you to be a good moderator, at heart, not a bad one. You did not rush into a decision. You did not act rashly. You spent time carefully considering it, as is evident even from this post.
So again, for those reasons as well, I'd be sad to see you go.