While at the same time passing judgment and adopting a disdainful tone towards disagreed with your opinion. That is the most objectionable part.
Pointing out where I draw boundaries isnāt disdaināitās clarity. Iāve said repeatedly that not all of Lemmy is bro culture. What I wonāt do is pretend that dismissive behaviour (ācool story broā) is just harmless slang. Thatās not disdain, thatās naming behaviour for what it is.
And the only reason you had for calling those users ātoxicā is because they showed some sign of disagreement with your previously unpublished and unknown policy?ā*
Thatās not accurate. I didnāt call people toxic simply for disagreeing. I said if someone shows signs of being toxic or openly supports toxic behaviour, I take them at their word. Thatās different from disagreement. Youāre collapsing behaviour and disagreement into the same thing, and theyāre not.
A ābroā is the person who laughs at cruelty because itās entertainingā¦ I mean really? Talk about hyperbole. Any one of us could easily come up with 10 negative and 10 positive connotations for the word ābro.ā
This isnāt hyperbole. āBroā is rarely neutral in practice. It has consistent cultural functions:
Fake familiarity (ācool story broā from strangers isnāt friendship).
Diminishment and mockery (it often carries sarcasm).
Gender exclusion (assumes a male default in-group).
Gender assumption (applies a label regardless of identity).
Thatās not me inventing baggage out of thin airāitās how the word is used in real contexts.
All you seem to be doing is mis-characterising the use of a commonplace word as problematic based on nothing but your own imaginings, and then using that mis-characterisation to vilify users you disagree with on the topic.
No. Iām not vilifying people for disagreement. Iām drawing a line against behaviours and tones that diminish others. Thatās the job of an admin: curating the space theyāre responsible for. The word ābroā as commonly used isnāt just āa commonplace word.ā Itās a cultural signal that often carries exclusion, mockery, or fake intimacy. Thatās why Iām flagging it.
As an anarchist, rigid hierarchies and those who create them arenāt to my taste.
But you are an admin of lemmy.dbzer0.com. Thatās a hierarchical role. You set the rules. You decide federation. You sit at the top of the decision-making structure. Thereās nothing inherently wrong with thatāevery admin does it. But it undercuts the idea that Iām somehow authoritarian for being upfront about doing the same thing. Running a server is hierarchy. The difference is whether you acknowledge it or pretend it doesnāt exist.
But you are an admin of lemmy.dbzer0.com. Thatās a hierarchical role. You set the rules. You decide federation. You sit at the top of the decision-making structure. Thereās nothing inherently wrong with thatāevery admin does it. But it undercuts the idea that Iām somehow authoritarian for being upfront about doing the same thing. Running a server is hierarchy. The difference is whether you acknowledge it or pretend it doesnāt exist.
Our users can vote admins and mods out if they want to. They also vote on any rule changes. Thatās how a community should function. Thatās how we do checks and balances to prevent abuse of admin powers, such as enforcing my personal opinions on all our users. Iād last about 1 day if I started doing that. So no, it undercuts nothing, and now you are just trying to score pointless debating points so Iāll leave it at that.
Youāre describing elections, not the absence of hierarchy. That may make your server representative, but it doesnāt make it non-hierarchical. Someone still fits the role of admin, someone still has the keys to the machine, and someone can still pull the plug on the entire server at any moment.
Thatās not egalitarianismāthatās hierarchy with window dressing. Elections donāt erase the structure. They just decide who occupies it. And the structure itself carries the same asymmetries: technical control, federation policies, enforcement of rules, the ability to de-federate or delete outright.
Which is fineāserver administration is hierarchical by design. But it undercuts your attempt to paint my stance as authoritarian. Iām upfront about what the role entails: curating and enforcing standards in the space Iām responsible for. Youāre doing the same thing, just phrased differently.
And that flourish about āpointless debating pointsā is cowardice. Youāve been caught in your own contradictionāpreaching anarchism while holding the keys to a serverāand rather than face it, you try to wave it away. Thatās not an argument. Thatās an admission youāve got nothing left.
If I abused my position I would fully expect to be held accountable by one of our other admins. And Iāve also reversed mod decisions due to user feedback. But in order to do that youāve got to be open and responsive to feedback in the first place. But when you are the sole admin there is nobody to keep your ego in check. I still had that [left], I guess.
Thank you for describing it as a flourish, I liked that part.
You are making a ton of assumptions based total ignorance of how dbzer0 is operated and governed, even how many admins we have, or of the history of how it ended up under db0ās project domain. And itās not my job to educate you, especially because I can tell already that nothing I can say will disabuse you of your self-serving preconceptions.
It really doesnāt matter how many admins youāve got or how you divvy up the titles. Lemmy, by design, requires an admin for it to even function. That alone makes it hierarchical.
Any community can only be what the software allows it to be. And Lemmy hardcodes a structure: admin ā mods ā lowly āusers.ā (Isnāt it funny how both the software industry and drug dealers refer to people as āusersā?) Your ideals canāt undo the fact that this is a hierarchy baked into the system.
If you truly believed in the purity of your anarchism, no one would āownā the server. Hell, there wouldnāt even be a server. It would all be peer-to-peer nodes, something closer to Secure Scuttlebutt.
But instead youāre here, running software built from the ground up for hierarchy. And youāre an admin of it. How very anarchist of you.
You seem to hold a fundamentally different view of what an admin can/should be. Idk if thatās just a consequence of a turbolib brain or what, but it sounds incredibly foreign to me. In my experience on Blahaj and here on DB0, the understanding is that the admins are providing a service for us. Provider, protector, facilitator- these titles donāt represent an inherent hierarchy, and neither does administrator
The thing is, all communities on the Internet can only ever be what the system is designed to allow.
If a platform is built for hierarchy, then it is a hierarchyāregardless of the ideals people bring into it. No amount of goodwill or re-labelling (āprovider,ā āprotector,ā āfacilitatorā) changes the fact that the software has hard-coded roles with asymmetric power.
And this isnāt some quirky personal view of mine. People far more intelligent than me have been pointing this out for decades. Lawrence Lessig, in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), put it bluntly:
āCode is law. What people can and cannot do in cyberspace is regulated by the software and hardware that make cyberspace what it is.ā
Geert Lovink, in Networks Without a Cause (2011), made the same point about platforms and power:
āDesign decisions are power decisions. Interfaces, defaults, permissionsāthey do not merely āenableā interaction, they structure it, and in doing so they impose hierarchies.ā
Helen Nissenbaum, in Values in Design (2005), sharpened it further:
āThe architectures of systemsātheir technical frameworksāinevitably embed social and political values. Claims to neutrality obscure the ways in which they establish constraints and privileges.ā
History is full of examples where egalitarian ideals ran headlong into the hard wall of software architecture.
Wikipedia was envisioned as a flat, peer-produced projectāyet its reliance on admin powers and arbitration committees quickly created an entrenched hierarchy of āsuper-editors.ā Redditās early culture thrived on openness, but its karma system and centralized admins ultimately entrenched a ranking-and-punishment order that couldnāt be wished away. Even early Usenet communities, which imagined themselves as free-flowing conversations, were shaped by killfiles, moderators, and backbone hierarchies dictated by the protocol itself.
So when I point out that Lemmy is hierarchical, itās not some rhetorical trick. Itās simply recognizing that hierarchy is baked into the software.
You can call admins āfacilitators,ā you can hold elections, you can promise benevolenceābut the structure is still a pyramid, and it will always tilt power toward whoever holds the keys.
Thatās not a matter of interpretation. Itās a matter of design.
![[Update] AtomicPoet has deleted the piefed.social communities where he was the sole moderator ([email protected] being the exception). Content is still available, details in the linked post](https://lazysoci.al/pictrs/image/cb7c5a29-e297-41a8-bde5-698ba205c3fd.png){kind=link}
Pointing out where I draw boundaries isnāt disdaināitās clarity. Iāve said repeatedly that not all of Lemmy is bro culture. What I wonāt do is pretend that dismissive behaviour (ācool story broā) is just harmless slang. Thatās not disdain, thatās naming behaviour for what it is.
Thatās not accurate. I didnāt call people toxic simply for disagreeing. I said if someone shows signs of being toxic or openly supports toxic behaviour, I take them at their word. Thatās different from disagreement. Youāre collapsing behaviour and disagreement into the same thing, and theyāre not.
This isnāt hyperbole. āBroā is rarely neutral in practice. It has consistent cultural functions:
Thatās not me inventing baggage out of thin airāitās how the word is used in real contexts.
No. Iām not vilifying people for disagreement. Iām drawing a line against behaviours and tones that diminish others. Thatās the job of an admin: curating the space theyāre responsible for. The word ābroā as commonly used isnāt just āa commonplace word.ā Itās a cultural signal that often carries exclusion, mockery, or fake intimacy. Thatās why Iām flagging it.
But you are an admin of lemmy.dbzer0.com. Thatās a hierarchical role. You set the rules. You decide federation. You sit at the top of the decision-making structure. Thereās nothing inherently wrong with thatāevery admin does it. But it undercuts the idea that Iām somehow authoritarian for being upfront about doing the same thing. Running a server is hierarchy. The difference is whether you acknowledge it or pretend it doesnāt exist.
Our users can vote admins and mods out if they want to. They also vote on any rule changes. Thatās how a community should function. Thatās how we do checks and balances to prevent abuse of admin powers, such as enforcing my personal opinions on all our users. Iād last about 1 day if I started doing that. So no, it undercuts nothing, and now you are just trying to score pointless debating points so Iāll leave it at that.
Youāre describing elections, not the absence of hierarchy. That may make your server representative, but it doesnāt make it non-hierarchical. Someone still fits the role of admin, someone still has the keys to the machine, and someone can still pull the plug on the entire server at any moment.
Thatās not egalitarianismāthatās hierarchy with window dressing. Elections donāt erase the structure. They just decide who occupies it. And the structure itself carries the same asymmetries: technical control, federation policies, enforcement of rules, the ability to de-federate or delete outright.
Which is fineāserver administration is hierarchical by design. But it undercuts your attempt to paint my stance as authoritarian. Iām upfront about what the role entails: curating and enforcing standards in the space Iām responsible for. Youāre doing the same thing, just phrased differently.
And that flourish about āpointless debating pointsā is cowardice. Youāve been caught in your own contradictionāpreaching anarchism while holding the keys to a serverāand rather than face it, you try to wave it away. Thatās not an argument. Thatās an admission youāve got nothing left.
If I abused my position I would fully expect to be held accountable by one of our other admins. And Iāve also reversed mod decisions due to user feedback. But in order to do that youāve got to be open and responsive to feedback in the first place. But when you are the sole admin there is nobody to keep your ego in check. I still had that [left], I guess.
Thank you for describing it as a flourish, I liked that part.
So if you ever abuse your power, youāll be held accountableā¦ by the other admin.
The other guy sitting at the top of the hierarchy.
The same guy who named the whole server after himself.
Yeah, no hierarchies or egos here. Just pure, uncut anarchism.
You are making a ton of assumptions based total ignorance of how dbzer0 is operated and governed, even how many admins we have, or of the history of how it ended up under db0ās project domain. And itās not my job to educate you, especially because I can tell already that nothing I can say will disabuse you of your self-serving preconceptions.
It really doesnāt matter how many admins youāve got or how you divvy up the titles. Lemmy, by design, requires an admin for it to even function. That alone makes it hierarchical.
Any community can only be what the software allows it to be. And Lemmy hardcodes a structure: admin ā mods ā lowly āusers.ā (Isnāt it funny how both the software industry and drug dealers refer to people as āusersā?) Your ideals canāt undo the fact that this is a hierarchy baked into the system.
If you truly believed in the purity of your anarchism, no one would āownā the server. Hell, there wouldnāt even be a server. It would all be peer-to-peer nodes, something closer to Secure Scuttlebutt.
But instead youāre here, running software built from the ground up for hierarchy. And youāre an admin of it. How very anarchist of you.
Lmao you are the very worst example of a reddit-style debate bro Iāve ever seen on Lemmy. No wonder everything is going so well for you.
Thanks, thoughāour back-and-forth did get me thinking about the feasibility of true peer-to-peer software that offers Reddit-like topical functions.
Something where there arenāt admins, mods, or āusers.ā Something anarchist by design, not just by branding.
Appreciate the inspiration.
You seem to hold a fundamentally different view of what an admin can/should be. Idk if thatās just a consequence of a turbolib brain or what, but it sounds incredibly foreign to me. In my experience on Blahaj and here on DB0, the understanding is that the admins are providing a service for us. Provider, protector, facilitator- these titles donāt represent an inherent hierarchy, and neither does administrator
The thing is, all communities on the Internet can only ever be what the system is designed to allow.
If a platform is built for hierarchy, then it is a hierarchyāregardless of the ideals people bring into it. No amount of goodwill or re-labelling (āprovider,ā āprotector,ā āfacilitatorā) changes the fact that the software has hard-coded roles with asymmetric power.
And this isnāt some quirky personal view of mine. People far more intelligent than me have been pointing this out for decades. Lawrence Lessig, in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), put it bluntly:
Geert Lovink, in Networks Without a Cause (2011), made the same point about platforms and power:
Helen Nissenbaum, in Values in Design (2005), sharpened it further:
History is full of examples where egalitarian ideals ran headlong into the hard wall of software architecture.
Wikipedia was envisioned as a flat, peer-produced projectāyet its reliance on admin powers and arbitration committees quickly created an entrenched hierarchy of āsuper-editors.ā Redditās early culture thrived on openness, but its karma system and centralized admins ultimately entrenched a ranking-and-punishment order that couldnāt be wished away. Even early Usenet communities, which imagined themselves as free-flowing conversations, were shaped by killfiles, moderators, and backbone hierarchies dictated by the protocol itself.
So when I point out that Lemmy is hierarchical, itās not some rhetorical trick. Itās simply recognizing that hierarchy is baked into the software.
You can call admins āfacilitators,ā you can hold elections, you can promise benevolenceābut the structure is still a pyramid, and it will always tilt power toward whoever holds the keys.
Thatās not a matter of interpretation. Itās a matter of design.