this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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Blåhaj Lemmy is a Lemmy instance attached to blahaj.zone. This is a group for questions or discussions relevant to either instance.

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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.

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[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 year ago

I've been building and nurturing communities online and offline for decades now. So when Kaity and I were creating the guidelines for this instance, I knew upfront that there would be guidelines, not rules. And that reason for that is because the rules aren't the source of truth on what's acceptable and what isn't. Rules are attempt to codify and communicate what is acceptable, but they get treated as if they are what is acceptable.

If I had a situation where someone needed to be removed from the community, but they technically weren't breaking the rules, then the rules are the problem. They don't get to stay just because the rules didn't capture that specific scenario. But changing rules brings about confusion and contention, because people think it means what is acceptable has changed, when in reality, they just had a mistaken understanding of what is acceptable, because the rules were centered as the source of truth.

It also creates a lot more work on moderators and volunteers, because they have to turn in to mini lawyers, and their actions become shaped by the rules, again, giving the rules first place in what is ok and what isn't, when they should never be that, because they never can be that. Rules are always imperfect.

And so, guidelines. Guidelines get to the heart of it, because they don't attempt to define every scenario that is and isn't acceptable. Instead, what they do is let people know the lens through which decisions about moderation are made. I acknowledge that that means some level of ambiguity. However, there is ambiguity with rules too, we just pretend/forget that there isn't. But with guidelines, it's easy to address the ambiguous scenarios and uncommon cases, because the guidelines for dealing with them are simple.

[–] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the mods are doing just fine, and keeping it free and loose instead of bogged down with concrete legalese-esque rules makes for a good vibe. It seems like "don't be a dick" is pretty much the stance and I'm all for it.

[–] OccultIconoclast@reddthat.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've seen lots of people be dicks on Blahaj. Because my understanding of being a dick is different to Ada's. Everyone's is. We all have different life experiences, values, triggers.

Transphobes are going to keep on criticising Blahaj as long as they think transphobia isn't dickish. Which is as long as they're transphobes. The rules complaints are going to just keep on happening forever unless Blahaj gets rules.

The only other communities where I've seen as much drama over the rules are Beehaw, which is designed the same way, and .world, which wouldn't state an admin position on advocating violence for a long time. Ambiguity creates conflict.

[–] Kimiko@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 year ago

Why are we minding transphobes exactly? They are inconsiderate and disrespectful most of the time, and they don't really want to listen to any arguments that dont confirm their bias.