So, I saw a report from one of my users. They reported:

https://ponder.cat/post/1594852/1813842

For the reason:

Unreasonable fighting with everyone in every simple post

I think that’s ridiculous, so I talked with them about it. Posting private communications is frowned upon I guess, but long story short, they weren’t receptive. I’ve decided to ban the account.

IMO the general culture on Lemmy is that users are entitled to their free account and everyone needs to be careful and circumspect about limiting that entitlement in any way, but I don’t see it that way. I don’t think it’s a requirement for me to provide hosting space for anyone who wants to use my stuff as a jumping-off point for abuse of Lemmy’s systems, and isn’t apologetic or receptive when I talk with them about not doing that. The fact that it’s in service of harassing FlyingSquid in particular is just icing on the cake, since my perception is that people like to harass him apparently for no legitimate reason at all (with this as an example).

AITA?

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
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    12 hours ago

    I won’t consider you talking with me about this in this thread to be block evasion, FWIW. We’re talking, since you switched to an alt to start an interaction with me, and it’s not really offensive for me to continue this conversation. We might as well. I probably won’t answer a reply, but here’s my take:

    Just ignore me! And if you don’t want to interact with me, then don’t comment about me or reply to me. And tada! Problem solved.

    What difference does it make what my name is? If I were to actually ban evade, and used a different screen name, the comment I made would still be the same.

    This is a really key point.

    The internet (and phone system before that) has developed a norm that if someone doesn’t want to hear from you, that’s their right. Over the phone it can actually be illegal. The reasons should be pretty self-explanatory, but it’s basically just anyone’s right to decide that someone’s being obnoxious and they don’t want to hear anything else from that person. Violating that decision is symbolic, on both sides: Some people will get bent out of shape by someone sending even a single ping if they don’t want to hear it, because they tried to set a boundary and it got stomped on. And some people will take a kind of pleasure in violating someone else’s attempts not to hear from them, even if the context is something totally meaningless. You can see kids do this kind of thing with their siblings sometimes when someone sets a boundary. The core issue that gives it power is that factor of consent, or violation of consent.

    The internet has decided that communicating with someone who’s checked the box that they don’t want to hear from you is crossing a line. The content or context doesn’t mean anything. That’s why the block function blocks DMs, and posts, and comments. And actually, the same type of person who thinks it’s fun to make comments to someone who doesn’t want to hear them, often will also think it’s fun to make perfectly innocuous comments so they can then claim they’re being abused if the person doesn’t want to hear the innocuous comments, and is making a big deal out of nothing. Again, you can see kids do this sometimes to each other’s boundaries.

    The OP just posted an entire essay in this very thread about me using server times, SQL queries, and other statistics, and his theory about my motivations. I don’t even know what any of that means

    It’s not hard to understand. Two separate times, once right after I mentioned you in a comment, you switched from the alt you usually use to one you rarely use, that I don’t have blocked, and then instantly commented on one of my posts. And then feigned perfect ignorance and claimed not to have even noticed that it was me who made the post.

    I posted some of the details, just for verifiability by anyone who’s in an admin role, but that’s what happened. Pretty straightforward. You are communicating to me on purpose, dodging around my blocking of you, and then lying about why and how you did it.

    You guys drive the mods crazy yelling about me. Just ignore me when you see my comments. It ain’t that hard!

    All these comments about me are about to be removed anyway because they are off-topic, plus I’m not even the subject of the original post for the thread!

    I would hope this isn’t true. There’s a reason why we want the pattern of little tiny lights on the screen to look one way and not another way. At the end of the day, it’s all just pixels, but it makes a difference whether what’s on the screen in the words shaped by the pixels is kindness or maliciousness, truth or falsehood, stuff we want or stuff we don’t want. You’re saying you have the right to shape the pixels on my screen, and trying to paint it like I’m making a problem if I inform people that you’re breaking the rules to get them to shape the way you want them, instead of it being the way the network is normally set up to operate, keeping things in a more voluntary pixel-shape instead of an involuntary one.

    Harassment is pixels, personal insults are pixels, misinformation is pixels. Your messages are pixels. I would prefer not to have them arranged for me on my screen. Please stop doing creative things to continue sending them to me.

    I actually don’t think this message is going to do much, either for your behavior or for the admins’ reactions. Actually I think sending you a thought-through message may just sort of egg you on in terms of giving you attention which is going to lead to further interactions. It’s usually my habit for how to try to first approach problems, though, is just explaining them clearly and addressing what’s going on with them, or answering what people have to say about them.

    • UniversalMonk@r.nf
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      11 hours ago

      I don’t want this to hurt your feelings, but I actually don’t care about you enough to harass you. My reply in this thread wasn’t harassment by any sense of the word. I didn’t even know it was you.

      You are a prolific poster. One glance at your profile shows how much you are all over Lemmy. So yeah, our paths are gonna cross.

      I have never called you names. I have never sent you harassing DM’s. We’ve only talked in public forums. And even then, we haven’t actually interacted that much.

      Think of it like this. Let’s say your goal was achieved and I was banned from across the fediverse.

      Do you think that would make me disappear? No, I’d just create a new name, and come back. (Which by the way, would officially be the definition of ban-evasion, unlike your definition.)

      But you wouldn’t know it was me.

      So an example from that scenario: Let’s say I pick a news name of BobSmithy. I see this post. And I reply with. “PTB in my opinion. It seems banning someone for one post is a bit extreme.Totally your call, but that’s how I see it when other mods do actions similar as to yours.”

      Ok, you’d read it, shrug, move on. Not that big of a deal.

      That’s the exact fucking thing I posted. But you saw it was from the big bad evil “UNIVERSAL MONK!!!” and you lost your shit.

      You gotta stop thinking about me so much. It’s making you crazy. You’re talking about yesteryear of dial phones, and philosophy of pixels and search query and wanting to make long legal history notes of how what I am doing is targeting you.

      Look how many posts I make. How many have been about you or to you? Maybe 5 or 6? And you think that’s targeting you?

      Also, just so you know, if you all wouldn’t have fought soooo fucking hard to get me banned on .world, we wouldn’t have this problem. Because I’d still be on one instance. One block and you’d never hear from me.

      But you and a few others decided to get soo vocal and scream to the moderators that now I never know when I’ll get banned, so I have to spread my name out. Which is what the point of the fediverse is.

      I posted a reply to a PUBLIC POST that you made to this community. And the reply wasn’t personal. And it followed the rules of this community.

      Not only that, but you listed with glee that I was banned for lemm.ee. And you’ve listed all my other bannings. But I have no idea if you have been banned from any instance. Cuz i don’t look you up. And I don’t care.

      But you certainly look me up. And post stats.

      Think about that: I don’t know about your post times, or servers, what comments have been removed or where you have been banned from.

      Because I don’t stalk you. Yet you know all that info, and post it. And this isn’t your first time posting my stats.

      Think about that, friend.

      I’m not leaving Lemmy. If banned under this name, I would come back under something else. (Before you all message the poor mods, don’t convict me of thoughtcrimes before they happen.)

      So for your mental health, just ignore me, don’t react to me, or comment about me. It’s not healthy to obsess so much.

      I have no ill will toward you. I will try to not reply to you unless you ask me to. But dude, you post more than I do, you’re in almost all the communities I’m in.

        • UniversalMonk@r.nf
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          2 hours ago

          Not me. Not my account. Not even my username. I’ve reported you for falsely stating that this is me.

          Do you have any proof at all that that is me? I don’t even know why you would think it was me.

          Please provide proof, because I, and the admin, would love to see it. You keep bringing that up as me and I have already said it was me.

          And it looks like that user was banned anyway.