Hey everyone,

We wanted to address a common situation we’ve seen over the years with some large online forums, reaching out to moderators for questions and concerns.

Typically a good first line of contact is to use the Report button for any posts that need moderator attention. This will open a report for both the community moderators and the site admins. This is normally enough for most larger communities with active mod staff. You may also reach out to your community mods, they’re here to help. 💖

We do encourage our communities to take care of their own and want them to always feel empowered to run themselves as they see fit (provided they are following the global site rules). Issues can arise for some smaller communities with only one moderator or situations where the local mod staff is inactive for one reason or another for an extended time.

In these situations, we’ve seen folks email our ticket system, and while we will try and get back to them, this ticket system tends to get end-user support cases mixed in (as well as a low stream of spammers trying to buy ads 🙄).

What we do want, is to provide a more direct line of contact to the site-admin team, so when ANYONE needs to reach out to us when something is amiss, they can get a timely response. While the team all are on a few different platforms, this tends to create a fragmented approach of not just the WHO, but the HOW to contact us.

While we as a team use our internal chat platform, we want to find a happy middle ground between @'ing us each directly in random chats, and issues sitting for too long in our ticket system.

This new system would be for PRIVATE Messages as a supplement to our Lemmy.world Support community, which we do monitor very closely, and our ticket email info@lemmy.world, both for more technical issues. Think of it like the bat signal 🦇🎆!

To this end, we’ve created two methods for reaching the site-mod team directly.

We hope that between both an anonymous platform approach AND a secure email-based approach, we can keep everyone happy 💝

In closing, please, always try and reach out to your community mods FIRST, they usually will know best how to handle a difficult or tricky situation, and use this only when you feel you need to reach out now.

  • The FHF/Lemmy.World Admin team 💓
  • uservoid1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    90·
    4 months ago

    When I started reading your post I thought you are going to say “please don’t bother us, use the report button”. I was pleased to see that not only you did not discourage users to contact the admin team, you opened more channels to do so. Kudos!

    • Rooki@lemmy.world
      21·
      4 months ago

      We saw that people got confused whom to notify with our rather large admin team, and because of it we created those two new communication channels.

  • whoreticulture@lemmy.world
    32·
    4 months ago

    When are you going to implement accountability for mods? I have reached out to mods/admins in the past to talk about issues w another mod. (mod FlyingSquid has said he would use his mod powers in a retaliatory manner due to disagreements, and I have seen many other people complain about them). Some mods/admins listened, another said basically to fuck off and they’d block me just for reaching out, considering me reaching out to be harassment. There is no accountability.

    • Admiral Patrick@lemmy.world
      20·
      4 months ago

      I would highly encourage anyone who feels sympathetic to this comment to read through the comment history and modlog of the person who made it before voting.

      Combative, promoting violence, and generally using the Palestinian crisis to universally bash anyone they disagree with about anything while also derailing unrelated conversations. But yeah, it’s the mods who are the problem. 🙄

      • whoreticulture@lemmy.world
        8·
        4 months ago

        I’m “combative” because everyone picks fights with me, because my political opinions aren’t popular here (I’m leftist, and end up arguing with a lot of transphobes as well). Mods shouldn’t use political disagreements as grounds for retaliation.

        My modlog has so many taken down comments bc the other day I went through and quoted other ppls comments that were taken down, asking for accountability because I thought they were taken down unjustly. I still think they were. Mods have since mentioned to me ways I can link comments without quoting them, that won’t get my comments taken down.

        Thanks for your creepy concern. My point stands regardless of my comment history, as evidenced by so other ppl sharing they have had similar experiences. Cool you want to discredit me due to my political opinions, and tendency to question the way mods operate.

        • Rooki@lemmy.world
          3·
          4 months ago

          The internet isnt just for politics. Sometimes stopping is the wisest choice someone can make, not to get more provoked into a needless discussions. Please take those words for your next heated discussions.

          Let idiots be idiots and just ignore them. That will anger them the most.

          Lemmy is in nature pro leftist as the lemmy devs are radical left orientated.

          And if you disagree with mods than just make your own community that you build up

          • whoreticulture@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 months ago

            It’s not about my comments, it’s mods getting into debates over them and then promising to retaliate. I’m talking about a pattern with certain mods

            • Rooki@lemmy.world
              2·
              4 months ago

              Please report them then with our new Report Possibilities.

              DM https://lemmy.world/u/lwreport
Email report@lemmy.world (PGP Supported)

              Then we the admins can investigate if it breaks any instance rule and then we can make decisions on that.

    • Godric@lemmy.world
      17·
      4 months ago

      Won’t comment about any named moderator(s) in case of retaliation, but I’ve experienced, seen, and heard about a certain mod(s) powertripping multiple times for very weak reasons.

      Powermods with fragile egos were some of the most stifling parts of Reddit, it’s sad to see it replicated here.

    • Zealousideal_Fox900@lemmy.world
      14·
      4 months ago

      I am a former .world team member, your experience dealing with admins is not surprising. Some admins I won’t name are just straight up assholes. Lemmy hate train is pretty justified.

    • duffman@lemmy.world
      14·
      4 months ago

      People who spend 8 hours a day or more commenting on Lemmy shouldn’t be moderators. I think they have an unhealthy perspective on life and it shows.

      • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        4 months ago

        Yep, mods can quickly turn into “small town local cops” that think they can do anything they want. It’s quite ridiculous when you bring up an issue/question a ban you got (I haven’t had any issues here yet, I’m referring to Reddit in this case) and the mod essentially says “fuck off” and blocks you.

        I literally said on Reddit “as a guy, I appreciate the change” on a comment about a woman saying she switched from jeans to yoga pants as her daily wear, but since it was a woman centric sub, they all jumped in my shit and massively downvoted me, then I got a 1 day ban on top of that. When I questioned the mod about the ban and said it was a “tongue-in-cheek joke and didn’t think anyone would take it so seriously” she (presumably) responded “Not it wasn’t a joke! You were being a creep in a woman centric sub! Bye!” and muted me for a month, which meant I couldn’t respond to her. I could see if I was being a red-pill misogynistic asshole, but instead I got banned for saying I like how a woman looks in yoga pants. Imagine being a woman and getting banned for saying you like looking at a muscly dude’s arms in a tank top vs long sleeves. It’s pretty damn ridiculous.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
      12·
      4 months ago

      This exactly, you have subs like news that mods are obviously bias banning and adding racist reasons. One of mine literally says reason : explaining anti semitism to a Jewish person… Aside from just being wrong generally it’s defamatory and assumes I’m not Jewish with no evidence.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 months ago

          It’s honestly the weirdest reason I could think of to ban someone. Especially because they weren’t saying I was wrong just that I told it to someone claiming to be Jewish.

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
    9·
    4 months ago

    I try to not add work to anyone, unless there’s something truly dangerous to a person or community.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      17·
      4 months ago

      I can’t speak as an admin, but as a mod of multiple communities, please let me know if there’s an issue even if it isn’t on that level. I wouldn’t agree to be a mod if I wasn’t willing to look into people’s concerns. I’m sure many other mods feel the same way.

      You’re really not adding work when it’s something I’m doing voluntarily and aren’t even required to act on no matter what’s going on, but you’re really not adding work if what you have to say will make the communities I moderate a better place.

      • MarciaLynnDorsett@lemmy.world
        7·
        4 months ago

        as the mod of two worldnews communities, can you try to squash the shill/bot accusations. it’s dehumanizing, and it acts as a thought terminating cliche, stopping discussion of the topic. it’s toxic af and it should be grounds for immediate short bans, and long bans with repeated use.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          5·
          4 months ago

          I’ll do what I can. The best thing to do would be to flag those as uncivil. I would certainly delete something like that in the communities I moderate. It’s not only uncivil, it’s just unhelpful to the discussion.

          • TheFonz@lemmy.world
            3·
            4 months ago

            How do we manage trolls? I know I was banned from worldnews (I’m not mad) for calling someone out

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              5·
              4 months ago

              Again, you just have to flag. People are not flagging enough. In the case you are talking about that I can see, it was after your ban and it was deleted for incivility, which is what you were banned for to begin with.

              You were getting flagged for your own rule violations (incivility), which will get mods to take a look at them, but if you see someone trolling and flag them, we can check it out.

              It also might take a while sometimes. I seem to be the only active mod in any of my communities when I get up in the morning and for a while afterward.

              • TheFonz@lemmy.world
                2·
                4 months ago

                No worries. I’ll keep that in mind on my alt. I love you Flyingsquid. 😘 Keep up the good work

    • ericjmorey@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      4 months ago

      Not all work is unwanted. I want the communities I moderate to thrive and reports can help with that.

    • Serinus@lemmy.worldM
      2·
      4 months ago

      We do want our individual communities to thrive as well. While it may not be urgent, if you have ideas to improve a community, please do reach out.

  • LagrangePoint@lemmy.world
    5·
    4 months ago

    So is this for real, or is this just so you guys can have an inbox you can easily ignore?

    Has anyone here actually talked to the admin team and gotten a response back?

    Every day I look at the modlog and see the same names doing the same bullshit.

  • credo@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 months ago

    I know you guys were looking for a few good site admins recently, and I trust you’ve found them. If it gets bad, I would also recommend a pipeline of frontline volunteers to help field these types of issues as well. At least as the primary mechanism. E.g., a team who could help filter out the chaff and escalate relevant tickets.

    FWIW, I wouldn’t mind the occasional non-intrusive ad to help pay for professional services. Or some other monetization mechanism. Think of it as “volunteering” with the wallet. Perhaps something for a future community discussion.

    Cheers!

    • Rooki@lemmy.world
      2·
      4 months ago

      Hi,

      we have that already in place, its in our case the “Community Team”. The monetization with ads would anger many people as the fediverse is buildt up to be “unmonetizationable” because if we or any other instance would somehow have ads, it would lead users to move away and we would really not do that.

      Thanks

      • whoreticulture@lemmy.world
        3·
        4 months ago

        Relying on unpaid labor means your volunteers will skew towards the most privileged.

        source; experience in the nonprofit world.

        • Rooki@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 months ago

          Yeah for sure that will happen in an non profit. Additionally on large ones where they get “!compensated” for their efforts with donation money. But here we dont do that.

          • whoreticulture@lemmy.world
            3·
            4 months ago

            It’s no different here, the dynamics are the same. Volunteer labor will skew towards the most privileged or retired bc they have more free time , not the most capable.