An anonymous admin on Beehaw banned me for being “pompous”. In both my comments
I was being fully cooperative and doing whatever the other person wanted me to
do. However, the symptoms of my narcissistic personality disorder were visible
in the way I spoke. I was visibly narcissistic. My symptoms didn’t affect my
behaviour or how I treated others, they were just cosmetic. And the verdict from
the Beehaw admins is that visibly having NPD is unacceptable. I think this isn’t
nice, and I think it discourages diversity. > Of note, we’ve never banned a
single person without openly discussing what happened with other individuals who
participate in this community1 and asking for their input. We can’t promise this
will always be the case, but we can promise that we’ll be open to having a
discussion with any community member who feels that something unjust happened
with another person or to themselves. This excerpt is in the page “Beehaw is a
community”, and it shouldn’t be. It’s not true anymore. > What is Expected of
Community Moderators?
> Encourage and promote respectful and constructive discussions, and address any
behaviour that goes against our community’s spirit to be(e) nice.
> Assist people by answering their questions, offering guidance, and helping
them navigate the platform effectively, ensuring they feel heard. Deleting the
thread in which this happened and all records of it on the site doesn’t promote
constructive discussions. Making it against the rules to tell someone they made
a mistake doesn’t promote constructive discussions. Telling a disabled person
the way they talk is pompous and unacceptable doesn’t promote respectful
discussions. Banning someone who asks clarification on what they should say
doesn’t address their behaviour, it doesn’t offer guidance, it doesn’t answer
their questions or help them navigate the platform, and it doesn’t make anyone
feel heard. > Assume good faith
I treat other Beeple with good faith, even when I think they are not responding
to me in kind, unless they are unequivocally advocating for hate or intolerance
of fellow humans.
I give others the benefit of a doubt when I read their posts/comments, I assume
good intent and give others the opportunity to save face/clarify. And there was
no part of this treatment that treated me with good faith, or gave me the
opportunity to save face or clarify. I say there’s nothing wrong with making
mistakes and I had every intention of doing as I was asked, the admin tells me
to shut up and go away.
A couple days ago, a thing transpired between two users, namely Axolotling and DroneRights on this website. They were having a thing over intentions and empathy, but the important thing is that DroneRights expressed the fact not everyone should speculate on someone’s intentions, which I’d say is a fair thing to say. The mods, seeing that DroneRights laid out all of their intentions and what Axolotling could do to hopefully understand its POV, decided to call it “pompous”. That, I think, breaks the whole principles that Beehaw stands for, mainly those of acknowledging good faith when it happens and not randomly banning a user because an admin felt the way they word themselves is “pompous”, which I don’t think it was to begin with.
Now, I actually do believe in the principles of this federation and I’m not here to start a shitstorm or to stoke the fire more; I’m here to understand how was it possible for a moderation team to see someone who was willing to help someone else understand their point of view and be met with moderators jumping in out of nowhere without truly understanding what had happened.
Acknowledging something exists as a mental illness, and does have diagnostic criteria, does not translate to transphobic. The discussion in that thread was actually pretty interesting, if you care to actually read it.
Acknowledging something exists as a mental illness, and does have diagnostic criteria, does not translate to transphobic. The discussion in that thread was actually pretty interesting, if you care to actually read it.