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Oh for sure, I’m not saying all mods are saints. Certainly some of them go too far in wanting everyone to fawn over everything and anything less is anathema. But by and large, what I saw repeatedly when I looked at the comment histories of those who complained loudest about being “censored” was an almost pathological tendency to want to poop on things, regardless of the context.
For example, they’d pop up in discussions of Picard season 3 just to say how much they hated how much Burnham cried in season 1 of Discovery. Or when a TNG discussion was happening, they’d jump in to say how bad they thought Picard season 2 was. And a mod would tell them to keep things topical, and they’d keep doing it, and they’d get banned. Inevitably they would then create alts to complain about “power-tripping mods sucking Paramount’s teat”. That in turn created a perception among those already dissatisfied with new Trek that voicing your criticism was a bannable offense. I never saw evidence that that was actually happening at anywhere near the scale the complainers claimed.
Now obviously that’s a generalization, but that was my perception of the “censorship” in r/startrek. There was plenty of criticism of episodes and seasons happening in comment sections, but it was the mods’ directive to keep it on topic and not just general griping.
I can definitely see getting fed up with dealing with the same arguments or statements all the time. It’s a tight-rope balance to keep a thread from devolving. A lot times an episode or a series will rub you the wrong way and you just don’t enjoy it the first time through. Some of my most enlightening conversations about Star Trek have started with either myself or a friend talking about how bad a certain episode or scene was, but as you talk through why you see it in a different light. Most of the time if I’m saying I didn’t like something in Trek it’s because I’m looking for someone to either confirm my interpretation or point out that I missed something earlier in the episode or in the series that made it make sense to be there. I didn’t dislike DS9 when it first aired, but I couldn’t really get into it. But once I was able to watch it on streaming in order and at my own pace, it quickly became my absolute favorite series. It was an issue with the airing schedule and the pacing didn’t work as well for broadcast TV. A lot of that is pretty well known now, but I didn’t realize it at the time. And if some aspects of a show actually don’t stand up to scrutiny, I think it’s good to have that available in a public forum for the (very slim) possibility that those fan reactions get taken into consideration for future productions. I have been hesitant to voice that kind of opinion based on the perception that it will not be well received.
The thing I was talking about involved a very new user making a similar complaint about getting banned for differing opinions back on reddit, no specific accusation just a general question. Maybe there was a history from reddit, I don’t know, but a moderator responded in-chat and the very first thing he said was inappropriate and demeaning. It was unprovoked and it escalated into juvenile name calling (by the mod, not the original commenter). I can’t remember exactly what he said and he has since removed it. The entire comment thread was removed by the mod, so maybe he realized how inappropriate it was. But he also removed the comment that started it which by itself was fairly innocent and deleted his own comments so they didn’t get stored in the mod logs. It just seemed unprofessional. That’s the kind of thing that can turn people off and lead to a further perception of censorship and is the kind of thing that I think a lot of people came here to escape. A more appropriate response would have been to point the commenter to another thread or post that might be more appropriate for that kind of discussion. Or (like you just did) he could have explained that this is a common perception but it’s a bit more nuanced than it may seem. In this case the post was regarding the move to Lemmy, so a topic of concern regarding community standards seemed reasonable. I think an open discussion or clear statement of philosophy governing the community would go a long way. If one of these kinds of comments get removed they can be directed to an explanation for why it’s better for the community to glean certain comments, but also lays out expectations for how users can express their opinions. It tends to be better to direct people to an appropriate outlet, even if their first choice for that outlet was inappropriate.
I appreciate the personal perspective. I tend to give mods a lot of leeway, even when it seems on the surface that they’re acting like power-tripping jerks. They deal with a LOT of negativity and take a lot of abuse, and that can wear on a person and cause one to overreact to minor slights.
But this discussion is a good one and essential to maintaining a healthy community. If mods are abusing their powers, they should absolutely be called on it. Just as if users are being overly negative or ignoring community guidelines on tone and behavior, they shouldn’t expect to be able to keep it up without some kind of censure.
Oh for sure, I’m not saying all mods are saints. Certainly some of them go too far in wanting everyone to fawn over everything and anything less is anathema. But by and large, what I saw repeatedly when I looked at the comment histories of those who complained loudest about being “censored” was an almost pathological tendency to want to poop on things, regardless of the context.
For example, they’d pop up in discussions of Picard season 3 just to say how much they hated how much Burnham cried in season 1 of Discovery. Or when a TNG discussion was happening, they’d jump in to say how bad they thought Picard season 2 was. And a mod would tell them to keep things topical, and they’d keep doing it, and they’d get banned. Inevitably they would then create alts to complain about “power-tripping mods sucking Paramount’s teat”. That in turn created a perception among those already dissatisfied with new Trek that voicing your criticism was a bannable offense. I never saw evidence that that was actually happening at anywhere near the scale the complainers claimed.
Now obviously that’s a generalization, but that was my perception of the “censorship” in r/startrek. There was plenty of criticism of episodes and seasons happening in comment sections, but it was the mods’ directive to keep it on topic and not just general griping.
I can definitely see getting fed up with dealing with the same arguments or statements all the time. It’s a tight-rope balance to keep a thread from devolving. A lot times an episode or a series will rub you the wrong way and you just don’t enjoy it the first time through. Some of my most enlightening conversations about Star Trek have started with either myself or a friend talking about how bad a certain episode or scene was, but as you talk through why you see it in a different light. Most of the time if I’m saying I didn’t like something in Trek it’s because I’m looking for someone to either confirm my interpretation or point out that I missed something earlier in the episode or in the series that made it make sense to be there. I didn’t dislike DS9 when it first aired, but I couldn’t really get into it. But once I was able to watch it on streaming in order and at my own pace, it quickly became my absolute favorite series. It was an issue with the airing schedule and the pacing didn’t work as well for broadcast TV. A lot of that is pretty well known now, but I didn’t realize it at the time. And if some aspects of a show actually don’t stand up to scrutiny, I think it’s good to have that available in a public forum for the (very slim) possibility that those fan reactions get taken into consideration for future productions. I have been hesitant to voice that kind of opinion based on the perception that it will not be well received.
The thing I was talking about involved a very new user making a similar complaint about getting banned for differing opinions back on reddit, no specific accusation just a general question. Maybe there was a history from reddit, I don’t know, but a moderator responded in-chat and the very first thing he said was inappropriate and demeaning. It was unprovoked and it escalated into juvenile name calling (by the mod, not the original commenter). I can’t remember exactly what he said and he has since removed it. The entire comment thread was removed by the mod, so maybe he realized how inappropriate it was. But he also removed the comment that started it which by itself was fairly innocent and deleted his own comments so they didn’t get stored in the mod logs. It just seemed unprofessional. That’s the kind of thing that can turn people off and lead to a further perception of censorship and is the kind of thing that I think a lot of people came here to escape. A more appropriate response would have been to point the commenter to another thread or post that might be more appropriate for that kind of discussion. Or (like you just did) he could have explained that this is a common perception but it’s a bit more nuanced than it may seem. In this case the post was regarding the move to Lemmy, so a topic of concern regarding community standards seemed reasonable. I think an open discussion or clear statement of philosophy governing the community would go a long way. If one of these kinds of comments get removed they can be directed to an explanation for why it’s better for the community to glean certain comments, but also lays out expectations for how users can express their opinions. It tends to be better to direct people to an appropriate outlet, even if their first choice for that outlet was inappropriate.
I appreciate the personal perspective. I tend to give mods a lot of leeway, even when it seems on the surface that they’re acting like power-tripping jerks. They deal with a LOT of negativity and take a lot of abuse, and that can wear on a person and cause one to overreact to minor slights.
But this discussion is a good one and essential to maintaining a healthy community. If mods are abusing their powers, they should absolutely be called on it. Just as if users are being overly negative or ignoring community guidelines on tone and behavior, they shouldn’t expect to be able to keep it up without some kind of censure.