pillowfort.social
DoktorHobo: *sigh* - okey, bluesky goat-rodeo after-action report
So a couple of weeks ago, I made a vague post about bluesky being bluesky (derogatory) again.I now have some energy to try and explain what happened, but this will probably be less of an essay than I'd have made at the time. [READ-MORE]It begins with Aaron Rodericks (@aaron.bsky.team) posting here.He attempts to explain why threatening trans people with 'the camps' isn't worthy of moderating, and his explanations are - *checks notes* - shit awful.Just terrible decision-making and values. The tl;dr summary is that telling trans people they need to vote democrat or it'll be their fault when they get sent to The Camps is unpleasant, but unworthy of moderation. Meanwhile a lot of people complaining about telling trans people they'll deserve to go to the camps if they don't obey democrats IS a problem.Oh, and when people thought his explanation was bullshit, that response was framed as further proof about how toxic the community is.So everything there is horrifying. It also maps nicely onto how we expected bluesky's "dogpiling policy" to go wrong through how it'd be implemented. However, the meta issue is also worth discussing all by itself:Having this conversation at all in public is a massive, massive, MASSIVE failure of judgement and responsibility all by itself.Even if what Aaron Rodericks had said made sense, saying it LIKE THIS would have been extremely alarming.Here's a thread from Infosecsie (@myracoonhands.com) that I think nails important points. The parts where she quotes Aaron are broken because he blocked her for discussing what happened.Here's some relevant sections of her thread:
This is fucking weird for any moderator to do.
You don’t quote post a user that you have absolute power over (in terms of this site) and “make an example of them” to your incredibly large audience.
Not only is this highly unprofessional, but it could also be easily interpreted as harassment.
Here’s the thing, too: “Toxicity” in this context means “things Aaron Rodericks doesn’t like.”
Once, he bullied and mocked a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, to which I said, “That’s highly unprofessional. You should be ashamed.”
Then, he marked my comment as “rude” when he was the aggressor.
“Why can’t I shitpost on the site I work for just like everyone else!?”
Because you work for the site, Aaron. You have a position of power and are constantly abusing it.
One of the things that frustrates me is that Aaron and others at bluesky continually refer to how hard moderation is, and they're right but also completely missing their own points.I'll just repost a thread from me I made at the time:Link 1:
Moderation IS incredibly hard - SO hard - and it is an extremely challenging dynamic collection of messes that you're always trying to handle 'live.'
One of my ongoing frustrations about Bluesky is that they seem *completely unaware* of anything people have learned about managing this stuff.
That harms them. It harms the community.
It is generally bad news.
And few people have ever needed to Log Off, Do ANYTHING Else, And Just. Stop. Talking. than Aaron has.
Hell's teeth
Link 2
The thing which baffles and alarms me is that there's *decades* of prior experience of how socmed moderators/staff can BE moderators/staff while minimising how sandblasted their very souls are by the experience...
...and bsky staff appear to be applying none of it.
This is bad because it harms them, and that harm will shape their ability to do the job, and how they see the community.
But also that harm is GOING to propagate outwards, and a lot of people *aren't paid what they are.*
It's real running-with-scissors hours and none of them seem to be able to prevent each other Doing Unsafe Shit.
Which raises so many questions about culture and practices and all the behind the scenes stuff.
All we see is the crashouts, not the systems that say clearly crashouts are okay and fine.
And like... they're here by choice! They're paid! Lots, by the sound of things!
The fact they're letting themselves be harmed in very avoidable ways is bad, but the knock-on consequences to far more actually marginalized people with fewer options for community *scares the bejeezus out of me*
Link 3
Here's where I'm at: moderation is *incredibly hard,* but when Bsky has enormous resources they COULD apply to learning how to do it safely, and haven't even bothered to start asking those questions, that stops working as an excuse.
Systemic negligence is not a good sign.
We are as safe on Bluesky as we'd be on a server run out of a basement by someone's sibling-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, but at large scale.
And it sure seems like that sibling (etc, etc) is sympathetic to some groups more than others.
So that's what happened there.[/READ-MORE]
