this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
626 points (99.7% liked)
196
5813 readers
1681 users here now
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Moderator Guidelines
- Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
When you try to move where the walls and whip used to be.
How do I know I've moved far enough? What if the walls and whip have just moved?
I guess you'll have to just keep moving. If you try your weirdest and meet no resistance ever, then I'd assume we're going in the right direction.
— John Stuart Mill
I think that going to extreme lengths to try to prove one's own freedom is just a convoluted way of caging yourself all over again.
It is important to keep moving, but it's got to be for more than just proving that you can. Figure out what direction you'd like to move, and then after you've started moving in that direction, keep asking yourself what it is that you want — the world can start to look quite different once you've moved, so being mindful about things is how you can keep moving in a manner that's true to you, even throughout all the change.
When we know that our choices are constrained in some way, it's easy to convince ourselves that we never actually wanted to go in that direction anyway, even if that's not true; sometimes that lie is more comfortable than reckoning with the reality of our chains. It can be hard to discern the truth of the matter in these scenarios. Freedom is not just a quality that's bestowed upon us, but an active skill that we can train, and with time and mindful effort, we can improve our ability to discern between all the places we're told we can go, and where we genuinely want to go. If it doubt, if you suspect that you're self-policing your wishes to avoid being disappointed by chains that you subconsciously feel are there, it can be useful to push in that direction, and see how it feels. Sometimes, you'll find that you were in fact free to go that way, but you actually didn't want to, in which case, you can just reroute, with greater knowledge of what you want. In other cases, you will confirm that there are indeed chains constraining your movement, which you'll have to figure out how to escape. Either way, you'll know more, and be better equipped to actually be free.
I don't think that we can ever move far enough to prove that we are free, largely because of what happens when we improve our capacities for things, including freedom. The more we grow, the more that becomes possible to us, and so our appetite for more freedom will always increase. This can be dangerous, because it can appear that the most effective way to enable our own freedom is by adding to others' chains. This isn't a sustainable strategy though, because it means that when we find a direction we wish to go but are unable to, there will be no-one to help free us. None of us are free until all of us are free