I know there was some schism and moving of instances, but beyond that I can’t deduce what happened/is happening.
The mod team tried to move everything to .world. No one liked that and now there’s !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone !196@lemmy.world and !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone the top two are run by the old mod team, the last one is ran by a new mod team. Blahaj zone and onehundresninetysix are active. (Rip 196.world, gone and certainly forgotten.) The mod team and admin had a drama over heavy handed admin over reach on bans in 196blahaj.
Back in December, the instance hosting 196 (lemmy.blahaj.zone) announced that, as part of its mission as a trans-friendly space, harassment based on gender or neopronouns would remain prohibited—even if the user in question was suspected of being a troll. Users were asked to disengage, block, and report suspected trolling behavior rather than bring harassment into a community already vulnerable to that kind of bullying.
There was a small backlash to the policy from some users. This led to a number of “toe the line” posts that weren’t outright gender-based harassment but strongly signaled an intent to misgender or harass in the future. Blahaj admins promptly removed all offending comments during this wave of dissent.
Important to note: The majority of the Blahaj and 196 users supported the policy, upvoting and praising the admins for creating a safe space for trans individuals.
By January, the backlash had mostly subsided, and the trolls causing issues had moved on. However, 196 moderator @moss and their team remained unhappy with the policy. They cited “personal differences” and felt Blahaj admins had overstepped by removing comments themselves rather than allowing 196 mods to address users who openly expressed intent to harass others.
Yesterday, @moss and the 196 moderation team enacted a major decision without consulting the community. They locked !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone and instructed users to move to !196@lemmy.world.
This move was extremely unpopular. Many users strongly dislike lemmy.world for various reasons (a complicated topic better unpacked elsewhere). The announcement post was met with widespread backlash, and @moss eventually locked it. In response, a few users created a new community on Blahaj: !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone. The new community quickly grew in size and activity, with most users opting to stay on Blahaj rather than migrate to lemmy.world.
It’s clear @moss and the 196 moderators underestimated the community’s attachment to its home on Blahaj. By attempting to uproot the group without input, they alienated much of the community. As a result, most users have moved to the new Blahaj-hosted community, which has already become the more active space.
TL;DR:
@Moss and the 196 mod team tried to move the community to lemmy.world without consulting anyone. The decision was extremely unpopular, leading to backlash and the creation of a new Blahaj-hosted community that most users now prefer.Oof. Rookie mistake. Even if people aren’t against a move most people won’t follow you to the new site simply because of laziness. It kills communities.
There really should be a life shattering reason to move a community to a new site.
Yup. Clearly, “the admin is going to generally protect trans identities on her instance” didn’t ring as “life shattering” to too many. 😸
This comment would probably make for a good crosspost to !fediverselore@lemmy.ca
on it!
edit: https://lemmy.cafe/post/12094663 thanks again for the suggestion
Great write-up, thanks. I love a good shit-show. 🍿
Sounds to me like the OG mods could have said “we don’t like how the admin runs things here, we are leaving as mods and starting a new 196 on .world with hookers and blackjack, you guys do what you want here.”
Which everyone would think is fine, but that would mean they’d be mods of an empty community, and thus have no power, and that of course made them upset.
I genuinely would have had no problem with that, and I think most others would agree with me.
I guess they decided to forget the hookers … and the blackjack.
Ahh forget the whole thing
They stated pretty directly it wasn’t about the Dragonfucker incident, nor did it involve policies on neopronouns. Drag wasn’t even banned for anything to do with neopronouns.
I think the move to lemmy.world was a mistake, but I believe them when they say it has nothing to do with the neopronouns policy.
Correct. Nevertheless the neopronouns incident was something of a catalyst; all the “differences” had to do with trans issues in some way, and it would be amiss of me not to point out the biggest moment that made 196 come out in support of Ada and Blahaj.
Their other “differences” are also bogus in my opinion.
Anyone who is angry they can’t whip out queerphobia when they’re annoyed at someone who uses neopronouns doesn’t understand why it’s not OK to say racist shit about Clarance Thomas, misogynistic shit about JK Rowling, or transphobic shit about Keffals.
Just a huge red flag that respecting other people’s humanity is contingent on benefiting them.
Exactly. It’s fine to attack their horrid personalities, terrible actions and all-round aweful nature, but we don’t attack people based on things they can’t control.
They chose to be fucking terrible, and we can attack that, it’s really pretty simple, and easy too.
Thanks for the writeup … there should be some kind of news service for stuff like this. Everyone notices weird changes on lemmy but not everyone is in tune to every detail, every personality, every major user or mod, every instance, every community and everything they’re doing.
All I saw were the changes and activities but I had no clue who, what, where or why … which meant you didn’t know who supports what or for what reason.
I was watching that community over the past day or two and didn’t see any news about any of this until now … things were happening on Lemmy, lots of new posts from 196 everywhere and noise about a controversy there and no info for those who don’t know until this post was made
fediverselore is good … it’s just a bit slow in the uptake
It usually waits for the dust to settle.
!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com might be more what you’re looking for
I wonder if Blahaj admins will kick out all the mods who locked 196 and replace them with the mods who created oneninetysix.
No and no. Ada stated that she will not oust the mod team, and she is currently the mod of onehundredninetysix, though is trying to find someone else to take it over as she has no interest in being mod.
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Nope. You might be unaware, but the .world community is not brand new and has been around for more than a year. So it already had plenty of subscribers and activity before this incident.
!onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone is brand new and is already popping off. That is undeniably significant.
If you don’t see posts that’s a federation issue on your end. Try subscribing from your instance to help it along.
Deleted it since I found out I was putting out missinfo. The one on .world has more subscriber but the one on blahaj has more daily activity
yep, that is accurate and thx 4 taking accountability :3
Onehundrednightysix is stupid. You should have just named it oneninesix
The really quick summary is that the mods of the 196 community on blahaj.zone wanted to move the community to lemmy.world, but did not announce it publicly to the users or seek their input, and so when the announcement came out, users of the instance felt blindsided by the announcement, and that lemmy.world was a fairly unpopular choice of instance. The resulting discussion from the thread largely did not dissuade skeptical users and contributed to the feelings that the mods were making a unilateral decision based on their desire and ignoring what the users of 196 wanted, and the decision to keep the original community on lemmy.blahaj.zone locked meant that users who did not want to post on lemmy.world were losing out their community.
This resulted in another 196 clone being created on blahaj, the original 196 becoming unlocked, and so now there are 3 196 communities. The newest one, onehundrednightysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone, has a particularly high posting rate right now, as users are attempting to assert that community’s support as opposed to the ones run by the mods of the original and the lemmy.world communities.
~4 if you count the Brazilian one*~
Imagine an apartment building. The landlord decides the local city council is too overbearing, and decides to move to a different city. They expect the tenants to move with them.
Problem 1: The local city is known for inclusivity, and the new city is known for being overpopulated and having an overbearing city council. Either the landlord has sinister motives or didn’t do their research.
Problem 2: The tenants weren’t told of the move before the moving van came, and were given no opportunity to weigh in on the decision. The landlord was calling all the shots.
Problem 3: The landlord sealed the building as they moved, making it impossible for someone else to take over as landlord and keep the building running. There was really no reason to do that.
This went about as smoothly as you’d expect. While the landlords did eventually unseal the building, a lot of people completely lost faith in them and moved into a new apartment building in the same city, but with a new landlord ( !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone ).
Mods made a dictator decree to move the community to world, and blocking the old one. People did not agree and made their own new one. On the original instance. Spam in the new community ensued.
Either way, old one was blocked for me. New one too.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/20937206
Mods of !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone locked the community on blåhaj and wanted to forcefully move over to lemmy.world. Most people didn’t like that and someone created !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone as an alternative.
Semi-related question: What the fuck is 196? I’ve never understood what it was, just that it was a carry-over from Reddit. Me browsing it is like Homer Simpson reading a Far Side calendar: “I don’t get it. I don’t get it. I don’t get it. LOL…I don’t get it.”
A place to shitpost.
Some guy made a subreddit called 195 (named after their dorm room number IIRC) where the only rule was that you had to post something before leaving. They later closed the subreddit because it had gotten too large to operate by one person. 196 was created by the community as a successor with the same one rule. Just post. Simple as.
For me, a place where people post dumb and entertaining memes. I guess the origin was “rule 196” which says that you have to post something before you leave or log off. But whatever, dumb meme, me press up button.
I think I’m Rainman, when the 200 toothpicks fell to the ground, Ray counted 196 instantly. There were four left in the box.
The sub name is unrelated, but that’s how I think of it :)
Time to go counting cards…
Well in Rain Man, he counted 246 toothpicks (“82, 82, 82.”) out of 250
I block most meme based communities because they overpower the rest of what I like, but I’ve been picking up bits of the events from context.
Does this center around the one individual using, shall we say, a very distinct set of pronouns that a lot of people took issue with?
I kind of enjoyed that person in a social commentary way, but I can see why people more directly effected by pronoun usage may have taken issue and blahaj changing their rules due to it, but if that is what is causing this big schism, that’s a pretty wild thing that all is this is the result. I’m interested in the opinions on both sides, but it’s one of these things I’m afraid to ask due to polarization like this. I have genuine curiosity but I can totally see how someone could trollishly go after the same info.
Blahaj didn’t change its rules. Misgendering isn’t allowed on Blahaj, it never was, and it never will be. Blahaj is founded on values of empathy and tolerance. Respecting neopronoun users is nothing new to the queer community, no matter how new it is to the 196 mods.
Thanks for the clarification that it was an enforcement rather than a change. I feel that is significant to the story.
I still believe that it isn’t trolling, as you/drag are far too consistent and what you/drag posts is really just regular, responsible, non-inflammatory stuff, at least what of it I’ve come across, though I avoid most edgier posts in general.
If people don’t like it, they have numerous options to ignore or avoid the posts and comments, I don’t see why so many have to actively trash what guidelines you’ve/drag have asked people to respect.
As a CIS/het, I will freely admit I don’t know enough about the issues to judge if this is helpful or hurtful to the non-binary community as a whole, but until I see you/drag do something rude, I have no complaints about giving you what consideration you ask for, as you/drag have been nothing but respectful to me. It doesn’t make me feel like any other non-binary people are a joke or anything like that. Different things make different people happy, and if what I’ve read from your comments has all been genuine, your/drag’s life isn’t the easiest, and if me be respectful of some word choices can make life not worse, it’s the least I can do.
Thank you very much. Those are some very kind words.
I come on here to escape the shittiness of real life and to be positive. It doesn’t matter to me who or what anyone here wants to be, as long as they’re here being cool with everyone else. Online is built for freedom, escapism, and expression of all kinds, and I don’t like seeing people step on that. For those of us that can appreciate the unique color you bring, I love it as an expression of that freedom.
People here will play as a DND character, a LARPer, study HEMA, or treat the Tolkien universe as a pseudo-reality, and no one will bat an eye, but someone wants to be called a dragon out of established content and all of a sudden we have to crush them? It doesn’t make sense to me. Again, they can ignore you, or filter you out, they don’t need to throw insults when they see drag pop up. I don’t get what that accomplishes.
I don’t want to keep going with this here, as it appears I unintentionally dragged you/drag into something that drag isn’t directly involved in, so apologies for that, but I’m still pro-drag based on my personal experience. This might make me seem foolish to some, but what you are doing fits in my vision of online freedom is with no issues.
Nice comment
I mean, most of us came here because we didn’t want people to tell us what we could or couldn’t do other places.
Why do people want to tell this person they can’t be a
dinosaurdragon if it isn’t hurting anything?
Again, read drag’s comments and not the pronouns of they bother you, and they are quite typical. If people didn’t go on the offensive against them, they wouldn’t particularly stand out from most others’ comments. And that’s not to say I feel drag is the one that needs to knock it off, I feel it’s a hang up on the receiver’s end of things.
You won’t find me insulting anyone here because while there are people here I’m not fans of, it’s not my place to tell them to get lost. I ignore them, or block them if it’s too much to ignore.
It’s a broader disagreement that’s been simmering for a while. The 196 mods say that the Drag controversy is unrelated, as Dragonfucker had been banned from 196 long before for unrelated reasons.
That’s not what they were saying when Ada said neopronouns aren’t trolling. This thing they’re saying now seems like a PR line to avoid getting the community outright taken by Ada.
At present, drag is banned from 196 for advocating violence against Nazis, but at the time, the ban was for “trolling” after making several posts in support of neopronouns.
Neopronouns aren’t trolling. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone saying otherwise. I believe YOU are though. There’s a wake of drama behind you miles long.
Would, uh, would you say Martin Luther King Junior caused a lot of “drama”? How about Anne Frank? Rosa Parks? Mahatma Gandhi? Dora Richter? Would you call those people “drama llamas” or “trolls” because they were divisive? Because people chose to have a lot of opinions about them? Is that your criteria for deciding if someone is a bad person, that others react strongly to their existence?
How fucking insulting you are to even think to compare yourself to them. This is absolutely evidence you’re here in bad faith to troll.
You’re a troll because you fit the descriptor definition, and you create unnecessary drama everywhere you go. Again, MODLOGS.
You sure seem about as wrongheaded as the Nazis and segregationists after you said “it wasn’t about pronouns” while misgendering a trans person as part of your manufactured drama. That’s a choice you made, to he/him a nonbinary person for absolutely no reason while lying about your motivation. You don’t get to have an opinion on any of this after that stunt.
Man… it is always entertaining to see the extreme limit of mental gymnastics one needs to preform in order to land the jumps you attempt.
You have compared yourself to MLK, and Anne Frank, and now I’m a Nazi because refuse to play along with your trolling?
Astounding.
And not only that, but you seem to have now revoked my right to have an opinion? Hmmm…. That sounds vaguely like you’re trying to tell me I’m not allowed to choose my own perception.
Pot meet…. “drag”
sounds like me. I don’t specifically hate memes but like new ones pop up constantly and some seem to be generated just so an individual can throw things up. dank ass, memeorama, funny home of the fun, just all over the place. I actually just blocked 196 a bit ago because I was loathe since I consider it a bit more historically legit but man I want like less than 1% to be memes.
It’s just too much. Even the ones I find funny, there is just too much, and with so many communities and cross posting they multiply. And things like the Star Trek instance, I’ve seen some episodes and some of the movies, but I’m not into Trek so much I need a steady stream of that every day!
I like when people reference memes in response to something I post and I can look up whatever it is on Know Your Meme and enjoy it. That’s probably not how memes are exactly meant to be enjoyed, but it’s how I can appreciate most of them. Maybe a little too Abe Simpson yells at cloud, but I’m allowed to operate how I want! 😇
I agree here to. I mostly like something that has discourse happening and if someones discourse is a relevant meme then thats fine. Although if everyones discourse was meme it would be like ugh. Its best when used sparringly.
Exactly, I appreciate them as a condiment, not a main dish!
oh thats a perfect analogy. I might even take it higher because I say something like this with bacon and cheese. Both are incredible. Fabulous. I have and can eat them straight, but I mostly like them on things. Bacon cheeseburger, bacon wrapped X, Cheese X.
Stop, you’re making me hungry! 🤤
Ya, i woke up this morning to my entire feed being nothing but their “rules” posts. Didn’t take more than a few minutes before that place got blocked. My block list is sooo long here….
I blocked them long ago and they came back from dead. I blocked them again. They are not funny and they post a lot. They invade my feed like a virus. Can’t have that!
I’ve blocked hundreds of communities. Kinda the opposite approach to subscribing by building a list of personalized content from scratch; I’ve whittled down All to mostly good content.
196 is on the blocklist 3 times now, lol.
I too was confused so read the post the mod wrote. Admins were banning users without telling mods. Admin said they were banning because mods weren’t doing their job. Mods talked to admin and they agreed moving to world would be better. Users got angry because no one told them.
I think there is some drama with the mods but I am also lost and waiting for someone to clarify it.
The 196 mods decided to move their community, because Ada kept removing posts that broke the rules when they wouldn’t clear the reports on Blahaj’s end. The users said they don’t like the mods anyway, and they’re gonna make their own 196 with blackjack and hookers. The mods reopened the old community and said I’m sorry baby, come back I’ve changed. The users don’t believe the mods and want them removed.
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Ada is the admin of blahaj, not a part of the mod team for 196. She has final say on anything that is on the instance but isn’t directly involved in 196.
The reason for the move hasn’t really been clear. The mods were vague when they announced the move, effective immediately, and the most common theory I saw was about a certain person who uses neopronouns and an event where Ada stepped in to use her power as admin to overrule the mods of 196. The mods of 196 have since clarified with a vague statement about how they don’t like how Ada handles moderation across the instance (banning trolls more on a “vibe check” than hard rules or something? I don’t really know) and praise for .world’s instance level rules regarding things like trolls and harassment.
The community was blindsided by this, as 196 was locked and moved within hours of the announcement; and they largely voiced disagreement with the decision it seems. In response, I believe some member of the community created onehundredninetysix to keep the community on blahaj, and Ada herself is currently the only mod of the community, though she’s looking for people to take it over.
