edit: As I’m seeing a lot of worry about the impact this will/could have on the community, please be assured we have the same mod team, and will be holding the community to the same standards. the same things that were always allowed will continue to be allowed and the same things that got things removed before will continue to get things removed before. Lemmy.world admins have agreed to allow us to run our community on our terms.
It is my pleasure to announce that effective immediately, we are transferring our community to Lemmy.world! This has been a few months in the making, so my entire mod team is already on board.
FAQ:
Why?
That’s a complicated question with a long answer! The primary difference is moderatorial and ideologial differences between my team and Ada’s excellent team of admins. We are on good terms with Ada and her team, and have gotten her consent to do this. In addition to this, we have had ongoing issues with federation and moderation that has caused a subpar experience for many people on other instances.
How does this work?
Currently, as there is not an easy way to transfer an entire community (trust me, we checked), we are locking the community as mod-only, and moving our focus to the 196 on lemmy.world. For you guys, functionally nothing has changed.
What about the posts?
Well, we tried to transfer them, but there was no real way to do so without absolutely destroying lemmy.world’s federation. For this reason, we are simply archiving this community as mod-only. Everything is staying up, you just won’t be able to post new content. Comments are still enabled, so we will continue to check our modlogs for some time after the transfer has settled.
As for the posts on lemmy.world’s 196, we’re leaving those up too. From this point onwards, all posts made to that community are beholden to the rules you are all used to, but anything pre-existing is getting grandfathered in.

IF YOU GUYS HAVE ANY OTHER QUESTIONS, PLEASE PUT THEM IN THE COMMENTS OF THIS POST, AND I’LL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER THEM.
Once again, here’s the link to our new apartment of awesome. (universal: !196@lemmy.world)

  • Cornflake@pawb.social
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    2 months ago

    To be honest, I think a big part of the 196 identity is that it comes from blahaj. Maybe the move will prove me wrong, but I can’t imagine the energy will be the same.

    • A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      We did want to stay in LBZ, but Ada wasn’t willing to compromise with us. Which is her right, and we respect it.

      I don’t think the energy will be any different, though.

        • A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Heavy-handed moderation, mostly. Don’t get me wrong, we do love Ada and appreciate her work, but sometimes we’ll see people getting banned or comments getting removed for relatively mild takes. We also often disagreed about the severity of the actions, like ban lengths being way too long considering the reason, or people getting banned over something that really should just be a removal.

          To put it bluntly, (and I mean no disrespect, but) her mod actions often felt very vibes-based. Like her feelings heavily influenced her decisions. We want the rules to be enforced in a more objective fashion.

          So we asked her to let us handle 196 if the content in question wasn’t explicitly trans/queerphobic or illegal, etc… She disagreed, and we respect her view, so we brought up the idea of moving and she gave us her blessing.

          • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            I thought this was meant to be on good terms? What about your post is fostering good will? It’s nothing but trashing on me…

            To be clear, every post and user I removed was due to queerphobia, transphobia, trolling or spam, issues that broke the instances rules. Some of that bigotry was was implicit rather than explicit, like dog whistles, tone policing etc. Some of it was the “just asking questions” transphobia that pervades most corporate owned social media spaces.

            This is the way I have moderated this instance from before the time I handed this community to moss. When lemmy was just taking off, I asked for people to mod the 196 community after it was abandoned by its original creators, and passed it over to moss when she raised her hand.

            So if the goal is for this to be civil, maybe don’t paint me as the bad guy for moderating in a way I have done from before your community was created here. What feels like “moderating by vibes” to you, is lengthy experience with community development, and a decade navigating queer and gender diverse communities, and knowing what I want from them. As moss said, this is ideological differences in how low grade transphobia and queerphobia should be dealt with. moss is ok with community pushback for the low grade stuff rather than moderation, whereas I’ll just remove it.

            That’s what I wouldn’t compromise on, and that has been the way the instance has run for years now.

            It feels like every time I extend 196 a hand, you bite it. I gave the community to moss and started this whole thing. I told another instance admin no when they asked 196 to remove their banner. moss then went and leaked the DMs from said admin, forcing me to remove the post, and then had a public complaint session about me for removing the post.

            I have asked 196 for years now to have an active blahaj.zone mod so that someone can deal with the blahaj.zone reports that constantly come through and build up, but still, the best we got were mods with alt accounts that get checked every couple of days, leaving me to deal with the build up of reports on 196. Sometimes they would hang around there for days while I waited for a 196 mod to log in and look at them. And because you don’t like the way I deal with them, you drag me over the coals for my moderation style, despite no one from 196 stepping up to deal with those reports on a regular basis.

            I was told that you were thinking about moving to another instance. I offered my support if you decided to stay or to leave. And that was the last I heard of it, until one of your mods (possibly you if I remember correctly) told the community you were organising something with lemmy.world, and I had to hear that second hand. And then, when things were finalised and the decision to move was locked in, once more, I heard about it second hand, after your team made a public post, because no one from 196 could be bothered to tell me before posting.

            So no, you don’t get to paint me as the unreasonable admin who moderates by “vibes”. If you want to point the finger at me, at least own your own mistakes, rather than asking for good will and civility and then dumping on me when the chance presents itself.

            • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              2 months ago

              Wow, I already didn’t agree with this move, but knowing they went behind your back makes this feel especially bad. I’ll certainly not move then. I’m sorry to hear that, and I just want you to know that the community, for the most part, stands behind you <3

              I, like many others I imagine, came to blahaj because of c/196, but stayed for the amazing safe space and community you’ve built here!

              • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                2 months ago

                No no, they didn’t go behind my back. I knew it was in the works. It’s more that there was no clear communication about the plans, so I only found out specifics after they’d been made public.

                • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  2 months ago

                  Okay, that’s good to hear. Still not happy with the situation, but I’m glad to hear you were at least somewhat in the loop

                • Moss@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPM
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                  2 months ago

                  we only finalized pur plans a few days ago. This was essentially announced as soon as it materialized

  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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    2 months ago

    I’m gonna be honest, my first response to reading this headline & image, as well as the small snippet of the body visible from my app’s home page, was “huh, bit early for an April Fool’s Day joke”. It would have been surprising enough if the move has been anywhere, but LW is the last non-tankie instance I would have expected, given the modding/admin drama they’ve been through recently.

    I’m guessing LW was chosen because there’s a pre-existing (if inactive) community there already?

    • Moss@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPM
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      2 months ago

      I’m not familiar with this drama. Lemmy.world was chosen because they have the resources to support another major community, their rules (as far as I am aware) align with ours, and they agreed to let us moderate our community by our rules with minimal interference.

      • drspod@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Instead of making a unilateral decision on behalf of all of the members of this community without any kind of consultation, why don’t you move to L.W and allow people who do want to be here, who do want to be subject to the moderation rules of this instance, to step in and take the reins?

        I say unlock the community and appoint a new mod team. Who said you could just close the whole community, just because you’ve volunteered to take out the trash?

        • fracture [he/him] @beehaw.org
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          2 months ago

          yeah i’m tending to agree with this, especially as i’m skeptical that the culture will remain the same on lemmy.world. would be nice to have a fallback plan; and, indeed, this whole plan seems to have been orchestrated without consulting the community much at all

  • TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    I strongly disagree with this decision and the reasoning behind it. Blahaj is, in my opinion, the best place for this community specifically because of the strong moderation and policies of Ada and other admins here.

    Lemmy.world is also the worst instance I can think of outside of the big three tankie instances. It contributes further to the centralization of Lemmy as a whole (since 196 has been one of the most active communities on the entire platform). In my opinion, the .world crowd’s liberal and pro-colonialist/capitalist tendencies are a terrible fit for this community.

    I’d have rather seen Blahaj defederate from .world than 196 move there, even if it meant less content and engagement. At least the cultural values of the community wouldn’t have been compromised.

        • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          People who argue in bad faith while trying to maintain an aura of civility. The whole “I’m just asking questions” bs that tries to win by baiting you into getting angry.

        • Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          It’s a term in online parlance that makes reference to a comic, and it means someone who intrudes into someone else’s space and derails their conversations under the pretext of civil disagreement.

          • Sop@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            I never really liked this comic or the concept of sealioning because in this comic the ‘annoying’ entity is someone who is being outcasted based on their identity. In a comparison between bigots and marginalised groups, a marginalised group has more in common with the sea lion than the humans, and the bigots have more in common with the humans.

            The comic is more logically read as bigots that are annoyed that the minority they’re discriminating against is defending their rights to exist.

            • Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              2 months ago

              I never really liked this comic or the concept of sealioning because in this comic the ‘annoying’ entity is someone who is being outcasted based on their identity.

              While I understand and to some degree even share your feelings towards the original comic, the concept of sealioning that spawned from it is generally quite far divorced from that particular issue IME, which is why I focused my definition on the aspects of the behaviour that make it a PITA to deal with.

  • Smorty [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    if i could downvote, i would! >>>>>>:((((((((

    this is a VERY UNCOMFY move!!! >>>>:((((

    just to make it obvious, these are ANGRY FACES!!! (im saying this cuz maybe 196 mods or whatever cannot understand these kinds of emotions)

    “>” are the ANGRY EYEBROWS! “:” are the EYES and “(” is the SAD MOUTH!!!

    I AM VERY SAD! i will NOT lurk on ur evil .world “replacement”.

    this is NOT what the FEDIVERSE IS MEANT TO BE!!!

    the fediverse is meant to be DECENTRALIZED!!! across MULTIPLE INSTANCES!

    this is NOT a “very fediverse move” you are doing here. This is a “reddit move”!

    im gonna say it. this is straight up u/spez stuff happening here.

    i HOPE that my comment gets blocked or removed by my instance maintainers, so that it becomes OBVIOUS that such hatespeech, which is allowed on .world is NOT OKAY!

    (yes i mean my hatespeech rn, im in evil mode today, this is very evil, i dun like this at all. will not support this evil behavior)

  • araneae@beehaw.org
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    2 months ago

    Neutral observation: World’s userbase is incompatible with the attitudes and queer acceptance of nearly any community that originates from a place like Blahaj. Your comment sections will go to directly to shit. You will constantly be embattled by .world bigots. Sea-lioning and whataboutism will be common and things you never imagined would be controversial will be. Given the incoming administration I would stick to spaces carved out for the culture you want to see on a “r/196-like” board.