Earlier this month I created a new community devoted to retro mobile phones. I specifically chose RetroLemmy as host instance for reasons that should be obvious: focus on retro technologies. But I am very new to the fediverse (refugee from Reddit), and back on that other site I never owned or moderated a sub - hence I am new to the realities of community management as well. So far I am the only one who has posted in my newly started community, others have only commented - but no problem, everyone has to start somewhere.

Because of federation, and because Lemmy UI appears to always show /all by default (as opposed to just those communities which you are subscribed to, which was my experience on Reddit), the posts which I’ve been making in my niche community, devoted to a highly specialized and niche topic, have been showing up in feeds of people who have absolutely no interest in the topic at hand - or worse, have an extremely negative, hostile view regarding the retro technology I am passionate about. These non-participants have been heavily downvoting my retro community posts, and one particularly nasty person came into my 2G-centric community to make comments about how much they hate 2G and want it to die. So now I am thinking that it may be necessary to resort to use of moderation powers, perhaps even bans if gentler means fail, to keep haters out and control their damage. But before I do anything along those lines, I need to ask instance admins and fediverse elders in general for their guidance - hence this post.

First question to admins of this instance: would it be acceptable if I set rules in my community that prohibit bashing comments and malicious downvotes? Bashing here means a comment by someone with no interest in the topic at hand who came to comment only to tell us how much our retro tech sucks and how stupid we are to engage in this hobby etc. A malicious downvote means a downvote driven by the same motivation, dislike of the very topic that our community centers around. I would like to make a rule in retromobilephones community that bashing comments and downvotes are prohibited, and that repeat offenders will be subject to bans. Question to RetroLemmy instance admins: would such community rule be acceptable?

A second question is how to deal with hate that comes in the form of downvotes rather than comments. A hateful comment can be removed by a mod - but can a mod also remove malicious downvotes? If someone gets banned from a community, I assume the ban will make further downvotes impossible, but will it also wipe out already-made downvotes - or do those stay? And is there a gentler method that could be used before resorting to bans? With hateful comments, I reason I can remove the offending comment and let the commenter know that they broke the “no hate” rule, such that repeat offenses will result in a ban - but the first offense gets only comment deletion, not a ban. Is there any way to handle downvotes similarly, some way to remove a downvote without reaching for the ban hammer as first response?

Any advice or guidance would be appreciated - TIA!

  • mnfalconia_a2gc@retrolemmy.comOP
    211·
    11 days ago

    2G is effectively dead in the US

    I live in USA, and I am alive - therefore, 2G in USA is not dead. It may very well become dead when I am dead, whether it happens by natural or unnatural causes, but no sooner.

    nonsensical take of trying to keep 2G alive.

    It may be nonsensical to you, but not to any of the people who support our work and want it to succeed. Yes, it’s a Reddit link - the people in that community loved and supported my work (and the work of my non-profit org) by an overwhelming margin, it is not their fault that Reddit site-wide admins inserted themselves as an insurmountable barrier between me and the good old community.

    Thankfully the rules of the Federal Communications Commission are not as evil and cruel as you, Mr or Ms or Mx Onomatopoeia - FCC rules section 22.949 allows anyone to apply for a new license in an unserved area (which practically means an area so remote and low-population that it would be called “boondocks”, “god-forsaken place” or “BFE”), even us 2G people - and our non-profit company will build a new 2G system in one of those “BFE” unserved areas, whether you like it or not. Or scratch that - we know you don’t like it a single bit, but we’ll do it anyway. 2G lovers are donating money to us to make it happen, and we will.

    • notabot@piefed.socialEnglish
      12·
      11 days ago

      I’ve read their respose to your post, and I think you may have misinterpreted what they’ve said. At no point have they, or anyone else as far as I can see, said they want 2G to die, just that national 2G is dying. You’ve then responded in a breathtakingly hostile fashion, suggesting, amongst other things, that they should shoot you, which is really quite disturbing. Nor, from what I can see, has there been much negative voting on the topic in general, although your hostile attitude no doubt inspires some.

      I don’t know where your pent up anger and frustration has come from, whether you’ve met hostility in other forums, or if it it catalysed by some other event, but it is entirely unnecessary. There are lots of niche communities here, and they all mostly get along fine, there’s no reason to be so defensive and angry here. Not everyone is going to support your idea, but I’m not seeing any particularly hostile responses to it.

      I actually quite like the idea of what your non-profit is doing, although I don’t think you have much chance of there being a 2G network to roam too for much longer, so you may find yourselves having to build quite a lot more than you’d planned, if you want decent coverage. On the other hand, have you considered some form of picocell like system that could connect to a more recent network and rebroadcast a 2G signal at very low power? You’d still need to arrange an appropriate SIM, but that way you could effectively take your coverage with you as you moved around.

      • mnfalconia_a2gc@retrolemmy.comOP
        34·
        11 days ago

        I don’t know where your pent up anger and frustration has come from, whether you’ve met hostility in other forums, or if it it catalysed by some other event, but it is entirely unnecessary.

        You are right - I am lashing out at the wrong people, and I am sorry for it. The root cause is a completely unjust ban from Reddit site-wide, and the rest is downstream effects. As a result of that Reddit ban, I went from posting in a generally appreciative community where each of my posts would typically get double-digit upvotes against a handful to downvotes, to getting 0 or negative overall scores, which was unheard of in the original r/vintagemobilephones community. And yes, comments like those by Onomatopoeia would have been heavily booed in r/VMP, by far more people than just me.

        On the other hand, have you considered some form of picocell like system that could connect to a more recent network and rebroadcast a 2G signal at very low power? You’d still need to arrange an appropriate SIM, but that way you could effectively take your coverage with you as you moved around.

        See this post.