This is a FAF defederation vote for !multiverse.soulism.net. Note that I have tried to summarize views both for and against this proposal, rather than pushing a particular view. Please feel free to comment if you want to contribute your own thoughts and experiences.
The reason for this vote is that admins have been getting a lot of reports about Grail and Their instance from our users lately, but tbh I am not sure whether the reports warrant a ban or not. While most cases are more clear-cut, I wanted some more admin & community feedback on this one.
For context, the soulism instance is (for all practical purposes) a personal instance run by infamous fediverse “personality”, Grail. Grail is suspected to be a recent alt of DroneRights aka HardlightCereal aka Exocrinous aka Dragon Rider aka Drag.
Grail, the current incarnation, is (imo) a liberal progressive masquerading as a leftist (a self-described “Anarcho-Antireal theorist” whatever the fuck that is). And I really don’t think this qualifies as a “No true Scotsman” situation where it’s arguable either way - it’s immediately obvious from reading Their comment history.
I don’t really want to rehash the extensive history of this user and Their alts in detail here, however I’m pretty sure long-term Lemmy users will be aware of at least some of these previous alt accounts, which have been almost universally banned. I’ll try my best to summarize the issues below.
The case for defederation
Here’s some recent examples/summaries of why the user is so problematic:
- Concise summary of past trolling behavior:
. - Recent YPTB post: Banned for Nuttin’
- Recent example of Grail’s electoralism and criticism of c/flipanarchy rules, including a claim that pugjesus isn’t a turbolib 😂 https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/63720883
- More blue MAGA electoralism demonstrating that the user is about as “leftist” as Joe Biden
Recent examples of hating on / agitating against our instance:
The case against defederation
- Grail is neurodivergent (trans and NPD afaik), so we should be willing to make some accommodations for Their behaviour
- While some folks (including myself at the time, unfortunately) took the “DroneRights” account as an attempt to troll transgender folk with the “my gender is an attack helicopter” line, it could also have been a genuine attempt to advocate for xenogenders. There’s no way to know 100% for sure what Their intentions truly were, but on reflection and with the benefit of time, I think it could be reasonably argued They should have been given the benefit of the doubt on that topic.
- Just because this user seems to have a grudge against our instance and bad-jackets anyone to their left as politically “right wing” doesn’t mean we should ban them. They are still entitled to express their opinion.
- Given Grail’s unique personality, is there anywhere else They would potentially fit in other than the Fediverse? Maybe we should cut Them some slack and just let users block Them individually.
Warning
Please do not attempt to re-litigate the topic of xenogenders in this post. Such comments will be removed as off-topic. As an instance, our policy is to respect personal pronouns, whatever they are. This is not a referendum on the validity of xenogenders. The topic of the post is clear - whether or not we should defederate from the multiverse.soulism.net instance. If you want to bring your own experiences into the comments that is fine, but please keep them pertinent to whether or not we should defederate from this instance / user on the basis of Their problematic behaviours, not on the basis of Their identity or pronouns.
Instructions
The proposal is:
We should defederate from the multiverse.soulism.net instance due to an extensive history of trolling by the main admin’s alts, and due to the admin being openly hostile to our instance.
Please upvote this post to vote for defederation. Downvote to remain federated. This proposal will require a 2/3 majority to pass.
P.S., Please be sure to use Grail’s preferred pronouns of “capitalised They/Them”, so we don’t have to remove comments for misgendering.
Edit: This will include banning Grail’s alts as well, for clarity.
I don’t necessarily agree with this stance. Being neurodivergent is not an excuse to 1) be a raging asshole, and 2) flippantly throw baseless accusations around.
To quote a podcaster I enjoy: “Mental health isn’t your fault, but it is your responsibility”
If They have enough mental capacity to spin up their own Lemmy instance, then They absolutely have enough mental capacity to understand that being an asshole is…well…a dick move. If one’s neurodivergence is so severe that one cannot withhold themselves from being an asshole, then they cannot be expected to participate in otherwise civil discourse in a reasonable manner and should be removed. They have sufficiently shown that They are incapable of this without frequent intervention.
+1 for defederation.
what evidence have u seen of Grail being a raging asshole flippantly throwing baseless accusations around?
i am genuinely asking, have u read the post here thoroughly and come to that conclusion, or are u trusting the judgement of the ppl involved and feel no need to confirm it urself?
Accusing people of hurting others. Which They’ve done both by Their electoralism and also comparing usage of AI to enslaving and killing animals (as if AI models are sentient). These are both significant forms of bad-jacketing that aren’t tolerated in our community.
thanks for responding. the electoralism thing i can understand (altho defederation doesnt seem like a very measured response to me, especially when its not even an instance rule, but only on c/flippanarchy).
the example i found of the AI slavery situation read like a respectful disagreement to me (and is a stance that seems consistent with Their general anti-realist stance) and not like bad-jacketing, which as i understand it, calls into question the good faith of the other party and is generally disingenuous, trying to get members excommunicated for being state actors/fascists/etc.