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.
You were arguing accelerationist ideology and saying Trump’s presidency is good for people of colour because it’ll somehow cause a communist revolution. I was talking practical revolution-building and easing the burden of the people so we can focus on overthrowing the two party system.
for the record, i found this interaction, and this seems to be a largely correct description. one comment was kinda accelerationist-y and they also argued trump now was no worse than what the dems wouldve done (for ppl on food stamps).
unfortunately lemmys ui is kinda ass so very long threads become impossible to read tho, so i could only read a large part of it.they seemed very upset at Ur use of the word conservative to refer to positive values, which i think is understandable, but still not a sign of U being bad faith (i assume the You should be capitalized? idk sory).
EDIT: turns out i actually had read all of it, my lemmy app just sucks
Being an accelerationist to my understanding is to want to use capitalism to cause radical social and economic change. If I’m wrong, please tell me.
Fact of the matter:Never supported, voted for, or defended Trump. I have voted against him despite my deep dislike of neo-liberal ideology because it’s not actively destructive like reactionary ideology. If saying “This is a shit situation we’re in, I hope something good can come out of it” then many people are such for hoping for better. I’m staunchly anti-capitalist to the point I’m going to but heads with people who give apologies for pro-capitalist ideologies, organizations, or people.
i agree, tho i would define it more broadly as “wanting things to go to shit in the hopes that itll motivate ppl to do something abt it and organize/revolt”.
i appreciate that, tho i dont think i accused u of anything like that.
based, but again i dont think i claimed otherwise… i hope u didnt misunderstand, i just thought u made some “accelerationist-y” arguments, which ofc doesnt mean they were intended that way, but they make it understandable to read ur position in that area.
iirc u also claimed that trump was no different than biden for ppl on food stamps, which to my understanding is a gross oversimplification of the situation (just one example: lots of ppl getting food stamps are not white, and therefore particularly vulnerable under trumps ice atm). ive heard this often from accelerationists but also from anarchists who are just against voting, but either way, i think its a false claim bc it ignores any nuance. importantly tho, it makes the rest of ur position seem more accelerationist than it probably is.
and since were judging positions only from this one context, i think yours came off as somewhat accelerationist based on the above.
Was more offering my side of the arguments because I cannot see what was posted.
Yes, capitalised U please and thank you very much.
I can understand why someone would be upset at My flippancy with the word conservative. For My part I was frustrated at being asked a question whose premises I fundamentally disagreed with. I couldn’t come up with any honest answer to the question “when is conservatism acceptable” in that context, where it was obviously being loaded with meaning to imply that 1: the Dems are conservatives and 2: I am materially supporting conservative ideology by saying to vote for them. The question was laden with so much bullshit, I couldn’t find any way to pick an honest nugget out of the shit with which to have a good faith conversation. So I flipped the script and threw the bullshit pile in the compost by going on a wild tangent about Indigenous conservatism, which ostensibly answered the question but gave the other person nothing that they wanted.
That’s My attitude on these sorts of things - if you won’t put in a basic level of good faith to ask Me questions that I can honestly answer, I’m not gonna answer those questions in good faith. There was no way for Me to answer that question with both good faith and honesty. I had to pick one. I chose honesty over good faith. I got frustrated and went “random bullshit go” over the alternative.
TL;DR: Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers