Hi there.

A short introduction: This is an alt account. I’m a moderator here who has been unhappy with the state of news/political discussions here for a long time. The admins have kindly given me the opportunity to see if we can make some improvement the community here.

We will be doing some major revision of the rules left by the previous moderators and will use discussions in this thread as feedback on the direction we should take our community.

This will be an open discussion on the state of our community, the rules and our moderation practices. Feel free to give your inputs.

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Everything is up for discussion, while we will still take a hardline against hateful rhetorics. I think the rules can be simplified and made easier to understand and follow, instead of feeling arbitrary.

      The top items that I feel should be discussed:

      1. Title must match headline. Unnecessary on Lemmy since preview already includes titles, and titles are editable on Lemmy.
      2. Restriction on US internal news. I don’t think it has overwhelmed this community Lemmy in the same way that it has reddit, so I would like to see the effects of removing this rule.
      3. Better definition of what count as opinion articles. I feel that with the removal of !politics@lemmy.world being US only, this should help the two communities complement each other and not step on each other’s toes.
      4. Reliance on MBFC as an objective measure of objectivity.
      5. Roles and involvement of moderators in the community.
      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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        11 months ago

        So you wish to turn this into another US news community? Not interested, there’s way too much US-centric stuff online already.

        The first rule could be improved as well, demanding non-clickbaity titles instead.

        • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          https://lemmy.world/post/10066374

          This article which is US news has been here for a day. I don’t really see the reasoning for the restriction to US News away from World News on Lemmy, since lemmy.ml allows US News on !worldnews@lemmy.ml, and the community was not overran by US news.

          Non-clickbait title is harder to enforce, because it is very much a “know it when you see it” type. I’m thinking that we will ask submitters to modify their titles first in these situations instead.

      • Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        If you’re going to allow US news then for the love of puppies include a rule that requires the subject to include the country.

      • wahming@monyet.cc
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        11 months ago
        1. Depending on how you access lemmy, this may not be the case. It certainly isn’t for me.

        That said, I would rather have titles be non-clickbaity. Maybe require titles to be non-clickbait and without commentary.

        1. Pass. There’s a ton of US news communities already. If it doesn’t affect the rest of the world, it’s not world news.

        2. MBFC is… Meh? Their definitions of left / right bias seem to be very American and could probably use some adjusting. It’s useful but shouldn’t be the golden rule.

        • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          MBFC doesn’t even match the other media bias/credibility sites like Ad Fontes. It’s a crapshoot because the person running that site is basically a nobody with zero credibility themselves.

      • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        I think title should approximately match headline, or at least text in the article. Additional commentary is a little annoying to moderate.

        US internal news was a bigger problem for Reddit, but I think this community is a bit more international. Maybe blocking US news from US sources? If something is big enough to hit international headlines, it’s probably important.

        The current mods are strongly against op-eds, so …

        MBFC is really not that great a measure of objectivity, but really I think there is no good measure of objectivity given that the “truth” (e.g. Iraq had WMDs and thus the invasion of Iraq is justified) is fluid.

        I don’t think moderators should be the arbitrator of truth in a community, but an arbitrator of what’s offensive/hate speech.

      • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        it’s already a “us perspective on the world”. And half of it is “biden says middel east X”. Allow US internal news in an election year and murder the sub.

      • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Half the articles here are already “what does the US think about the world?”

        I don’t think the restriction on US internal news is actually accomplishing anything useful

      • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        One consideration: what about reporting on international relations involving the US?

        If the US does/doesn’t fund military aid for Ukraine, is that about Ukraine or the US?

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It seems that leaving the title free will only open the door for posters to title it with their opinion on the news article. The usefulness of this sub as a news aggregator will degrade into yet another source of punditry.

        It makes sense to have some kind of accountability for the quality of the source as well. MBFC is imperfect, but I’m not sure what other metric you would use in disputes. What do you suggest as a replacement?

      • QaspR@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I agree that there should be a restriction on US internal news. I literally subscribe to this community because I want to see news other than American politics.

  • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    A mod also removed an Associated Press article for “missinformation.” How much more reliable of a source do you want?

    The current mods are hopeless. Idk if it’s a few bad apples or a bad bunch, but it’s really not a good situation.

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      I apologize, and I do think changes are needed here.

      As a first step, I have unbanned @naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca, as from the conversation detailed below, what he has done does not warrant a permanent ban at all.

      I do take feedback extremely seriously, however, please allow us some time to figure out our next steps.

  • Quokka@quokk.au
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    11 months ago

    This does not sit well with me.

    A shadowy figure, who hides their own account has taken over the community?

    We’re going back to reddit powermod drama at this rate.

    Anyone know of some good alternative news communities? I’m happy to switch over asap.

      • stmcld@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 months ago

        Is that why he’s spamming !politics@lemmy.ml with US internal news lately? The place has been terrible to navigate now.

        I just find it ironic that the mods here implemented a rule that forbids spamming of posts by one person. Then this former mod? goes on to do exactly that at !politics@lemmy.ml

        • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          jordanlund and YoBuckStopsHere are terrible mods who have a complete lack of communication with the rest of the mod team.

          • stmcld@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            11 months ago

            Yes that’s true, i noticed that too. But that community is for world news, not just US news.

            I mean i understand posting about US news a few times, but he is flooding the community twice a day with between maybe 10 to 15 posts all about US internal news. I might be over- or underestimating but I’m not going to go back to count.

            It’s been horrible, he’s been flooding the zone with shit ever since he’s been demodded here.

    • zephyreks@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      I’ve been trying to get the other lemmy.ml worldnews mods to tone down their moderation on that community under the principle that if someone’s comment is offensive, they should get called out for it instead of having their comments immediately removed. We’ll see what happens lol

      • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Good luck, I want to dunk on the racist comments but they get removed before I can.

    • Lee Duna@lemmy.nz
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      11 months ago

      Anyone know of some good alternative news communities? I’m happy to switch over asap.

      Beehaw.org but its server is based in the US, and lemmy.ml but you know…

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      You give me too much credit.

      Check the amount of abuse Jordan Lund has gotten recently from spam accounts on our site modlog, and you should understand why I choose to make an alt instead. Among other reasons, of course.

      • Quokka@quokk.au
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        11 months ago

        It’s the Internet, you’ll get death threats and abuse for posting a cat gif or saying you enjoy pineapple on pizza.

        At the end of the day, these are anonymous accounts and you’ve gone beyond even that and it’s concerning.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      11 months ago

      Hiding their main account and modding from an alt account is a choice they made because their main user name includes the name of an IP neither they, nor lemmy, have the legal right to use in a professional setting.

      Using an alt is to limit liability, not to hide anything. It’s a good idea. We don’t want anyone to get sued because a username rose to prominance.

  • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    It’s interesting how much news on this comm. comes from news agencies in the same few countries. Looking through the recent few posts, this is what I see:

    Israel: Haaretz, Ynet, Times of Israel, JPost

    United States: NYT, AP, CNN, VOA, RFA, Newsweek, NBC, WaPo, WSJ, Axios, Semafor

    United Kingdom: The Guardian, BBC, Reuters

    Ukraine: Pravda, Ukrinform, Kyiv Independent, Kyiv Post

    Other Europe: france24, DW, notesfrompoland, El Pais

    Other (often only one article from each): straitstimes, SCMP, Al Jazeera, JapanToday, Buenos Aires Herald

    This reflects a heavily American-centric lean, an Anglo-centric lean, and a Euro-centric lean. These biases are inherent based on where news is being drawn from. It’s showing only one side of the picture. People like to argue that this is because the US (and the West at large) protects media freedoms, but to that I point to:

    1. The claims of Iraqi WMDs used to justify the invasion of Iraq

    2. The claims of Ukrainian/NATO-backed technical superiority allowing Ukraine to push to the Sea of Azov

    3. The “unlawful detention” of the two Canadian Michaels in China, when it was later revealed that they were participating in “security reporting operations in China” and the Canadian government is paying $3m each as compensation

    Even if these media freedoms are so strong, they’re still consistently failing to capture the truth… And the truth is what news should be about.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Can we remove the mbfc rule it’s shown to be utterly worthless with many israel pure propaganda sites being posted which don’t have a shred of evidence in their articles.

    There should rather be a standard that articles should provide credible evidence or use sources that provide evidence in them.

    This recent post is one example of pure propaganda https://lemmy.world/post/10087356

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      One of the first I was going to propose. I feel that MBFC is treated as completely neutral and objective when as with every single source, they have their own biases. I think we should be maintaining our own source blacklist here, instead of relying on a third party with, in my opinion, somewhat unscientific methodologies.

      • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Given the example listed is an article by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist representing what appears to be exhaustive reporting for a gold standard news organization, I worry that relaxing the requirement will lead to this community turning into a propaganda factory. Their proposal below that anything that “seems credible” be allowed is certainly a recipe for that. MBFC might not catch every case, but it’s good in most cases. It’s good practice to check there for press freedom, news org ownership, and documented history of deceit, which are all objective pieces of evidence rather than the more subjective assessment of bias. They’re also probably way better at this than mods are, no offense. Trying to replicate their database would be an enormous undertaking and the result would probably be poorer quality anyway.

        Maintaining a list of evidence-based exceptions is probably more manageable. I suspect that people mostly want this to have more propaganda included as news though.

        • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          Again, I would want submissions to focus on the QUALITY of the content instead of WHERE the content is published.

          If you feel that an article is factually incorrect, you should present hard evidence to dispute the part that was factually incorrect instead of appealing to authorities, otherwise, who’s to say you are only agreeing to articles that are confirming to your own biases?

          • speff@disc.0x-ia.moe
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            11 months ago

            I’m going to 2nd the other guy - flooding the zone with shit is already something I see often in various lemmy communities. If you think commenters will read articles and actually present proof if something’s wrong, you have a much higher expectation from the people here than they’re actually capable of. People barely/never read the actual articles. They look at the title and the vote counts and comment/vote/think accordingly.

            MBFC is at least an easy way to remove the obvious bad stuff. Yea, it’s not perfect, but it’s a thousand times better than expecting the community to self-moderate legitimate sources.

          • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            I get the idea and understand the appeal but it would be a big victory for state propagandists. Modern propaganda, perfected by Russia, operates by flooding the information space with a mix of fact and bullshit. They want to present numerous opposed but credible sounding versions of events to exhaust efforts to discover truth. Sorting fact from fiction in that pile of shit is impossible by design. They want you to conclude that it’s impossible to know the truth. The accuracy of a particular article has almost nothing to say about the source being a place to discover truth. MBFC is good not because it’s an authority but because it helps answer these questions:

            1. Is it illegal for this source to tell the truth?
            2. Is this source controlled by someone with a vested interest in lying?
            3. Does this source have a documented history of dishonesty?
            4. Do they correct the record when they make mistakes?

            Asking those questions is far more important than fact-checking articles.

            If that standard were adopted, I think the community would quickly shift from a news source to a propaganda source. I suspect the community would fail, or least be abandoned by those who genuinely want to understand what’s happening in the world.

            • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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              11 months ago

              We’re already inundated with propaganda from Western sources. The NYT article in question cites almost exclusively from IDF or IDF-backed sources.

          • Copernican@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I think the “where” does matter as certain publications have standards and editorial review for their publications for journalistic integrity. Major news outlets like The Guardian, the NY Times, etc. should have some assumption of higher merit than say Business Insider or The Hill (not necessarily bad sources, but they lack rigor and often rely on other news orgs reporting as a source).

            I also think we should do more to limit articles that use those sources as their primary source. I hate articles from site Y saying site X is reporting blah blah. Usually that is because site Y doesn’t have a paywall, but this community should prioritize primary sources.

        • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          MBFC seems like a good minimum standard. I find it usually comes into play as a rule when someone is posting propaganda or sensationalism from fringe websites.

          If a story is not being reported in any better quality source then maybe it’s just not factual and newsworthy?

          I would prefer a whitelist rather than a blacklist because there are so many low quality “news” blogs out there. But it still begs the question of who will choose and how they will make the decision. It risks placing a big burden on the mods, a lot of unnecessary bans for arguing with mods about decisions that they maybe shouldn’t be in the position to make.

          Why pit the users and mods against each other unnecessarily and risk creating an echo chamber rather than a news aggregator. I trust people here to find and elevate interesting stories that I wouldn’t get from just, say, an RSS feed. I would guess that’s a big reason a lot of people follow.

        • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, but only interviews IDF sources.

          Classic.

          • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            Relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors

            OP: These are the kinds of people that want to toss out MBFC – liars who are happy to fall back on fiction when reality doesn’t serve their agenda.

          • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            So… all of Columbia University and… all recipients of the Pulitzer Prize are now “filthy Zionists”?

            I’m not sure that Gettleman’s reporting on famine and war in East Africa was part of a vast Zionist conspiracy…

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              What? Did you actually read the article? The top brass of Colombia University are “filthy Zionists”. They actively harassed and censored pro Palestine students. And Zionists are not to be harmed of course that would be anti semitic.

              Thus if they are the ones that decide who receive a prize it has influence on their decision making. A Zionist institution giving medals to a Zionist media outlet is meaningless.

              Are you one of those people that takes Obamas Nobel “Peace” Prize seriously as well?

      • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        I’m not sure how a deny/allow list would work on a site by site basis, considering the post in this example was from The New York Times. Would you propose blocking all submissions from NYT?

        • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          Blacklist will be used for the most egregious offenders such as OANN and Epoch Times.

          In the future, I would like to implement submission statements to make sure people actually read the articles they are posting here and acknowledge there that what they are posting might be unreliable. I’m a big proponent of using hard facts and evidence to back up all claims regardless of who wrote the article, and this in my opinion should be the standard going forward.

          • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            The point of using credible news sources is that they are expected to do that work to a high journalistic standard before publication. I trust the worst New York Times Reporter a thousand times more than anon111lulz@lemm.wtf, no matter what evidence they might bring to prove or disprove a New York Times article. Making determination of facts and evidence the responsibility of the users, myself included, doesn’t seem like a recipe for anything good. I am not a trained journalist and you shouldn’t expect me as a user to be able to operate to journalistic standards. If we can’t trust journalism, then why are we following a news sharing sub?

            The wisdom of the crowd is not the same as mob rule.

    • gregorum@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Well, mbfc is generally pretty good, there’s been a sudden and massive shift in Israel/Palestine reporting that they don’t seem to have really caught up with, with regards to evaluating the accuracy of certain sources

  • Riddick3001@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Seems to me that the majority of the mods @Worldnews are US citizens. Is this correct?

    • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Yeah, seems like it. This is true for a lot of online forums tbh: they reflect what Americans think of the world more than they reflect the world itself.

      • Riddick3001@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Yeah, seems like it. This is true for a lot of online forums (… etc).

        I wonder if they will answer that question.

        Though, overall they are doing a pretty good job, it would be nice and appropriate to have a more cultural diverse Mod group @WorldNews.

        • zephyreks@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          It’s hard because the userbase of these platforms tends to be predominantly American since America dominates the Western Anglophone world.

          The largest “Western” Anglophone countries are, in order of population: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Ireland. In fact, it’s not a stretch to suggest that, in terms of natively English countries, the US population exceeds that of all others combined.

        • 🌱 🐄🌱 @lemmy.worldM
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          11 months ago

          There are members of the mod team from the U.S, U.K, and E.U

          I am a Catholic Woman from Southern Europe and have always thought of this community as one where we can come together to learn and discuss current events. I try not to engage much in comments as to me the role of moderator should be one that facilitates the user’s discussions above all else.

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      I can only speak for myself, and all I can say about that is I do live in the US.

      Again, I would like to try something different here, which is also the reason we’re also testing removing the US only requirement for !politics@lemmy.world, since it never made sense to me that our communities should be so US centric politics-wise when our instance and a great number of our admins are in Europe.

      • Riddick3001@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I don’t really get why two steady and operational fora need to change.

        Why don’t you leave at is; and if necessary, or needed, you might want to create a new @worldpolitics.

        And yes, US news, which has an impact on the world, should be worldnews as well. As long it’s not Internal US news, and placed with a correct country tag or title( like some suggested)

        So, Tesla calling cars back, is world news , and so is a new nuclear thingy. But not Michigan officer this or that.

        What nobody wants is too much one sided news, and dis/ misinformation. And some users don’t even want opinion pieces, because they are not " facts"

        I don’t mind Opinions stuff though. As long as the tag & title are clear, anybody can decide for themselves whether to click ot not.

        I also agree with the quality over quantity statement somebody else made.

        • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          I don’t really get why two steady and operational fora need to change

          One of the top moderator for both of these community was removed. !world@lemmy.world has had 3 different top moderators removed to this date, and the previous two times this happened was utter chaos, which is why I requested to step in this time.

          And yes, US news, which has an impact on the world, should be worldnews as well. As long it’s not Internal US news, and placed with a correct country tag or title( like some suggested)

          We will try to clearly define “internal US news” vs “US news” to leave no ambiguity then.

        • 🌱 🐄🌱 @lemmy.worldM
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          11 months ago

          https://lemmy.world/c/globalpolitics

          already exists! I’m the creator/mod of that but there isn’t really much engagement there other than my posts :) so I’m happy about the idea of working together with the lemmy.world/c/politics mods (if they want me) to take the level of article and discussion quality to the next level!

    • 🌱 🐄🌱 @lemmy.worldM
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      11 months ago

      I am from the E.U and have been a mod in this community and was a top mod here for many months, there is a diverse and motivated mod team here!

  • daddybutter@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I would like to see this community remain focused on world news and not permit US internal based news, especially going into an election year… There’s already a solid, active community for that and seems entirely unnecessary to bring here. Having country tags required for titles would be nice.

    Also heavily in favor of the submission statement idea that was mentioned in one of your comments.

    • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      At this point, maybe the solution is to just ban US news sources and call it a day lmao

      World news should be international.

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      To add to that, personally speaking, I do not think multiple ban escalation as shown in the modlog in response to criticism of mod action in direct message is appropriate behavior for our moderation team, nor do I think it should be accepted going forward.

      • zephyreks@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Some mods have also been deleting comments that add context to mod abuse. @naturalgasbad gave me the full DM context for their “bad faith argument” with a moderator (they did not specify which one), which I posted in a comment in the other pinned thread. It’s a rather childish escalation sequence imo. That comment was deleted for “violating Rule 6”, but I have copied it below for the record:

        For the record, naturalgasbad sent me their exchange with the moderator, which stemmed from the moderator in question removing SCMP articles due to “SCMP not meeting reliability guidelines.”

        @moderator:

        Al Jazeera is reliable when they aren’t talking about things that involve Qatar, that seems to be their specific blind spot.

        Kyiv Post and the Telegraph I haven’t specifically looked at, if they get reported I’ll check them out.

        @naturalgasbad:

        Literally by the standards on SCMP you quoted, they’re unreliable.

        @moderator:

        SCMP: Mixed for factual reporting due to poor sourcing.

        Al Jazeera: Mixed for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias that favors Qatar.

        You: “bUt ThEyR’e ThE sAmE!!!”

        Poor sourcing is poor sourcing. You picked a shitty news agency. Try to do better next time.

        (for reference, the Daily Telegraph is also “mixed due to poor sourcing” and Kyiv Post is “mixed due to failed fact checks”)

        @naturalgasbad:

        MBFC claims SCMP has poor sourcing based on the suggestion that they’re misrepresenting the US import ban on China (the one “failed fact check” according to them). That’s how MBFC gives the commentary on their ratings. It’s based on a sample-size of one. There’s no long-term commentary provided by MBFC because their entire ratings system and commentary is based on sampling a small number of articles (we don’t know which ones) and going off of what goes wrong within that sample.

        It’s also reflecting the problem of a US-based bias assessment website: it suggests that ideas within the US Overton window are “correct” will those shared by the Global South are “less correct.”

        From what I can tell, some of the problem is what they assume the basic level of skill is for readers. A few weeks ago, I posted a story about SCMP reporting on a research study published in Science. Members of this community failed to find it, despite being told the subject, authors, where it was published, and when it was published. That’s not poor sourcing, but poor research ability on behalf of the readers.

        @moderator:

        Continuing to argue with a mod who has made their decision will not win you any favors. Keep it up and you’ll get a ban on top of having your shitty links removed, oh, wait, you’ve already been banned for abusing the report feature. I can easily extend that.

        @naturalgasbad

        But again, MBFC’s entire commentary on SCMP’s issues is reliant on this single sentence from a single article. It’s inherently because MBFC relies on a small sample set of each site to determine a rating because they lack the manpower and the educational foundation to provide comprehensive analysis of a news source. Either way, that article was an editorial, not a news report. (In any cases, SCMP is commenting on Chinese reports written in Chinese, which American readers struggle to find because they don’t speak Chinese).

        [The [U.S. import ban] has been taken without evidence being provided.]

        Unlike SCMP’s reporting, Polygraph is unable to source the article this claim can be found in. From the articles I can find that, SCMP is comnenting based on this statement:

        [The ban creates a “rebuttable presumption” that any Xinjiang goods were tainted by the use of forced labour – a “guilty until proven innocent” principle that effectively inverts US customs laws related to forced labour]

        In fact, Ad Fontes’ media bias chart considers SCMP to be “reliable” (reliability score of 41.56 on a 0-64 scale) and “centrist” (bias score of -3.3 on a scale of -42 - 42). This is on par with Al Jazeera (41.65, -6.71) and New York Times (41.92, -7.96) and better than Washington Post (38.08, -8.69). (Ad Fontes also has issues, but your obsession with MBFC in particular is a little odd).

        @moderator:

        7 day ban. Want to go for 30?

        @naturalgasbad:

        I cited Ad Fontes. Feel free to criticize their methodology.

        @moderator:

        30 days. Keep going.

        @naturalgasbad:

        So… Do you not like Ad Fontes’ methodology, then?

        @moderator:

        And permaban. Good luck on your next account.

        Children, please stop fighting.

        • Adanisi@lemmy.zip
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          11 months ago

          Wow. What a terrible mod lmao.

          “Here’s my point”

          -Ban

          “Here’s another point”

          -Longer ban

          Are they 13?

        • 🌱 🐄🌱 @lemmy.worldM
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          11 months ago

          I removed the comment for publically posting direct messages of a moderator which is in violation of rule 6 but as things are now changing I did not realize that rule was changing. So I am very sorry for deleting your comment we had been told many months ago that appealing a comment or post that was removed is for the meta communities like lemmy.world/c/moderators or lemmy.world/c/support however many times a user will send me a message to talk about it and i have often gone back and restored.

          Going forward I won’t be deleting comments regarding moderators and hope that we can have a great community to discuss current events

      • BoJo@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        IMO bad apples don’t suddenly get reformed when rules change. If they’re willing to go on power trips, they’re going to keep going on power trips lol

        • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          So I ask you, the community, to keep an eye on our community modlog to keep us honest.

            • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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              11 months ago

              There’s a few people in the current batch of mods who are letting mod powers get to their head.

            • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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              11 months ago

              I can tell you that the mod in the exchange with naturalgasbad and the mod who removed the comments are different.

              Nevertheless, dismissing valid concerns about inconsistency in rule enforcement, threats of escalating bans, talking down to our community as children, as well as using mod power to remove valid criticism, as YoBuck has demonstrated, are all unacceptable behavior for LW moderators moving forward and will not be tolerated.

              I have requested the moderators in question to apologize here, and based on the sincerity they demonstrate, I would be recommending further actions from our admin team.

              • naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca
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                11 months ago

                I’m not holding my breath waiting for an apology. I might not like mods’ agenda, but they have the power here.

                • 🌱 🐄🌱 @lemmy.worldM
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                  11 months ago

                  While I did not ban you I may have removed some of the posts or comments in the past that were reported for rule violations.

                  I apologize if the process for appealing is unclear or if any of your posts or comments were removed in error.

                  Above all else I apologize if you were made to feel unwelcome here as it has been important for me the past 6 months moderating this community to try and develop a place for discussion from many sides on topics around the world.

                  Before the most recent additions to the mod team we had a practice of using a 1 day temp ban, 3 day temp ban, 7 day temp ban, and then permanent ban for many rule violations. (the exception being clearly racist trolling type of users) I think it would be good to return to a standardized structure as well as removing the MBFC requirements as the best way to fight misinformation is to prove its bias in comments rather than being the arbiters of good journalism.

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Given the feedback provide here, this is something we will be discussing regarding the standard of moderator behavior as well as further use of MBFC.

  • Simmumah@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Will this be a pro Palistine or pro Israel site now? I need to know which side so I don’t get banned for not following the hivemind.

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Individual moderators will have their personal opinion, but we will absolutely not conduct our moderation based on our personal stances and will aim to be fair.

      In other words, neither, but you are encouraged discuss civilly and to provide sources to back up your claims in your comments.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      As long as articles provide sufficient evidence to seem credible they should all be allowed. Dunking on Hamas is fine as long as they actually did the thing they’re being accused of. 40 beheaded babies didn’t really do that hot with the evidence.

      • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        In general, a lot of “news” ends up being bullshit spun around a single organization or think tank’s position under the guise of independent journalism.

        Welcome to American news.

      • idiocracy@lemmy.zip
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        11 months ago

        u just posted an article that “presumes” idf is stealing organs. no real evidence. this smell of hypocracy is it not.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          The IDF stole and even dug up 80+ bodies from and near a hospital. Why did the IDF steal dead bodies according to you? They have admitted to stealing skin and organs from dead bodies in the past too after one doctor leaked it.

          Video and photo evidence of stolen bodies was provided. And of course the hospital director invited and allowed an independent investigation which got blocked by israel.

          This isn’t some baseless made up IDF lie like the mass rapes or beheaded babies that relies solely on “witness” statements which have now shown to be contradifting and likely false.

    • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      If Israel starts allowing independent journalists in and stops killing journalists…

  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I don’t see a need to change. It’s never been an issue.

    It would be nice if we required the country name in the title

  • rxbudian@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Maybe introducing a mod rotation be a good idea.
    It prevents burnout; reduces escalation (if mod is not on allowed to do any mod work during switch out)

  • Riddick3001@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Is it time to consider a special Thread and or community for Israel/ Palestine ppl war( IDF /Hamas)? There are many posts.

    • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      I don’t think it is needed, considering !world@lemmy.world is still relatively slow compared to many similar comms, and the latest lemmy.ml’s Israel Palestine megathread did not get much traction and sat at 0 comments for a very long time.

  • idiocracy@lemmy.zip
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    11 months ago

    how do u, the mods, feel about the current hostile state of this sub towards pro-israel/jews/israelis/zionists?