I’m probably an asshole sometimes. When people act like bullies or Nazis, I tell them to fuck off. I’m no saint. I do try to be fair, and also brutally honest. Here’s my personal modlog. I have nothing to hide.

A defense of my modlog...

OpinionHavers was a place for trolls and right wingers to spout shitty opinions.

Raccoon is a Lemmy app. Someone posted a screenshot of their search, saying they couldn’t find the app on F-Droid. I pointed out that they spelled “Raccoon” wrond since it has two Cs, and got my comment removed by the mod for being “annoying”. LOL! I was literally pointing out the problem with their search. 🤦‍♂️ I still can’t believe this one! They also removed another comment where I asked someone why they didn’t just edit their original comment to correct an error instead of only doing so in a reply to a reply, since it was confusing people. That one got removed too. That’s when I said “Fuck this community” because the mod and app author was just so heavy-handed.

I’m certain the “hot glue” thing was a joke and not an attack, Although I don’t remember the context. I sure it was posted as a joke question, and not a suggestion that someone do it like an insult. It only got removed as “gross”.

That SPH sub was some kind of roleplaying sub. Or maybe they’re taking themselves seriously. I don’t know. But I gave a roleplaying answer that said, “don’t click this link” that op had posted and I got banned.

In c/technology, someone said I sounded like in “ad” when I listed what I liked about YouTube Premium, and they said I triggered their “uncanny valley response” and then said “never do that again”. Which was kind of weird and ticked me off a little. So to prove I wasn’t a bot, I said, “Would it help if I said, ‘fuck off’?”

That picture towards the end was because someone kept posting the same insult over and over again, so I screenshotted their profile and shared it as a reply saying they need to come up with a new insult. Here’s the picture.

At any rate, I don’t think I’m a real asshole. Not usually.

Trying to be fair and brutally honest is why I got banned.

ITAP on Lemmy.world is modded exclusively by Stamets. He’s a mod of several communities and heavy user of Lemmy. He’s really active.

He created the community and named it “ITAP” after the subreddit of the same name. The point of that original subreddit is to post OC photos. It’s right in the name. But his community rules specifically say that you can post non-OC. I find that a little weird, but it’s okay. His community, his rules.

Here are the rules for his ITAP:

ITAP Sidebar rules

Welcome to /c/ITAP, a place to share any photos you may have taken or seen that you think others would enjoy! It does not need to be OC, it just needs to be a photo that you think is beautiful and worth sharing.

Rule 1: No bigotry or discrimination.

Rule 2: No photos of politicians or political rallies.

Rule 3: Keep it civil.

Rule 4: Add OC or Not OC to the title.

Rule 5: NSFW posts are allowed provided they’re marked as such.

Rule 6: AI generated art isn’t allowed but a low level of digital touching/enhancing is fine

Rule 7: You don’t like the name. I don’t care. The community is called the way it is because I decided to do so. It is almost as if the word took could be used in different ways, such as physically taking the image yourself or storing a copy of the image that you found pleasing. If you have a problem with this, feel free to set up your own community. You may not feel free to openly whine and insult the community or the mods simply because you disagree with it.

Wow, rule 7 is new, and I feel like it’s specifically calling me out. That’s funny! I didn’t insult him. Rule 4 must be new, too because Stamets hasn’t been following it, which is the whole point of this post.

Stamets posts a photo about every day and none of them are his and none are tagged “Not OC”. Invariably, he gets comments like “Wow, gorgeous photo! How did you take that?”. Or “Beautiful! What’s the story behind this [abandoned] boat?” He doesn’t reply to any of them that I’ve ever seen.

That last one was an actual comment, almost verbatim, and after seeing so many of these comments day after day, I finally decided to say something. I wish I could copy my comment, but Lemmy doesn’t let me see it because Stamets didn’t technically remove it. I think banning me merely hides all of my comments, and I can’t copy it from the modlog because it isn’t there. I’ll try to summarize. It was like 3 paragraphs.

Stamets only posts photos he didn’t take. He gets a lot of comments like yours and never replies. I don’t understand why it’s called ITAP. I posted some OC here to try to encourage other people to do the same, but I’m going to delete it and just block the community. Just use c/pics for non-OC, Stamets, and let ITAP be ITAP. Posting non-OC while not saying so–in a community called “I took a picture”–feels something akin to stolen valor.

I used a lot more words, but that was it. He banned me, saying I was creating unnecessary drama. Then he changed the title to say “not OC”. It wasn’t there originally. Here’s the post: https://lemmy.world/post/25565845

Turns out, he made just a sticky post about this: https://lemmy.world/post/25582946 trying to defend himself and his community’s name. “I made /c/ITAP for myself and by myself.” Well, that’s a really weird reason to make a public internet community. 🤷

I don’t really buy the whole “took” pun thing. Then again, it’s kind of clever, even if really obscure. As for not even acknowledging that he created this community’s name as a direct copy of Reddit’s community… That’s an odd position to take.

Am I an asshole for telling him that posting non-OC in ITAP and not labeling it is like stolen valor? Am I really creating unnecessary drama? I’m definitely creating more by posting here! 😂

It looks like he edited some of his submissions to say “Not OC” to follow his new Rule #4. Good! Now I feel like I’ve made a positive change and I don’t feel like an asshole at all. I feel like I took one for the team for making that community slightly better. I had seen so many of those kinds of comments praising “his” photos. I don’t feel like I deserve a ban when he changed to rules to fix exactly what I was talking about. My comment clearly had merit.

I don’t need or want any remedy. Although, if he gave up moderating ITAP and let it be a community in the spirit of the one he copied, the spirit that seemingly everyone thinks it has, that’d be great. It’s never gonna happen, though. He could apologize for taking criticism so badly, but I doubt he’d ever do that, either. If you look at some of the comments he’s made in defense of the Star Trek show he’s named after, and comments he’s removed for spurious reasons, I think you’d come to the same conclusion that he’s just your average PTB.