[foxfluff]

> I didn't reach anybody, and you quickly realize how everybody else on the Internet just assumes you must either be lying or not telling the full story.

I have observed the same. When I evaluate service providers, I'm curious to know how they handle dispute with customers.. it's quite depressing to see that on most online forums, it usually goes straight into victim blaming. You must have violated the TOS, you must be doing something sketchy, you're not telling the whole story, you're just holding a grudge so get over it, you're just entitled, etcetra. There's very little sympathy, and no giving benefit of the doubt.

> But literally one hour later, I got my account unlocked with a personal apology.

Congrats! This is a lovely anecdote, thank you so much for sharing.

[mst]

Having done a bunch of moderation work in various open source spaces, it's intensely aggravating that while the vast majority of complaints are from people who are lying about what happened there are also plenty of mistakes so stupid that they -sound- unbelievable and yet are in fact true.

And I'd note that I am very very certain that I've made mistakes that stupid over the years.

[exikyut]

This makes me think of two things, but I can't quite put my finger on how they intersect, although they do feel extremely related somehow.

1) Hanlon's razor (do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity)

2) It was discovered (unfortunately missing citation atm :< ) that people who fall for spam scams that exploit gullibility do so "completely" - most see the scam for what it is, but the ones that do fall for it will kind of double down, defend their actions and see through their part of the "deal" because in their mind it Will Work. So it's almost like there's a super-thin line somewhere where everyone rubberbands to one or the other extreme ("are you serious, that's a scam" vs "are you serious, of course this is real") depending on whether That Last Single Piece Of Straw is on the haystack or not. (I just realize you could substitute "a scam" for "fake" and potentially explain a substantial percentage of conspiracy theorists... hmm)