[wchar_t]

I don't think this is the place to air out all the dirty laundry from the past two years, so I'll just say this: since the time I've joined the site (three years ago), I haven't seen a single ban that wasn't warranted, be it due to a single incident of flouting the site rules or a pattern of behavior.

It is true that the moderators are fairly strict regarding behavior that wouldn't be punished here (such as abusing flags to down vote), but I don't see that as a necessarily bad thing.

Regarding the thread you linked, I'll agree it was the admin's fault for writing the passive-aggressive banner that led to that (well-respected) user leaving.

[Karrot_Kream]

My account on Lobsters is in good standing, but I agree with daptaq. The site has a very strong bias. You either agree with the very online culture of the site or you get mercilessly jeered in the comments (and potentially have the admin coming for you.) At this point all I do is post meek comments every few months or so because I don't trust the admin or, mostly, the members of the site, to respect me. The comments on the site have become predictable enough to be GPT generated.

A bit ago, we got to see the "joys" of having users comment on and upvote a comment that justified pogroms because "the West keeps peddling anti-Soviet propoganda because they hate communists." The comment thread was killed but only after lots of upvotes, way too many to make me comfortable to stay on the site. If you're okay with that sort of thing then Lobsters is your site, but I'm not. Honestly I don't know why I'm still there.

[Rochus]

> the site rules or a pattern of behavior

> moderators are fairly strict regarding behavior that wouldn't be punished here

Can you please provide a link to the "site rules", i.e. a list similar to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? I wasn't able to find one.

[gerikson]

https://lobste.rs/about covers what's on topic

The moderation log is public:

https://lobste.rs/moderations?moderator=%28All%29&what%5Bsto...

[Rochus]

Thanks, I know the links. But I was looking for stated rules which apply to what the fellow commented above: "the moderators are fairly strict regarding behavior that wouldn't be punished here (such as abusing flags to down vote)"

[_k9eq]

> since the time I've joined the site (three years ago), I haven't seen a single ban that wasn't warranted, be it due to a single incident of flouting the site rules or a pattern of behavior.

That is hard to say, if you were to look up my final thread, all my comments were deleted, and you have no way of evaluating if the judgement was fair or not. I held the same position, assuming the moderation team was doing a good job until the hammer hit me.

> Regarding the thread you linked, I'll agree it was the admin's fault for writing the passive-aggressive banner that led to that (well-respected) user leaving.

That is what I am getting at. He has "joked"[0] that the job of moderation is stressful, and it is known that he has other problems[1] that aren't making the job easier for him. I believe that this shapes his moderation style, and not for the better. He errs on the side of over-moderation, which was exactly one of the faults HN hat, that motivated the creation of that site.

[0] https://lobste.rs/s/mox75k/2021_mod_applications#c_ad4hj0 [1] https://lobste.rs/s/ugprwi/what_does_it_take_get_new_tag_acc...