Proposed instance defederation for multiverse.soulism.net - an instance administrated by Grail aka Dronerights aka Hardlightcereal aka Exocrinous aka Drag

• Grail is neurodivergent (trans and NPD afaik), so we should be willing to make some accommodations for Their behaviour

It is an insult to every neurodivergent person who has their shit together, if you tolerate this sort of behavior just because they are “different”.

No tolerance for the intolerant. Defederate.

Flatwork7591: thank you very much for this very informative post and giving us the possibility to be heard.

Edit: due to this discussion here I am changing my vote to a yes

I have to veto this one. I honestly feel users can handle it. Especially since this seems to pertain to a single user. Defederation to me is absolutely last ditch absolutely no hope left measure and I don't feel this calls for it yet. I still see that user engaging in good faith and normal activities outside of politics comms so they seem to just be a lib.

No opinion on this question given it’s none of my business, but I love seeing these governance posts in action. I really admire the system you all have here and appreciate how level-headed they always seem to be rather than the lynch mob discussions like these have the potential to be

I mostly remember the controversy from the Exocrinus days and I am in support of defed. Cant believe this is getting hashed again.

Neurodivergence set aside, They are a terrible troll that never, ever argued in good faith on any topic I saw Them engage with, and was just a huge pain in the ass of normal users and mods alike. Use of a single-user instance without registration limits for the owner opens the door for infinite alt accounts that cannot be realistically banned or controlled using normal mod tools, without filtering the entire instance. And that seems to be the entire purpose of this new instance- ban evasion.

Also, as a neurodivergent myself, trying to lean on being different does NOT absolve a user of the consequences resulting from being a unrequited asshole trying to stir shit up. I'll respect Their pronouns for sure, but I'm still going to call Them a dick when They are being a dick. I understand needing to be diplomatic, Unruffled, but try not to carry too much water for the trolls.

If someone is annoying/frustrating and trolling you, then they are also causing those same disturbances to others such as your users. It is why I ban trolls that are negatively affecting others and do not align with dbzer0. Granted, most of my bans are bots. Grail was annoying for sure and I stopped replying to this user because I didn't want to get banned after seeing others mixing up the capitals. Yes, I struggled at first before realizing blahaj was right about this.

Once Grail started comparing veganism with AI, I felt the troll became more obvious, too obvious. The suffering and deaths of real animals is not comparable to so called 'AI slavery'. This 'AI' is just a LLM spitting random auto-complete with no consciousness. I don't ask that our users become vegan, but to troll vegans and parrot antiveganism is just trolling leftists for no real reason (the hex was based yet again). I don't lose sleep over banning these trolls, YDM imo.

I'm not sure if drag is Grail, I know drone rights was also PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES, but I could not tell for certain that Grail is drone rights (although they shared similarities for sure just like the other 2 you also listed). I also remember MindTraveler, what a fun (/s) person who was always angrily telling off people that Grail didn't like.

Grail is neurodivergent (trans and NPD afaik), so we should be willing to make some accommodations for Their behaviour

Lame copout. They troll and know what They're doing.

Edited for grammar and info

Grail is nowhere near as annoying as Drag imho. However generally I really dislike sockjacketing people without solid evidence, like this. OTOH I do understand that trolls need to be dealt with summarily so avoid more damage to the communities. I just feel we don't need to try to connect them to previous trolls to do so.

I'm going to abstain from this one as I am not particularly bothered either way.

On one hand, yeah they can be really annoying.

On the other, all they're pretty much doing is talking about their voodoo reality shit (which often can be really funny) and politics in a way that's not too different from .world'ers.

I did interact with this user directly and while my experience with them was negative, completely disappearing them for a wrong kind of LARP that's already prevalent in other instances and sometimes being annoying seems way too extreme.

That's a yes from me. I would prefer some concrete evidence linking these accounts to confirm ban evasion, but that would require some collaboration between instance admins to basically dox the person.

The general antagonistic nature, purity testing, lack of demonstrating any principles of anarchism tell me that this person is out to do just what they are doing, and whatever sort of reports that have been sent will keep being sent.

We owe new users some sort of safety in the community. If we expect everyone to be fully informed and capable of discerning bad actors from ignorant ones, that's not fair to them.

One person's neurodivergence is also not an excuse to distress others. Allowing that robs other people who may also be vulnerable from feeling safe, and gives the first person power over these other people.

My experience with Grail was that They publicly expressed intent to brigade mine and similar communities as well as encouraged others to do the same and then decided to troll me in my DMs after I banned Them for it. I've also noticed they consistently promote electoralism and also engage in some really bad faith arguments and accusations, like conflating usage of AI with enslaving animals, which is pretty gross.

Since they're the only admin on Their instance I say defederate, we would defederate if some other random troll was hosting their instance and violating our rules. It shouldn't be different if a person is a troll who is also trans or neurodivergent, I say that as someone who is trans-NonBinary and neurodivergent myself.

I've interacted with this person. I believe you even screenshotted conversation snippets I was involved either before or after in that thread. They are not capable of discourse.

Grail is neurodivergent (trans and NPD afaik), so we should be willing to make some accommodations for Their behaviour

As someone once told me, bad behavior is not excused by status (I'm paraphrasing the condition slightly). You have to own your actions and words on some level.

I have a soft spot for both dragonfucker and Grail, so I'm biased. Idk about the other alts or what drama I've missed from them, but I haven't seen any evidence presented for these being the same user anyway.

I'm lowkey a bit of an antirealist myself, and I have to say Grail seems extremely consistent with Their belief system. Others see bad faith baiting, but I often see two people talking past one another. Have y'all checked out Their Medium articles and soulism website? I've read both thoroughly, and this all tracks and has remained consistent for a long time.

Yes, I agree that They're hardly an anarchist in the sense that most of us appreciate politically, I just don't think that's trolling but rather disagreeing (for the most part- obviously there's been drama).

I support starting with relevant community bans where rules are violated, and escalating as needed. The anti-AI sentiment might be a dealbreaker, but if They care that much They should just defed on Their end

I blocked that whole instance shortly after the "Banned for Nuttin'" post in YPTB last week. defederating from anarchist comms because of not liking the content, listing the reason as "authoritarianism", then complaining when that mod issues a reciprocal ban is some pretty shitty behavior. but then, so is the constant badjacketing and insistence that only one kind of anarchism is the "right" one. I vote for FOR defederating.

So Grail had an argument in other instances and was apparently an ass, maybe a crybully, has a pragmatical approach to elections, and thinks dbzer0 is either turning tankie or rightwing (who cares? "agitating against our instance" lol I think you are taking lemmy too serious)... and... what else? I mean, the post doesn't suggest spamming, stalking and hateful attacks... what were the reports even about? Being annoying? Why these users are calling the cops instead of just blocking the person they find annoying? This post-social media behavior always amazes me...
I'm not voting because I'm indifferent to the matter, but I find it funny because I just came from a post that user is asking a community to ban content and here they are the one that might get banned lol

The major problem with lemmy is all the obnoxiously irritating people driving away the relatively ordinary ones.

Disagree/remain federated.

One, it seems like They dislike our instance. Let Them defederate on their end if They have a problem.

Two, They are weird but other than not liking (some of) us, I think They're fine. They have strong opinions but I don't dislike Them. I can also forgive quite a lot. I'm used to seeing differing opinions online. It doesn't bother me. I've had vitriol thrown my way online for over 30 years for just standing for something. I've gotten used to it. Sure, there are some dangerous opinions out there, but we don't have to let them ruin our day. I understand if some people want to defederate with this individual — I'm not sure if capitalisation is needed there, sorry — but they can also block Them.

Anecdotal, but I recall having a conversation with Grail about Their pronouns, but it wasn't about the pronouns themselves, it was about Their difficulty in getting them to show up. I think that was that person. Anyway, I thought it was odd that They want to use capitalised pronouns, and had a few thoughts about that which are not relevant, but ultimately I thought They were alright.

I've blocked users who annoy me. I could tell you why, but my reasons are my own and I wouldn't expect others to agree with me.

I disagree with defederation, but I'm not opposed. Because, like I have reasons that are personal to me, db0 and other users have reasons that are personal to them. So I do appreciate it being put to a vote. That's the right way to do it. But, I vote no. However, I have no petition for anyone to vote either way.

Thanks for the heads up. I blocked their instance on my client. Due to my extensive blocks and filters, I have never interacted with their posts or comments as far as I know. I vote no, because content engagement and filtering should always be a user choice. If you personally don’t like them, block the user(s). Block me if you want. It’s your choice.

Acknowledged governance topic opened by https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/flatworm7591

This is a simple majority vote. The current tally is as follows:

• For: (3), (7), (1), (1)
• Against:
• Local Community: +0.1
• Outsider sentiment: Positive
• Total: +10.1
• Percentage: 86.00%

This vote will complete in 16.58 minutes

I've not had the pleasure of dealing with Them.

From the discussion here.. They can fuck off.

Let's defed and be done with it.

The only time I interacted with this user was when They went by the name of Drag. At the time, it was the 2024 US General Election, and They were a big pain in the ass. I might have blocked Them then and there because I don't recall seeing Them again on Lemmy, or any of Their aliases.

I have a brief snapshot of the user. They could be "normal" under any other context but politics, but I haven't seen it.

db0 has a clear charter that is fundamentally political in nature. I don't have any confidence that this user won't monolothize our instance and force things to be political, without giving any of our users the benefit of the doubt that they're their own individuals which happen to align on politics. And of course, we have to put in extra effort to accommodate Their neurodivergency - which isn't to say we shouldn't accommodate them. All genders deserve (digital) dignity, respect, and inclusion. Just because someone is divergent in their gender doesn't give them a blank check to withhold that same right to others. There is a social contract of tolerance here, regardless of the actors and however different those actors may be.

Another side of the conversation is what impact this person has on db0. If They're abusing their admin and mod powers on Their own instance, where people are free to post content according to the instance rules, what's to say that said content is given the same protections and said users are given the same rights and freedoms that we enjoy on db0? Is it within our power to protect those people from Drag or Grail or whichever name They go by? Are we the police of the Fediverse? I think db0 is the exact opposite. We allow freedom of thought, freedom of expression.

I guess the question is if this user and Their instance prevents db0 from carrying out that mission.

Still making up my mind myself!

Edit: I'm abstaining from this one until we have evidence that these users are one and the same identity (or system of identities like with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as others have pointed out). While single-admin users are suspect for the reasons people point out (e.g. users of their own instance can globally undo all bans on the Fediverse if they ban themselves on their own instance, then subsequently unban themselves), are there other instances out there that only have 1 admin and have a considerably large user base? I feel like we need to refine our rules regarding defederation for this reason or risk a larger exclusion from the wider Fediverse.

Also, getting back to impact, how much impact does Grail/Drag have on the Fediverse compared to the Zionist instance we defederated from the other month ago (we did defederate right?)? There being a place on the Fediverse where individuals of a similar immoral ideology culminate to organize and execute broad actions (e.g. brigade) is different than one individual (or system of individuals as is the case with DID) setting up their own instance to ban evade. Sure db0 users may want nothing to do with either case, but one problematic user can be managed by db0 users compared to organized communities of problematic users.

I honestly think dragonfucker (the @ I've seen Them/drag use) is just another troll that was easy to block on individual level. Never seen any actual contribution to any topic

But I don't think blocking the whole instance is worth it

I have not seen evidence of the infinite accounts thing happening from that instance. There's little harm in defedding only when we have the infinite accounts thing happening from that instance. (I've also replied additionally below: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/25559368)

Agreed with the case for this being more of a ban/block situation. If their establishment of an instance is used to evade bans and blocks, then defed.

The case against defederation

Grail is neurodivergent (trans and NPD afaik), so we should be willing to make some accommodations for Their behaviour

I don't necessarily agree with this stance. Being neurodivergent is not an excuse to 1) be a raging asshole, and 2) flippantly throw baseless accusations around.

To quote a podcaster I enjoy: "Mental health isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility"

If They have enough mental capacity to spin up their own Lemmy instance, then They absolutely have enough mental capacity to understand that being an asshole is...well....a dick move. If one's neurodivergence is so severe that one cannot withhold themselves from being an asshole, then they cannot be expected to participate in otherwise civil discourse in a reasonable manner and should be removed. They have sufficiently shown that They are incapable of this without frequent intervention.

+1 for defederation.

oh huh I didn't realize Grail was Drag but it tracks. i appreciated that Drag's pronouns made me think about pronouns in a way that they/them hasn't for a long time. that said, I can understand the people who felt it was "attack helicopter" adjacent (patently not the blatantly transphobic camp, and there were a lot of them)

I think They are harmless and defederating is too extreme. the crime of being annoying doesn't warrant excommunication, I think people can individually block if they find Them annoying (cool that Their pronouns make that sentence make sense in a way it wouldn't without the capitalization :P )

I think it would be reasonable to reassess this proposal if They started doing targeted harassment of our users or communities but I don't think They are.

also, I feel like a lot of the emotions involved here have more to do with the alts/priors than Grail Themself. have They specifically said anywhere that those are accounts They ran or is there some other definitive proof of those accounts all being the same person behind them?

I'm not doubting the connection, merely asking because if the accounts aren't definitely the same person I think that changes things

Without solid proof that the new instance admin is actually the same person, I would be very hesitant to defederate based on the behavior of the older accounts and the conjecture that the accounts are owned by the same person.

Meaning, defederation should be based solely on the current account's behavior. I don't think I've encountered this account, and I don't especially feel like going digging. But if there have been reports flowing in, and the content reported justifies instance defederation, then it should be defederated.

I haven't seen it myself, and since I don't really have time to do digging right now, I'll abstain from the vote.

I don't have much experience with Grail, I used to and still do cite a few articles They've written (Their Agender article is a good one). Though from my personal experiences with Them and how I've seen Them act towards I do think they are a troll, or at the very least extremely adversarial.

I have had many experiences with dragonfucker, and those were insanely bad. dragonfucker literally harassed me multiple times with alts, created communities dedicated to trolling me, because I and others banned them for trolling. I don't know if Grail is the same person. I personally don't think so since They have had a presence on the internet long before dragonfucker. That doesn't mean Grail isn't an alt of dragonfucker or vice versa. I cannot say that for sure, but if They were and there's good evidence for it I feel like this shouldn't even be a vote since we don't do votes for banning trolls or ban evaders.

All that said I'm still in favor of defederation because Grail's instance and views go against our community's values. From what I've seen recently They've been acting like an insane shitlib troll. I feel bad because I've read the stuff They wrote and thought They were probably a very smart and very respectable person. I guess that's why they say you should never meet your heroes.

I'm looking at the local feed on Their instance and the number of unique users is in the single digits. I think people who find Them too annoying can just block Them, we don't need to make it a policy.

Defederate, no question.

Hm, while this vote is technically passing, I have a concern about quorum. Do we really want to enforce a defederation with only 7 votes?

Edit : wait lemme check the bot didn't die instead

Edit2: nevermind the bot bugged out

none of my business but watching people tie themselves in knots pandering to obvious bait has been the funniest thing on lemmy

I think I'm against defederation. Like they are definitely a pain, but i think it's up to users to just block them.

I think of "Soulism" as some form of nihilism. Seriously!

I'm just going to pop in and say that based on the interactions I've had with Drag, and the previous experiences I've had with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) individuals (or, systems of identities, within a single body)...

I'm not a psychologist, I'm not formally diagnosing them, I'm just putting it here that I think Drag has DID.

I say this because ... to me at least, it explains a good deal of their otherwise seemingly inexplicable behavior.

I don't mean this as an attack, I mean it as a way of being able to understand, perhaps even sympathize with them.

As to defederating or not, I am undecided.

Grail is neurodivergent (trans and NPD afaik), so we should be willing to make some accommodations for Their behaviour

.... Should we? I'm sorry, but I don't care what or how you are. If you are a bald black lesbian rocker (hello Skin, how YOU doing) that's fine, don't care. If you are nice, you're nice. If you're an asshole, I won't tolerate you and I won't care if you're trans or neurodivergent or whatever the reason is.

i havent, to my knowledge, heard of or interacted with Them before, so i really made sure to read this whole post thoroughly and then i checked out some of Their posts too.

i genuinely see no direct evidence of trolling or behaviour id call ban-worthy. theres some comments i disagree with on an intellectual level, but theyre still written in a respectful tone and are nothing that would cause anyone any harm either.

i have limited time, so i think if u wanted Them banned, u shouldve done a better job collecting information as imo this is wayy too little (on top of this ofc that theres no evidence of the other accounts even being Their alts).

as to the claim that They left blahaj, beehive beehaw, etc, accusing them of transphobia.. honestly i can believe Them since otherkin/xenogender transphobia can come from anyone at this moment in time, and ive very frequently seen it come from other trans ppl.

anyway TL;DR i fail to see reasons for a ban of this instance

EDIT: after having spent some more time looking into this (ive read the discussion here and also more of Their comments and some of Their medium articles) i still havent found evidence of the things Theyre accused of doing? and after having read Their article on anarcho-antirealism, the start of this post reads like the author of it didnt even bother looking into it before judging it as not-real-anarchism.

i am above all, very confused now as to how ppl keep calling this person a troll but dont even put a fucking screenshot up of a genuine troll comment of Theirs.

EDIT 2: (apparently i have nothing better to do with my life today) excuse my tone, but why the fuck are there FOUR SCREENSHOTS OF GRAIL SPEAKING BADLY ABOUT DB0 AS IF THATS GROUNDS FOR A FUCKING BAN??? i am incredibly confused! what does this have to do with anything?? am i not capable of grasping this or what??

the only reason for ban ive seen is Them arguing the "vote for the lesser evil"-argument, which apparently counts as electoralism? i understood electoralism as the idea that electoral politics should be the focus of political action, but maybe others disagree on this definition? but even then, wtf do these comments "agitating against our instance" have to do with anything? thats not against the rules, is it? it just gives it a "look, this person we want to ban is also ugly and unlikeable"-vibe that makes it seem like ur trying to manipulate ppl in a certain direction. not saying that its intentional, but thats the only way i can read it right now and others have also criticized it here before.

i am at my wits end. if anyone can explain this shit to me, id be very grateful. id much rather be wrong. i dont want this instance to become a shithole that bans and defederates ppl based on fuck all evidence. again, excuse the tone, i dont mean to offend anyone, im just kinda angry and confused rn.

I am indifferent.

On the one hand, most of their behavior deserves a community ban for sure. But I don’t know that I agree it deserves defederation.

That said, if the claims of intentional brigading and DM harassment are true, I’d lean more towards defederation.

I want to just state, They do not argue in good faith, They're a known bad actor. I had an interaction with Them and "someone" I believe was on of Their alts recently that turned into election blaming and straw man arguments. From what I have read and seen on here about Them, They're bad faith in Their actions.

+1 against defederation

If in fact they are the owner of all these accounts and are genuinely trolling this post accomplishes little more than giving them the attention they crave. What's to stop them from just making more new accounts and continuing to farm attention?

If they aren't trolling and do not own these alts then we are just banning someone that some people find annoying.

This proposal clearly well intentioned, but I personally feel that this is a double edged sword. The people most bothered by this individual have likely already blocked them personally. If you ban them on an instance level and they make new accounts you may unintentionally re-expose those users to this person they already saw fit to block.

This is sort of unrelated, but I really hate how the world "electoralism" gets thrown around lately, when most of the accusations are pretty far off the mark, and seem to come back around as being generally anti-democracy and edgy. I think a lot of people here genuinely do not understand the concept.

It's particularly upsetting when it's being used as a primary argument in favor of defederation over one person's alleged behavior and in this case - ideas. I have always had a soft spot for db0 but some of the recent meta seems like distractions at best

While this thread is very dramatic 🍿 and I'm not sure I have / should have a voice in this, I'm concerned there may be other users on the instance (either now or in the future) that may be caught up in defederation. I'll abstain since I'm new and probably don't get a vote anyway, but I do think we should consider the effects on other users.

I've actually chucked an upvote onto this post.

While I of course don't want the defederation and deny that I am any of those other people, I think this post is a fairly measured summary of the debate around Me. I'd like to thank the dbzer0 admins for their patience and restraint.

EDIT: Oh wait, upvoting means I agree with the deferation. Well, I wish the vote well!

Although I don't have much of a sway in these votes, I'd still say no. If they're the the only ones interacting on that instance, what stops them from making another instance in a month or two? Do we trigger another vote then to block that one as well? It could be a fun activity to have the monthly "Defederate from Grail's instance", but this doesn't really make sense. I vote to leave the clean-up to mods of instances where this person creates problems. If they don't give up, all they need is yet another account/instance to troll communities here.

As an outsider, I find it weird that this instance warrants defederation when there's a lot of similar content/stances/trolls on mainstream "liberal" instances like lemmy.world, piefed.world etc. IMO community-wide bans would be more appropriate

Y'all, someone came to this thread and impersonated Me with a sockpuppet they registered to MULTIVERSE (with a dick pic as the pfp. Ew).

Can we not do that? I understand if you don't like My instance, but you're undermining your own side's credibility when you use sockpuppets to troll Me. This whole debate seems to be about accusations that I'm trolling, so when you send trolls to My instance to troll Me, it makes your side look like hypocrites.

I think this vote is kinda weird, because there's nothing in the actual proposal about banning Me as a user, it's all about the instance. So I would still be able to post to dbzer0 from My .world account, and I wouldn't be breaking any rules. If this vote passes, it will only affect the other users on MULTIVERSE.

So a bunch of people who are new to the fediverse don't see as much anarchist content, and y'all don't get any benefit from that. I don't see how the cost/benefit maths out.