So, I saw a report from one of my users. They reported:
https://ponder.cat/post/1594852/1813842
For the reason:
Unreasonable fighting with everyone in every simple post
I think that’s ridiculous, so I talked with them about it. Posting private communications is frowned upon I guess, but long story short, they weren’t receptive. I’ve decided to ban the account.
IMO the general culture on Lemmy is that users are entitled to their free account and everyone needs to be careful and circumspect about limiting that entitlement in any way, but I don’t see it that way. I don’t think it’s a requirement for me to provide hosting space for anyone who wants to use my stuff as a jumping-off point for abuse of Lemmy’s systems, and isn’t apologetic or receptive when I talk with them about not doing that. The fact that it’s in service of harassing FlyingSquid in particular is just icing on the cake, since my perception is that people like to harass him apparently for no legitimate reason at all (with this as an example).
AITA?
If this person wasn’t creating new sockpuppets before, they will now. You’ve taught them any misstep can have permanent consequences - and not done any favors for how they interact with mods or admins.
Nobody’s talking about infinite second chances. You did a one-strike permaban for ‘hey please look at this’ followed by ‘why wouldn’t I report things?’ Make it a week. Make it a month. Give them any reason not to dump the brand-new account you just diminished.
If this is a random person with a new account, they don’t know who the fuck Flying Squid is. Inferring conspiracy is obviously not a firm enough basis for instant permanent consequence. Slap them when you might not, or slap them harder than you would, on that suspicion. But it is only suspicion. Certainly you can’t talk about this individual having a pattern of harassment, because one action is not a pattern.
They claimed that FlyingSquid was a known user to them that is always getting in fights with everyone, and so it makes perfect sense to just report any comment by him, even if the comment is totally harmless, because he’s always getting in fights with everyone and so every comment needs to be reported.
Exactly.