If a topic is in any way controversial, there’s a good chance it will get removed, when I’m sure the same content wouldn’t get removed on Reddit. I know it depends on subs and instances but I mean more generally, and for example AskLemmy vs AskReddit. Reddit seems to have more leeway for things, whereas Lemmy doesn’t and seems harder on censorship. Not only that but they remove things even when they’re not controversial such as when I just asked a question about savory fruit and sweet vegetables that got removed. They also give no reason at all for why things get removed nor any notice of its removal until you realise later. It happens so frequently that I wonder if this post will get removed too for some reason.
My first point is that Lemmy/Kbin is a community run community. The moderators are volunteers, and so are the admins. Please keep that in mind. We have families, jobs, and other commitments. Moderating is something we do to contribute to that community, not something we are paid to do or have to do. It’s not a power trip, it’s a gift of unpaid labor.
My second point is that many posts/comments are clearly follow the rules, or clearly break the rules. But some sit in a grey zone where it’s not entirely clear. Whether such a post/comment breaks the rules might be a matter of perspective, might require the mod to try to guess the intent of the author, or might require consideration of detail that is not explicitly stated in the rules. For a particular post/comment, the author might think it was reasonable, but what they may not know is that we received reports from other users. Ultimately, someone has to make that call, and that’s what mods do.
[email protected] is the largest community I help mod, so I can really only talk about it, but from what I’ve seen mods try to moderate fairly, reasonably and in the best interests of the community. That’s why sometimes you might see a post from a mod asking for community input into how to apply the rules.
Some of your recent posts, including this one, are examples of ones that tend to sit in the grey zone. The nature of the questions, and the way that you frame them could be interpreted as spam, or as enabling pedophilia, as astroturfing, or as in the case of this post outside of the intent of the community (I’ll let it slide because it’s important discussion about community governance). On the other hand, they could also be interpreted as entirely reasonable questions that fit the community. Only you know your intent, so the mods have to make a call based on what they can see on their screens. That tends to be done on the basis of balance of probabilities, NOT beyond reasonable doubt.
For this community, I disagree that topics are removed if they are controversial. They are removed if a mod thinks they break the rules, or the TOS, or are outside the purpose of the community. The moderation in other communities may differ however.