That is systemic power to end it, not to have content created. For that is just a space.
I’m not sure who was arguing against there being a hierarchy to online or most offline social communities.
You don’t have a town square if nobody builds it, you have the woods.
Also what is the big deal if a community gets obliterated from time to time? It’s not a family.
Space isn’t “just a space.” Space is what makes words accessible. A post that nobody can reach might as well not exist. Infrastructure isn’t neutral—it’s the condition that makes communication possible in the first place.
And admins don’t just have the power to end a space. They have the power to prevent speech from ever happening. They can de-platform, silence, or exclude before words are written. That’s not trivial. That’s systemic control over what gets created, not just what gets erased.
And sometimes communities really are families—both literal and ad hoc. People pour years of energy, conversation, and memory into them. When they get obliterated, it’s not “just a space” disappearing—it’s a shared history wiped out because one person with keys decided it was over.
What makes your comment even more striking is that it contradicts your earlier points. First you downplayed hierarchy by saying admins are just neutral facilitators, now you admit they hold systemic power but dismiss it as “no big deal.” Which one is it?
That’s the imbalance I’m pointing at. If we want real commons, that has to change. Otherwise we’re all just tenants, and the landlord can decide at any moment to bulldoze the building. Dismissing that as unimportant is exactly how these power structures stay invisible.
Fair enough—I probably came in sharper than I needed to. I get that you’re not denying the power imbalance, just framing it differently.
We’re closer in view than it might have sounded. My aim wasn’t to dunk on you, just to stress that these structures aren’t neutral. If we’re both pointing in the same direction, then good—that’s where the real work begins.
Yes, kinda.
But as authoritarian as mods are, that also means their behaviour is more on display (I mean that regardless of rule choices, just as basically branding, which I frame under infrastructure too - tho some mods post a lot).
Much like (in normal countries) judges can lose their jobs due to private life & examples they set (it’s a full-time representation, not just the hours in a robe).
You’re framing visibility as if it’s accountability.
But mods aren’t accountable to users—they’re accountable to admins. If a mod aligns with an admin, users can scream all they want, nothing changes. If a mod sides with the community but not the admin, the admin overrules both. That’s hierarchy, full stop.
Let’s be real. The whole conceit of YPTB is a farce. You’re not “holding mods accountable.” You’re doing populism dressed up as anarchism, aligning with admin tastes when it suits.
Out of all the possible people in the community, it just so happens that the true authorities—the ones setting the norms and nurturing the culture—are the same ones holding the keys to the entire server. And those are the very people wielding YPTB as a cudgel in the name of “accountability.” That’s not accountability. That’s a closed loop.
If lemmy.dbzer0.com were serious about anarchism, the admins would say: “No mods, no users, no hierarchy—everyone go operate their own nodes.” But they don’t. Instead, this community exists under the admin’s keys, which feeds an illusion.
And that “visibility” you’re pointing to? It’s not accountability—it’s branding. Admin branding. It only exists because lemmy.dbzer0.com allows it to exist, and only as long as the server remains federated. Flip that switch and your visibility, your supposed accountability, evaporates overnight.
![[Update] AtomicPoet has deleted the piefed.social communities where he was the sole moderator (!movies@piefed.social being the exception). Content is still available, details in the linked post](https://lazysoci.al/pictrs/image/cb7c5a29-e297-41a8-bde5-698ba205c3fd.png){kind=link}
That is systemic power to end it, not to have content created. For that is just a space.
I’m not sure who was arguing against there being a hierarchy to online or most offline social communities.
You don’t have a town square if nobody builds it, you have the woods.
Also what is the big deal if a community gets obliterated from time to time? It’s not a family.
Space isn’t “just a space.” Space is what makes words accessible. A post that nobody can reach might as well not exist. Infrastructure isn’t neutral—it’s the condition that makes communication possible in the first place.
And admins don’t just have the power to end a space. They have the power to prevent speech from ever happening. They can de-platform, silence, or exclude before words are written. That’s not trivial. That’s systemic control over what gets created, not just what gets erased.
And sometimes communities really are families—both literal and ad hoc. People pour years of energy, conversation, and memory into them. When they get obliterated, it’s not “just a space” disappearing—it’s a shared history wiped out because one person with keys decided it was over.
What makes your comment even more striking is that it contradicts your earlier points. First you downplayed hierarchy by saying admins are just neutral facilitators, now you admit they hold systemic power but dismiss it as “no big deal.” Which one is it?
That’s the imbalance I’m pointing at. If we want real commons, that has to change. Otherwise we’re all just tenants, and the landlord can decide at any moment to bulldoze the building. Dismissing that as unimportant is exactly how these power structures stay invisible.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, but I’m saying the same thing all a long.
Fair enough—I probably came in sharper than I needed to. I get that you’re not denying the power imbalance, just framing it differently.
We’re closer in view than it might have sounded. My aim wasn’t to dunk on you, just to stress that these structures aren’t neutral. If we’re both pointing in the same direction, then good—that’s where the real work begins.
Yes, kinda.
But as authoritarian as mods are, that also means their behaviour is more on display (I mean that regardless of rule choices, just as basically branding, which I frame under infrastructure too - tho some mods post a lot).
Much like (in normal countries) judges can lose their jobs due to private life & examples they set (it’s a full-time representation, not just the hours in a robe).
You’re framing visibility as if it’s accountability.
But mods aren’t accountable to users—they’re accountable to admins. If a mod aligns with an admin, users can scream all they want, nothing changes. If a mod sides with the community but not the admin, the admin overrules both. That’s hierarchy, full stop.
Let’s be real. The whole conceit of YPTB is a farce. You’re not “holding mods accountable.” You’re doing populism dressed up as anarchism, aligning with admin tastes when it suits.
Out of all the possible people in the community, it just so happens that the true authorities—the ones setting the norms and nurturing the culture—are the same ones holding the keys to the entire server. And those are the very people wielding YPTB as a cudgel in the name of “accountability.” That’s not accountability. That’s a closed loop.
If lemmy.dbzer0.com were serious about anarchism, the admins would say: “No mods, no users, no hierarchy—everyone go operate their own nodes.” But they don’t. Instead, this community exists under the admin’s keys, which feeds an illusion.
And that “visibility” you’re pointing to? It’s not accountability—it’s branding. Admin branding. It only exists because lemmy.dbzer0.com allows it to exist, and only as long as the server remains federated. Flip that switch and your visibility, your supposed accountability, evaporates overnight.
I’m sorry, but it really feels like we are increasingly not in the same conversation anymore.