This is probably more of a Lemmy specific thing than what's normal on this community, but I posted on a community from lemmy.ml and the mods there banned me from the community.
They didn't remove my post or message me about it. I only found out because when I was going through replies, I couldn't reply and I noted that my account is banned from that community.
I wasn't saying anything untoward or encouraging anyone to do anything illegal or anything like that. It was a comment about systems of government. I don't believe I put any emphasis on whether one was better than another, but the post was in a non-political community; so it should not lean one way or the other on the matter, and the post I was replying to introduced the political discussion, so I was on-topic.
The specifics aren't super important. What I want to know is whether there's a built-in system to inquire with the mods or something to try to get an official reply as to what rules they believe I had broken to deserve a ban, and whether that ban is permanent or not. I tried simply messaging one of the mods, but it's been hours with no reply.
Is there any way to find the information? Previously on Reddit, I would almost always get a message from the subreddit about what happened, what violation caused it, and allowed me to message the mods to try to argue my case, though, me getting banned on that platform was quite rare. This is my first time knowingly being removed like this and I don't understand the process here.
Can anyone enlighten me about how these things are supposed to work on Lemmy?
That behavior is simply a fix for a federation issue, where banning a remote user instance-wide doesn't block the user from posting in these community (although the post or comment will never leave the user's home instance without letting the user know about it).
As a workaround, an instance ban from a remote user will also ban the user from communities they participated in on that instance to avoid this oversight. One of the quirks from Lemmy that will be fixed at some point.
On the ban reason, you likely ruffled the feathers of the instance admin, who is quick to ban for any perceived criticism of communism..
Thanks. I take great pains to try to write comments from a very neutral unbiased perspective. The effect I've noticed this has, is that people who cannot help but have a bias, tend to think I'm promoting whatever it is they're against.
Usually when I make a statement about my opinion, I very clearly indicate that's what I'm doing.... but people will judge something that they read through the lens of their bias, as something opposed to whatever they're biased towards, and they're quick to condemn whatever I say, without fully understanding what it is I'm actually trying to say.
This is a habit I've gotten into from work, because I deal with a lot of facts at work, purely to unbias myself from accusing someone or something of doing a thing. I do IT support, so it has been extremely helpful in tempering reactions to news I have to tell people sometimes. "Looks like the file was deleted at 2:33 PM on Tuesday", is better than "You deleted the file at 2:33 PM on Tuesday"..... That's a very simplistic and reductive example, but I think you get the point.
All I want to say now is that I appreciate the lemmy.ca mods and admins more now. I've banned lemmy.ml from my account settings, so hopefully I can have a much more enjoyable experience around here. Thanks for the reply. Keep up the good work.