I've seen a lot of instances of people on Lemmy saying you can get banned from Blahaj for forgetting someone's pronouns. And then Ada has to come in and explain why they're wrong in their interpretation of the rules. These people were banned for good reasons, they're transphobes. But I think they misunderstand the rules of Blahaj for a legitimate reason.
It's because Blahaj doesn't have rules. It has two guidelines. Very subjective ones. People want to know what will get them banned, so they try to understand the rules of that subjectivity. The rules for what Ada considers to be empathy and inclusion. The rules of Ada's psychology. Because like it or not, with highly subjective guidelines, Ada's interpretation and understanding of that subjectivity is the rules.
And Ada didn't write the rules of her psychology in the sidebar. So people have to speculate. And people are speculating wrong, and starting arguments about it.
I think a ruleset should be a transparent explanation of how a mod team thinks about acceptable behaviour. By not having rules, Blahaj is being opaque about how the mod team thinks. And the only way for people to deal with that is to practice amateur psychoanalysis. Which is unpleasant and creates division.
If people understood how trans people think about acceptable behaviour, they wouldn't be transphobes. So the result of this system is that everyone who is banned for transphobia doesn't understand why and needs it personally explained to them. If the sidebar explained acceptable behaviour in a way everyone can understand, they wouldn't misunderstand it so often.
I think the current system is creating pointless drama.
I can never stress in strong enough terms how far outside of “Blahajism” my entire life has been… but even I can grasp that Ada’s house has Ada’s rules. (Whether they be opaque or not). If I don’t agree I have two options: shut the fuck up or leave.
If you struggle / have issues with recent pronouns then, I don’t know, perhaps just refer to people by name? It’s not rocket surgery.
I strongly believe that drama only exists where people want drama to exist. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and speculate that the majority of Blahajists have more than enough (unwanted and unwarranted) drama in their day to day lives just trying to exist. I think these folk deserve a bit of peace and quiet - especially in their own backyard.
Should I ever get banned for bumping my gums too loudly then I’ll just move on (sadly) and file it under “life lessons”.
ilu
Thank you. The world needs more love.