this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025

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Bad mod action in anti-work community (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/meta@slrpnk.net

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This thread was inappropriately censored by either @punkisdead@slrpnk.net or @mambabasa@slrpnk.net claiming:

“Reason: Reason: Literally the opposite of anti-work is "over employment" which OP is arguing for”

There is an English comprehension problem by the mod. Would someone whose first language is English please:

notice that over employment is actually the problem that the thread’s thesis seeks remedies for. Being forced into a full-time or nothing ultamatim is a very common problem that oppresses anti-work proponents. It’s the single most common problem we face. Appalling that a mod would block the discussion.
undo the improper mod action

The mod’s action to suppress is actually a pro-work action, as it prevents discussion around solutions to over-employment.

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[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Can you post a link or screenshot of the modlog to see the original text? Your link does not work for me.

Personally, I find it frustrating that an instance that is either explicitly or implicitly supportive of anarchism uses the completely unaccountable moderation model from Reddit. I don't want to start drama with specific users but this wouldn't be the first time I've seen some pretty questionable mod actions on this instance, which is disappointing, given our shared ethos. I get that we're stuck with the tools that Lemmy provides us which are very limited but I think there has got to be a better way somehow. In my view, this system inevitably leads to abuse, especially on contentious topics.

[–] Comrade_Spood@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This. We need to figure out a way to incorporate an anarchist approach to running communities and instances. In what way is a couple moderators controlling and making decisions for the userbase anarchist?

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Do you have any ideas or suggestions? It would be really helpful to have a model to follow instead of trying to invent one. I tried to investigate the moderation model on /r/anarchism but I didn’t find any real information.

[–] Comrade_Spood@slrpnk.net 1 points 13 hours ago

From what I can tell, its uncharted waters. I think there needs to be some level of accountability for moderators, what that looks like idk. But I also don't want to be the kind of person who complains without suggesting anything, so maybe some sort of voting process to make a moderator to step down. I think it'd be a good idea to have a post that asks people for suggestions around this topic

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

original post text

Progressive tax regimes are conducive to anti-work philosophy, right up until you take a year or more off.

Having a progressive tax system means tax rate increases disproportionately with the more work you do. And that’s a good because working less is encouraged by a reduced avg tax rate.

But what happens when you take a year (or 5 years) off? You live off savings that were taxed in higher brackets while earning zero. IOW, consider:

Bob works 6 years straight earning 50k/year.
Alice works 3 years earning 100k/year then takes 3 years off.

They both had the same gross earnings per unit time but Alice gets screwed on taxes because of the progressive tax system. My pattern is comparable to Alice due to forced full-time gigs that refuse part-time. My refuge is to subject myself to being over-employed for a stretch then quitting for a stretch of bench time. The only remedies I see:

Take a 1-year contract starting in June. Do not work the first ½ of the 1st year, and do not work the second ½ of the 2nd year.
Form a corporation, work as independent and direct your own “false independent” 1-person company. Money builds in the company as you pay yourself the same amount whether you are working or not. (Some people put the company in Hong Kong because it accommodates this well and the company feeds the director gradually and persists well after retirement – or so I’m told)
Work in a country that adjusts for income fluxuations by giving you a tax credit if your income drops substantially from one year to the next.

I made up number 3. Does that exist anywhere?

Any other techniques to hack around forced full-time scenarios? Or to deliberately fluxuate working hard and not working without the tax penalty?

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah this seems like an unneeded removal to me but I'm not active in that community.

[–] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I agree with what you say and can also admit that my moderation practices are not perfect, but just as much we have moderators that should act in good faith and be accountable for their actions, users should also try to act in good faith and in line with the communities goals. Of course the power difference is there and so I am.not saying this is a both sides issue where everyone has actually equal amounts of agency.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Well I think that's the exact issue. I am a mod as well, and yet I don't want this kind of power because I know we are all imperfect. Yet the need for online moderation remains, and to some extent, I need to moderate if I want certain communities to continue to exist. It is a conundrum. I don't have any direct solutions to offer right now, so I think I need to do some reading on possible alternatives maybe. But I am posting this in the hopes that others may have ideas and to raise awareness so that when the time does come to adopt a better system, I hope there can be consensus around this.

I also agree that having a more positive and good faith user base is important. But it's even less clear how to achieve this. Traditionally it has been done mainly by bannings which I doubt is the best method. It's something I've been thinking about a lot. The moderation issue is just one aspect, but I feel that online discourse in general is extremely hostile and it seems to be overflowing into offline society too.

[–] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago

I know that on reddit there was some kind of crowd sourced moderation of r/anarchism. I dont have any direct experience regarding this way of moderation, as I was never part of that way of doing things.

[–] mambabasa@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This is my mistake, sorry about that. I saw the report and I thought it asked me to remove the post and it seemed legitimate, but as you point out, it's not.

Edit: It has been restored. Sorry for the shortcomings on my part.

[–] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

First I would lile to thank you and others for feedback regarding this. I hope anyone who does so reads the original post, the sidebar of the community and tries to understand the general spirit of that community before they comment tho.

A direct answer from myself, as I am not speaking for the other moderator of !antiwork@slrpnk.net:

Can you actually tell us what your post had to do with the abolition of work? Because thats what is outlined in the sidebar and the expectation of content there. I feel like your post really failed to connect to topic that and the votes and report(s) it received also showed this. I think another antiwork / work reform community on Lemmy would have been actual places your topic would have fit.

I stand by the decision to remove the post and I think its kinda ridiculous how out of proportion you are blowing this instance of mod action. From my perspective you are still welcome to contribute to !antiwork!antiwork@slrpnk.net as long as it is actually on topic.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Can you actually tell us what your post had to do with the abolition of work?

I’ve posted there in the past about mitigating work (incl. concepts like ”quitting” but working which just means ways to not work your ass off pleasing a boss and just working at a content pace). I posted about new work reduction laws. I never posted about full abolition of work. And I commented then that it was strange that the sidebar seems to only mention full abolition of work, and I asked if there were any objections to chatter about work reduction. There were none. And those other posts were not suppressed. So I figured the sidebar was unintentionally narrow.

I stand by the decision to remove the post and I think its kinda ridiculous how out of proportion you are blowing this instance of mod action.

The rationale in the modlog was nonsense. Now you are giving different rationale.

[–] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago

The rationale in the modlog was nonsense. Now you are giving different rationale.

As I said I speak for myself, not for other parties involved.

[–] Kattiydid@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I cannot read the original post because it's a link to lemmy which has been blocked, however from the context you have given, if the term you were arguing for was "over employment", that is the practice of people who work at a computer to have two jobs which they work simultaneously, effectively doing two jobs at different companies the same time for double pay. The argument of being overworked, forced to accept overtime without overtime pay, or forced to work longer than 40 hours on a salary job, and you're arguing for either overtime pay or strict working hours, I think that would be a reasonable argument.

But if they thought you were arguing for people being able to work two jobs at once for double pay, AND that being a good thing, that is kind of the opposite of what an anti- work community is about and it would make some sense to me for a moderator curtail that.

You may have to restate the argument here if you want people to be able to give a clear opinion on the matter.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Over employment existed long before teleworking multiple IT gigs. What you describe is just one recent trendy and specific form of overemployment. Over employment quite simply means to be on the hook for more work than necessary. It’s usually forced on you, unlike the very recent phenomenon of IT workers doing so deliberately (and often they double-book their time to effectively be overpaid for their their time).

In my particular case, I only needed 20 hours/week of employment but my employer gave a full-time or nothing ultamatim. Because I worked more than I needed, I was over employed. But I was not “overworked” because that’s a higher degree of exploitation which often (but not always) entails underpayment.

[–] Kattiydid@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what word would properly describe your situation however the definition of the term over-employment both by the actual definition and in the common vernacular is for someone to have two jobs that they work simultaneously for double pay.

Your situation sounds like it sucks because you are basically being forced to waste 20 hours of your time every week. if you did the entire job in 20 hours but you still have to sit there for 40 that's dumb. However, it doesn't make sense to me if you were arguing against being forced to do this thing, which you called over-employment and some might call being overworked or forced to waste your time, I'm not sure why that would be censored In an anti-work community. Again I might suggest trying to restate your original argument here so that people can fully understand what you were trying to say and then provide actual feedback. Without the original argument I cannot say for certain what the moderators might have been thinking.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

When I say “more work than necessary”, I mean more than necessary for me. I only need 20 hours of employment, generally. The employer needed full-time. There is an infinite stack of work. The work is trivially divisible but the manager can organise the work more conveniently if dividing across fewer workers. When a manager insists on structuring work into only full-time positions in my line of work, they are a lazy manager. (Though I push back and put those lazy managers to work by giving them a part-time or nothing ultamatim, and bounce if needed).

I always start off a new job full-time to accommodate the up-front training in order to reach a point of positive productivity. After becoming established in a position for ~2—3 years many employers allow a transition to part-time. But some do not. In any case, the moment the job imposes more work than the worker needs, the worker is over employed (which can of course be attributed to workers living cheaply as that’s a factor in how much work is needed). I am over-selling my time and over employed the moment a manager refuses my request for part-time.