I just had a thought.
Hypothetically would honorary anime-like shows like Avatar or RWBY be ok?
Edit: nvm just saw this discussed in another thread
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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I approve.
What do you mean by not having an admin's discretion clause to avoid abuse? Abuse by who?
Things are always up to the discretion of admins and mods.
That we enact rules doesn't change the fact that if we want to we can do any one of the things the tools at our disposal enable us to do, at any given time.
That we don't, isn't because there is no rule saying we are allowed to. I don't trust you as an admin because you haven't enacted a "I do what I want" rule. I trust you, because your actions so far show that what you want to do, is to do good.
Therefore, I can trust you to want to run ani.social in a sane and competent manner. That doesn't mean you aren't or even shouldn't be doing "whatever you want".
The reason good admins and mods don't make decisions on a whim or abuse the tools available, is because those of us who do this for good reasons, don't list a powertrip among those reasons. Instead, the goal is the same as that of any user. A good social media experience.
But we do decide. And we do do what we want.
The difference between abusive admins and good admins, isn't whether this rule exists, because I think it always does. The difference, is what kind of person is behind it.
We can't set up rules in advance of every eventuality. And while we try to follow the ones we do enact, they might turn out to be insufficient. Like a piece of code that does something unexpected, they can have bugs and loopholes.
The fix, in such cases, is a person with the ability to make decisions at their discretion. IMO, instance admins and community mods are and should be those people, whether there is a rule stating that explicitly or not.
Moderation is a good thing. The innovation that the fediverse presents, is enabling users to much more easily leave moderators that do not act according to communal interests, because their personal interests overshadow them.
Thanks! As for the discretion clause, it only applies to admins removing/banning things. Mods are free to manage their communities as they see fit. As much as possible, I'd like to make instance rules detailed so nobody can claim abuse when a catch-all rule is used. Although I know I can make up rules on the spot, I'd like them to be well-documented at least. But you're right, it's hard to predict the future. For now, I think I'll include it to see how things will develop first.
Just my 2 cents (it's political, but politics is everywhere🤷):
You may want to take a look at The Narrow Corridor, or at least read the first few chapters of the book.
One point that struck me was that you need someone with enough power to keep everyone else in check, like what @[email protected] does.
Otherwise, the more powerful players would simply oppress everyone else.
When it comes to examples,
off-topic; politics
you don't even have to turn to history. Just look at what is going on in USA now. Without a strong government to keep the rich and powerful in check, they can simply bring the government under their control instead. Now, they have even more power to oppress weak players.
Ideally, you'd want to share power - usually through democracy - so that the people can prevent the state from going rogue, even after you are long gone. But if you do so prematurely, you may find yourself in the above situation.
I know ani.social is just an inconsequential weeb community, but these principles of governance applies here too.
IMO you and other mods are doing well. Until the time is right (perhaps when Lemmy becomes mainstream?), I'd say: just be a BDFL - Benevolent dictator for life
Thanks! Interesting book. My sister read "Why Nations Fail" from the same author so maybe I should read this one. But yeah, I'll update the policy to include the clause and just try to word it nicely.
The way I like to do things, is make the rule very clearly good-natured.
Something along the lines of "be nice" or "don't be a dick". Very broad, but really just a kinder way to say "use your common sense" and "don't piss me off".
The particular rule should almost never be cited in favor of clearer rules when applicable, but it gives you an out when you need to take action to deal with someone who is being difficult.
I also think it signals to people that your rules represent an ideal, rather than just their literal meaning. That people should read between the lines a little, in order to judge what will and won't fly. Basically, making it a "don't violate the overrall spirit of the rules" clause.
As an example, "no cringe" is a rule on my northstar game servers. Once, I cited it when banning a trio of players who'd log onto one of my servers, and then hog it by votekicking anyone who joined afterwards. This prevented other players from joining, as they could never outnumber them by enough to no longer make 3 votes a majority.
They didn't break some explicit rule, but I host my servers for all to use. If they wanted to have a private game, they could do the same. My servers weren't theirs to hog, and they stopped dozens of others who wanted to get a larger game going from doing so.
Something along the lines of “be nice” or “don’t be a dick”. Very broad, but really just a kinder way to say “use your common sense” and “don’t piss me off”.
Exactly 👍
This all makes a ton of sense. I appreciate all the work you've done!
Thanks!
I always assumed that creating a community completely unrelated to anime is not something you should do on an instance called ani.social lol
Good to have this in rules.
It's hard to define "anime" or "otaku" when anime in Japan means animation and otaku means geek/nerd. So in Japan Shrek is an anime and your local train enthusiast is an otaku. (Definitions from jisho.org)
I like "moe" because I think it best describes the kind of content we're talking about.
Just to be clear though, an example of allowed communities (please correct me if I'm wrong) would be:
- Vtubers
- Light Novels
- "anime" games like: Final Fantasy, Touhou, MiSide
- Gatcha games like: Genshin, WuWa, Blue Archive
- "Anime" MVs (eg. Lagtrain)
- Manhwa
And as for example of disallowed communities would be:
- Gaming
- PC building
- Cartoons
- Drawing
Again, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.
Yeah that's more or less why I'm having trouble with the terms. Because it means different things in different regions. In this case, I think I'll emphasize moe more.
I'm also concerned with using the term "Japanese media" specifically because a lot of things produced today aren't Japanese origin. Like Genshin and Wuwa which are Chinese, and Blue Archive which is Korean. MiSide is made by Russian developers.
It's hard to pin down what anime and moe is 100%, but we pretty much know what you mean. We use anime and Japanese otaku culture to mean what we are saying, but Chinese games and manwah fit too.
What about Western media with anime influence?
Avatar could fit, and RWBY was on Crunchyroll. Madhouse notably has done some Western work.
I think there should be a fair amount of wiggle room because of this gray area. Cartoon network may not fit, but Toonami might.
This is probably going to depend on the community a lot too. In [email protected], I have used the rule of thumb that anything with either a MAL page or an AniList page is relevant enough. So, by that metric Avatar would not be allowed in that community. However, I could totally see Avatar artwork being allowed in some of the art-focused communities.
That is a realistic measuring stick. While an Avatar (or whatever) community wouldn't belong, content fitting a theme might be allowed. Honestly, unless someone was spamming content, I don't see an issue with it.
I always assumed that creating a community completely unrelated to anime is not something you should do on an instance called ani.social lol
Maybe someone misread that as "anti.social" and decided to create anarchist-cookbook type community 😅
It happens sometimes lol. The weirdest community was dedicated to a celebrity and the first post was a video of him shirtless o_o.
It's one of the reasons why I don't agree when people say "just pick any instance, it doesn't matter". It does matter!
The community should not feature content displaying genitalia, scat, extreme gore, snuff, or beastiality.
Is ecchi allowed?
It is. A lot of anime are like that (Monogatari, High School DxD, etc). I didn't specify the term "ecchi" because IIRC it also just means "hentai". Only in English does it mean "no sex".
Thanks (ˊᗜˋ)/ᵗᑋᵃᐢᵏ ᵞᵒᵘ*
Have you seen the homefeed? That's all there is here.
I have blocked most of that