There has been a lot of discussion about what we should or should not allow in our community. This is not a thread to tell you about a decision, this is a thread to ask your opinion about what is acceptable, and collate this in one place.

We want this to be a friendly and welcoming community to all who are friendly and welcoming. This means a necessary amount of tolerance for those with other points of view. It also means that by definition we can’t have people here that are intolerant of others.

Anyone who has been here for a while knows I am loathe to create a list of what is and isn’t allowed, because I feel that most of it is obvious, and the stuff that isn’t obvious is not simple enough to create a list. But I’ll list some things that I feel aren’t necessary to list, because others think it is necessary. This is not a complete list.

In our friendly community, we obviously don’t allow:

• Things that are illegal for us to host
• Doxing
• Hate speech or other attacks on others
• Spamming
• Trolling

Now the question is: what’s ok in our community, and how should we respond? I’m gonna number them for ease of following.

1. Is it ok to attack public figures? e.g. is it ok to say “Christopher Luxon is an idiot”? “David Seymour is a fascist prick”? “Gareth Morgan should fuck off and die”?

2. Does it count as doxing if the information is public? How public?

3. Are derogatory terms or hateful comments for people known for hate ok? Or do these attitudes contribute to an unfriendly atmosphere? i.e. is it ok to say “Kyle chapman is a fucking nazi”?

4. If what appeared as a genuine discussion turned out to be sealioning or similar, what kind of mod action should happen? Ban the user, leave the posts? Temporary or permanent ban? Ban the user and remove the posts?

5. Similar to 4, are we ok that anything in the obviously list above is removed on sight? Should a trolling post be locked, or completely removed?

6. Is there anything not mentioned yet that you feel should not be allowed, should be encouraged, or that would help turn this community into the kind of place you want to visit?

7. And finally, there have been a lot of voices on this point. Although I’ve made it clear this isn’t what I want, I feel it’s not for me to force on people: Do you think we need an explicit list of rules that state the above?

Over the last week I have heard a lot of concern over the approach that I have been taking to date: We’re all adults here (mostly), and we are a small enough group that we can talk though disagreements as long as people approach them in good faith. In my view this is working, the only negative attitudes I have seen are from people not liking this approach.

However, I have heard from many people with more experience at building communities, and they have raised a lot of concern about this approach. Therefore I am willing to hear what the community is looking for in a Lemmy instance, and willing to change the approach if that’s what people want.

I’m listening, so give me your feedback.