From mental health & arts to software engineer in under a year. Passionate about tech for good. Will inevitably end up writing about how coding makes me feel too…
Hi Kim. If this thread was already on your radar, then it means it was already getting moderated, so why engage publicly on Twitter? This platform also means a lot to me, I'm pretty sure it's basically the reason I now have a developer job. To get unfairly targeted on Twitter by someone with a large following, based on assumptions that even Cher herself has since apologised for, and to then see a content moderator of this website essentially say "I've got your back", makes me feel all kinds of sad and unwelcome.
Also sad is the fact that I've just posted a new article, arguably my most useful one yet, and I've never had less engagement. I can't shake the feeling that I've been put into a category of "troublemaker" and suppressed. All for speaking up, and respectfully sharing my opinion, which on ONE occasion happened to deviate from the norm.
The lesson here for me is that I need to bite my tongue before disagreeing on sensitive issues, if I am to remain in the moderator team's good esteem, and retain access to what has until now felt like a welcoming and safe space.
Mobile team lead with an iOS background. I care about diversity and inclusion, accessibility, and making tech a better home for all. Plant && dog collector.
That's not how moderation works, we honestly don't have much power.
It wasn't on my radar, it was brought up in a mod chat. I've not been on DEV for a bit, so I was unaware. As my tweet said, If there's a need for a mod let me know. I've offered that to others as well. Need for a mod == CoC was violated and is going unchecked. A lot of content goes through this site, it's easy for things to get missed.
I'll RT your article right now. Hopefully that will help drive some engagement. Best of luck Sandra - I'm glad you're here and a constructive contributor to this conversation, for what it's worth.
From mental health & arts to software engineer in under a year. Passionate about tech for good. Will inevitably end up writing about how coding makes me feel too…
Apology not accepted, I am hurt and thanks to you, I’ve lost both followers and faith in this website and at least one of its moderators. I feel like I have to take my content elsewhere. For an early career developer, losing my momentum and the opportunity to reach people in this way is a pretty big deal.
You have 30k followers and with that comes a responsibility to check your tweets before you make incendiary statements that are not backed up by facts. The most ironic thing is that you’re talking about me behind my back and making wrong assumptions, in what I can only assume to be a bout of cognitive dissonance, about me experiencing cognitive dissonance, and making wrong assumptions whilst talking about you behind your back.
To get unfairly targeted on Twitter by someone with a large following, based on assumptions that even Cher herself has since apologised for
Sandra, I apologized for being frustrated with you and for saying you had no basis for assuming I purposefully hid your comment, because it was a misunderstanding. I didn't even express myself in any emotional way to you until you responded to this comment with hostility.
You claimed I did something I didn't do, I respectfully corrected you and let you know I found it frustrating that you attributed it to simply disagreeing with me, when there's obviously a ton of dialogue between myself and others AND YOU that I did not hide that is based entirely around disagreeing with me.
I'm trying really hard to be understanding of the dynamics here of having a discussion with someone with a large audience, and believe me, I've been there, but saying I targeted you on Twitter is just categorically false. This is absolute exhausting and I think my good graces and patience are spent on this matter.
thanks to you, I’ve lost both followers
I did not drive anyone directly, nor indirectly, to your content. Not on Twitter. Not here. Not on backchannels. I responded to you, both on your repost and here, where you mentioned it.
The most ironic thing is that you’re talking about me behind my back and making wrong assumptions, in what I can only assume to be a bout of cognitive dissonance, about me experiencing cognitive dissonance, and making wrong assumptions whilst talking about you behind your back.
I've told you more than once, that tweet was not about you. I made no wrong assumptions. You assumed I deleted your comment, which I didn't know at the time you received notification of, and I corrected you, here, on this platform.
I sincerely wish you the best, but I cannot psychologically handle this dialogue with you any further.
Mobile team lead with an iOS background. I care about diversity and inclusion, accessibility, and making tech a better home for all. Plant && dog collector.
Patrick, you are posting on a public thread, on public articles where anyone can see what you’re saying. Anyone could have pieced together what article many of these comments are referencing.
Please see Michael’s comment with more info on this safety feature of hiding comments.
The DEV team is always open to suggestions to make things better, if you have ideas! dev.to/michaeltharrington/comment/...
From mental health & arts to software engineer in under a year. Passionate about tech for good. Will inevitably end up writing about how coding makes me feel too…
The fact that many people came here, independently, interested in this topic after having recently felt censored, is a natural result of many people having recently felt censored.
You continue to make us feel like we did something wrong by simply talking about a subject we have interest in, without any disrespect, without names, without links, indeed even without any recognition that a lot of us had been involved in the original post as well - for example, I never saw Patrick’s comments until now. They had, after all, been removed.
And you, a supposedly neutral moderator, are here because the author LINKED to this post on her public Twitter with 30k followers, actively pointing towards our cognitive dissonance. You’re making us feel like we were wrong to discuss something because it could have easily been linked to the initial post.
Doesn’t this strike you as problematic, even hypocritical?
If you think this thread is insensitive because it is public and could have too easily been traced back to some other thread, why do you think it’s okay for someone with a huge public platform to literally DIRECT people here?
Mobile team lead with an iOS background. I care about diversity and inclusion, accessibility, and making tech a better home for all. Plant && dog collector.
Again, this is a public post on a public article. Never did I say this thread is insensitive. Never did I say this was wrong to discuss, in fact I believe I thanked you for being a constructive contributor to the conversation.
If you or others feel anything in this thread/article or any other has been unfairly moderated, you're welcome to reach out to yo@dev.to.
the author LINKED to this post on her public Twitter with 30k followers
someone with a huge public platform to literally DIRECT people here
I did not direct anyone here other than a moderator. I showed you how it works, and that an audience of 20 people saw the link, and only that moderator has chimed in, reflecting that intention in its impact.
Everyone who saw this on their own that had context knew you were talking about me, which is why I was linked it in the first place.
Claiming that I have branded folks villains, censored people for opposing viewpoints, and the lack of general consideration for me as a human being led me to feel compelled to defend myself.
without any disrespect
You continue to push that all the commentary here has been respectful, and I don’t agree. It felt, as the subject, I was being dehumanized by being robbed of my perspective while folks publicly “vented” about how I moderated my own space, for my own mental health.
I am kindly asking you to stop saying I’ve done things that I have not done.
And a final note, context is key. And more often, ditching the context is powerful. It's easy to share one side of a story and not allow anyone else's to be surfaced. I hope that's what we are ultimately talking about here (in this article). Please take time to reflect on how we feel when our content is hidden, but also when we strategically hide others' to tell an untrue story.
[...she is now telling] me that I’m not entitled to a dialog with her. 😳
vs
You aren't entitled to a dialogue with me, nor am I to entitled to one with you.
Mobile team lead with an iOS background. I care about diversity and inclusion, accessibility, and making tech a better home for all. Plant && dog collector.
Not my website, not my decision! I'm a volunteer mod, as with many others that have already been responding in here!
There's an existing bug linked below. I will add a comment that notifications should be included as well. github.com/forem/forem/issues/11636
Also I'll respond with I was watching that thread as well, just to ensure things stay civil. I feel both sides are expressing how the interaction made them feel. If you feel otherwise, or feel my judgement is not neutral, you're welcome to message yo@dev.to to get further help.
Hi Kim. If this thread was already on your radar, then it means it was already getting moderated, so why engage publicly on Twitter? This platform also means a lot to me, I'm pretty sure it's basically the reason I now have a developer job. To get unfairly targeted on Twitter by someone with a large following, based on assumptions that even Cher herself has since apologised for, and to then see a content moderator of this website essentially say "I've got your back", makes me feel all kinds of sad and unwelcome.
Also sad is the fact that I've just posted a new article, arguably my most useful one yet, and I've never had less engagement. I can't shake the feeling that I've been put into a category of "troublemaker" and suppressed. All for speaking up, and respectfully sharing my opinion, which on ONE occasion happened to deviate from the norm.
The lesson here for me is that I need to bite my tongue before disagreeing on sensitive issues, if I am to remain in the moderator team's good esteem, and retain access to what has until now felt like a welcoming and safe space.
That's not how moderation works, we honestly don't have much power.
It wasn't on my radar, it was brought up in a mod chat. I've not been on DEV for a bit, so I was unaware. As my tweet said, If there's a need for a mod let me know. I've offered that to others as well. Need for a mod == CoC was violated and is going unchecked. A lot of content goes through this site, it's easy for things to get missed.
I'll RT your article right now. Hopefully that will help drive some engagement. Best of luck Sandra - I'm glad you're here and a constructive contributor to this conversation, for what it's worth.
Apology not accepted, I am hurt and thanks to you, I’ve lost both followers and faith in this website and at least one of its moderators. I feel like I have to take my content elsewhere. For an early career developer, losing my momentum and the opportunity to reach people in this way is a pretty big deal.
You have 30k followers and with that comes a responsibility to check your tweets before you make incendiary statements that are not backed up by facts. The most ironic thing is that you’re talking about me behind my back and making wrong assumptions, in what I can only assume to be a bout of cognitive dissonance, about me experiencing cognitive dissonance, and making wrong assumptions whilst talking about you behind your back.
Sandra, I apologized for being frustrated with you and for saying you had no basis for assuming I purposefully hid your comment, because it was a misunderstanding. I didn't even express myself in any emotional way to you until you responded to this comment with hostility.
You claimed I did something I didn't do, I respectfully corrected you and let you know I found it frustrating that you attributed it to simply disagreeing with me, when there's obviously a ton of dialogue between myself and others AND YOU that I did not hide that is based entirely around disagreeing with me.
I'm trying really hard to be understanding of the dynamics here of having a discussion with someone with a large audience, and believe me, I've been there, but saying I targeted you on Twitter is just categorically false. This is absolute exhausting and I think my good graces and patience are spent on this matter.
I did not drive anyone directly, nor indirectly, to your content. Not on Twitter. Not here. Not on backchannels. I responded to you, both on your repost and here, where you mentioned it.
I've told you more than once, that tweet was not about you. I made no wrong assumptions. You assumed I deleted your comment, which I didn't know at the time you received notification of, and I corrected you, here, on this platform.
I sincerely wish you the best, but I cannot psychologically handle this dialogue with you any further.
Patrick, you are posting on a public thread, on public articles where anyone can see what you’re saying. Anyone could have pieced together what article many of these comments are referencing.
Please see Michael’s comment with more info on this safety feature of hiding comments.
The DEV team is always open to suggestions to make things better, if you have ideas!
dev.to/michaeltharrington/comment/...
The fact that many people came here, independently, interested in this topic after having recently felt censored, is a natural result of many people having recently felt censored.
You continue to make us feel like we did something wrong by simply talking about a subject we have interest in, without any disrespect, without names, without links, indeed even without any recognition that a lot of us had been involved in the original post as well - for example, I never saw Patrick’s comments until now. They had, after all, been removed.
And you, a supposedly neutral moderator, are here because the author LINKED to this post on her public Twitter with 30k followers, actively pointing towards our cognitive dissonance. You’re making us feel like we were wrong to discuss something because it could have easily been linked to the initial post.
Doesn’t this strike you as problematic, even hypocritical?
If you think this thread is insensitive because it is public and could have too easily been traced back to some other thread, why do you think it’s okay for someone with a huge public platform to literally DIRECT people here?
Again, this is a public post on a public article. Never did I say this thread is insensitive. Never did I say this was wrong to discuss, in fact I believe I thanked you for being a constructive contributor to the conversation.
If you or others feel anything in this thread/article or any other has been unfairly moderated, you're welcome to reach out to yo@dev.to.
This is the last thing I’m going to say here.
I did not direct anyone here other than a moderator. I showed you how it works, and that an audience of 20 people saw the link, and only that moderator has chimed in, reflecting that intention in its impact.
Everyone who saw this on their own that had context knew you were talking about me, which is why I was linked it in the first place.
Claiming that I have branded folks villains, censored people for opposing viewpoints, and the lack of general consideration for me as a human being led me to feel compelled to defend myself.
You continue to push that all the commentary here has been respectful, and I don’t agree. It felt, as the subject, I was being dehumanized by being robbed of my perspective while folks publicly “vented” about how I moderated my own space, for my own mental health.
I am kindly asking you to stop saying I’ve done things that I have not done.
And a final note, context is key. And more often, ditching the context is powerful. It's easy to share one side of a story and not allow anyone else's to be surfaced. I hope that's what we are ultimately talking about here (in this article). Please take time to reflect on how we feel when our content is hidden, but also when we strategically hide others' to tell an untrue story.
vs
Not my website, not my decision! I'm a volunteer mod, as with many others that have already been responding in here!
There's an existing bug linked below. I will add a comment that notifications should be included as well.
github.com/forem/forem/issues/11636
Also I'll respond with I was watching that thread as well, just to ensure things stay civil. I feel both sides are expressing how the interaction made them feel. If you feel otherwise, or feel my judgement is not neutral, you're welcome to message yo@dev.to to get further help.
Sorry about that! I'm relatively new to the site; thanks for the clarification. 😊