Maybe I'm indifferent to the majority of the content they spew but there is one really shitty post that I down vote that isn't worth blocking the feed over.

Keep in mind that the pattern that resulted in the OP being banned from over a dozen communities was down voting a single post. That would be triggered if the one post they down voted was literal spam or racist or sexist or any other terrible subject.

Or someone accidentally clicks on the down vote button with their fat thumb unintentionally. The mod assumes malicious intent and overreacts.

It's perfectly distinguishable unless you're trying real hard to misinterpret what I said. As a Mod of a small Community myself, here's the difference in downvotes:

1. Bad Faith Actor: Sees a post or a whole Community they don't like. Goes in and systematically downvotes a bunch of stuff on purpose. Topics, responses... everything. Downvotes because they hate the community and everything it stands for. See 50 downvotes in your Community in one day? That's these fuckers. Ban them. They are assholes and are vote manipulating. Probably ban them from related Communities for vote manipulation.

2. Normal User: (--> We are here) May or may not comment in YOUR Community, especially if it's image-based. Sees a single post that they don't like out of thousands they see daily and downvotes it. Several months later, it may happen again. This is expected behaviour and is how an upvote / downvote system functions. Don't ban these or you're the asshole.

3. Brigade Users: A coordinated attack to downvote or spam a Community stemming from some other place. They downvote everything and often post garbage. Ban these people. They are assholes and are vote manipulating. Probably ban them from related Communities for vote manipulation if not trying to seek an instance ban.

4. Lurker: (The overwhelming majority of users are this) Indistinguishable from a Normal user in votes, but may not comment. May be an alt or bot account. Be wary. Check their post history to see if they're real people. If real, leave 'em alone. If empty, use your discretion. Don't ban from related Communities.

5. Other: Downvotes accidentally when scrolling sometimes. These happen. May appear as a Lurker or a Normal User. Don't ban these or you're the asshole.

Hope that helps!

Stop doing your stupid policy because it is stupid.

Doing widespread bans and accusing people of 'Vote Manipulation' just because they down voted without joining or making a comment is making a mockery of the moderation process. Like maybe a few of the people you banned were doing that, but the vast majority were probably just served up the same post in All around the same time and decided it was slop and down voted it.

I mean how many people do you really think are actually manipulating votes and don't just happen to share the same opinion that a post was crappy.

We found the answer (kinda)! It was @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com See here: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/34853477

I was called out by name for a single downvote and culled from a score of Communities I did not participate in by them.

"Create more slop" is, in fact, a message I disagree with rather strongly and did downvote that (and only that) post. I PM'd the the mod in response to that post:

Brigading is organized. I, a single person, downvoted one post I saw in /All because it is actively content with a message I do not care for or agree with. Bad form would be going through everything in the community and downvoting. I didn’t do that either. What I had done is called “using the platform as intended.” And you overreacted with a ban.

So we've effectively solved the first part, but not the three Stable Diffusion parts... Those also seem to line up with another single downvote a month later. Again, hardly brigading or vote manipulation.

EDIT: Huh. Looks like we had someone in this thread downvoting nearly every post in here.