The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse (https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#11-attacks-on-users).
That's not true at all. The reason given by Rooki for the actions at the time was "missinformation" [sic]. The ToS had no rules on misinformation at the time.
But their comments are not forced above the comments of other users for the purpose of arguing a point.
These comments were not elevated to appear before any other users comments.
That's also untrue. Rooki specifically distinguished that comment (the shield icon) in addition to having the [A] (admin) icon next to their name.
We will not be removing Rooki from his position as moderator
In your post, you accept that the vegan comments were valid, thus Rooki was in the wrong. Why does an instance moderator get to interfere (and impact what the readers see for days) with absolute impunity and new rules created to back their talking points? Rooki was not even asked to pause their activity while you looked into the conduct. There was no punishment to discourage those acts at all. Where in the world does one side admit to being at fault but the remedy still favors that side only?
Edit: post->comment
Exactly. Those positions should generally be separated. Relying on a programmer that helps with running the instance on a technical level or developing for the instance inevitably weighs on the decision-making process when assessing their position as a moderator. Having that extra pull enables the moderator to misbehave with impunity.
If you're talking about the upvotes and the supportive comments, I'm not even sure they reflect how the community would feel had they seen the full sequence of events* leading up to that decision.
As I previously mentioned, seemingly the first comment to start the chain of !vegan moderators' and subsequent Rooki actions was the impolite "don't force your shit on them" one-line comment by a user first exonerated, but later banned for trolling in another community by none other than Rooki.
The vegan comments were way lengthier, containing balanced ("it's important to do a bit of extra research", "cat nutrition is too complicated to be trying to make at home") and seemingly thoughtful takes with a link to the NCBI.
Conversely, Rooki's line of arguing contained little but outbursts like "have a nice rest of your life knowing you killed your loved pet" and "If anyone else thinks pets should be vegan i have no problem banning them for being a troll and promoting killing pets", with unsubstantiated yet specific claims like "YES cats can survive vegan diet for few months".
Sure, Rooki admitted to being emotional and said sorry after my post asking for their removal, but what's the weight of that apology if the new rules echo those same talking points, from "misinformation" to the quite specific example "Unhealthy diets, e.g. due to insufficient nutrients"?
*Screenshots sent to me by a !vegan mod after my post - verifiable via the public modlog.
I'm pretty much a reddit refugee in that my reddit activity is limited to checking the community I moderate, simply as a token to all the users, but as I noted in that post, even reddit doesn't seem to interfere in its communities unless pushed to do so by all the other communities. The "free speech absolutist" straw man also hardly applies to reddit, as it still takes action against harassment, illegal content, and things like that - exactly what I would expect from a platform like Lemmy.
As noted in my post on the "moderation incident", by adding more subjectivity to the rules, you are opening the door to even more instance moderator misconduct. There is already evidence of how that would go.
Rooki felt it right to intervene in the !vegan cat food thread (and got a pat on the back with the new rules made to justify their actions), then not only took no issue with comments like "Meat is not something diabetics need to worry about." but also fueled the fire in the same thread by saying "To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died."
So much for taking action against harmful dietary advice.
Meanwhile Lemmy.World moderator Rooki:
To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died.
correlation != causation
In the absence of announcements, my understanding is that it's highly unlikely that Rooki will be removed for the misconduct.
Firstly, it doesn't take a team of two admins and seven moderators nearly a week to investigate a matter involving a handful of comments and six users. Secondly, if it were a broader investigation into Rooki's overall conduct, you'd expect Rooki to at least be asked to pause their moderator activity for the duration, but Rooki continues to ban people and remove comments.
Ironically, one of the users banned by Rooki for trolling today is EndlessApollo, whose comment and subsequent ban by !vegan launched the whole chain of events.
Looking at the modlog, Rooki reinstated the two !vegan moderators and restored one of the mods' comments about an hour ago. Rooki also edited their own comment referenced in the OP to say the following:
Edit: I am sorry, about my emotional decision i reinstated @Eevoltic and @naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com as mods After researching myself, many sites say its not healthy, one (1) research paper says it is at least NOT unhealthy, but it has few points of data.
Personally, I'm not fully satisfied if that is the end of it. The changes look like Rooki admitting that the issue is not clear-cut, but Rooki's conduct as a moderator has to reflect the rules, not something as arbitrary as Rooki's level of disagreement with someone's views at the given time.
Nobody should have to convince Rooki that something is not misinformation. Rooki (or any other instance moderator) must not even think of interfering on that basis. The word "misinformation" is not in the rules in any shape or form, and the only thing remotely close to it is Lemmy.World accepting that "The content provided on Lemmy.World is not necessarily factually true". If anything, the rules side more with the community moderators' judgement by saying "Your participation in individual communities will only be acceptable on the condition that you abide by their rules."
Edit: Added more to the sentence on Lemmy.World's rule related to misinformation.
That reporting is inaccurate if so. If you follow the Ukrainian news story link in the OP, you can click on the link to Kadyrov's Telegram post and machine translate it or ask a Russian speaker translate its first sentence. It literally says "received from Musk".
@Rose
@lemmy.world