*because they linked to a copy of the book that looked like a pirate copy
Yeah it's fair that if they uphold the ban after it was explained that it's public domain, that's a little bit BS. But my guess is that the moderators don't have time to deeply research every single instance of someone posting the full text of the book they're talking about, and 95% of the time, it's a pirated copy and they don't want that.
The anarchist library doesn't look like a pirate site at all. To me it seems like the mods weren't willing to look at the site for even a second to determine it was ok.
Did you ask them to? I.e. explain that it's in the public domain and publishing it online is perfectly legit?
If I were the mod and someone linked to this site to the full text of a book, I'd probably remove it. Like I say, if they don't want to give the issue enough time to fix it once it's explained, that seems unfair, but I don't think it's reasonable to ask them to do their own research every instance where the full text of a book is posted in their community.
I'm currently a mod here on lemmy. I would at the very least click the link before banning or removing. In the link, they'd see this note:
L’Anarchia was written in 1891, appeared in English translation in the monthly journal Freedom (September 1891—June 1892) and was reprinted as a pamphlet by Freedom Press in 1892.
The mod of r/books should be even slightly aware that anything printed before 1929 is public domain
How much time have you spent complaining about it here, as compared with trying to talk directly with the mod who removed it to address the problem with them?
Edit: Maybe I'm kind of being a jerk about it and I apologize if so. But it sounds from like your answers like you maybe haven't spoken directly to the mods there about it, but just went to some other venue to complain, which seems like a bad way to handle it if that's accurate. Anyone can make a mistake or etc. If you never talk with them about it, then they'll never find out or have a chance to correct it.
In which case I would direct the same statement to the aggrieved party, or maybe a note to the mods "Hey just so you know this thing's in the public domain, did you still mean to remove it?" before jumping to mods are fash dsfkjhsdgkjhser. Mostly I spoke up because the title, to me, is misleading -- they didn't "want to discuss" they "wanted to post full text" which can attract a whole different reaction (whether mistaken or not is a different issue).
As a moderator I'm sure you know that overwork or lack of time / attention is a reality sometimes, and complaining to someone other than the person who's in a position to fix things is rarely a good place to start. Again if they tell you to get lost, it's a different story.
I dabble a bit in trolling, it’s fun, though it still only has modest appeal to me… I figured if they got 3k score, they must really like it, and enjoy the process of getting to -3k