“wow hexbear’s most annoying user returns and the site immediately starts to implode. really makes you think!” -a brave but fallen commenter
It’s an honor to be y’all’s most annoying user. I have been back for all of 3 days and I’m already catching strays, hell yeah.
To start out this classic “TC69 takes the reigns” post, I want everyone to take a moment to read this “I’m leaving” post I made during the Great Pronoun Wars and it’s slew of bloody battles before we move on as a refresher for where things were when I left. I want everyone in this chat to take a big step back and look at the overall reaction to this struggle session with my leaving post in mind. I want everyone to consider if there is still work to be done in the community.
Over the years while completely detached from the community for mental health reasons, I’ve heard whispers on the wind about the state of Hexbear – telling me that while things have massively improved for trans people, there is still work to be done in the chauvinism, misogyny, and overall toxicity departments. Wild that I managed to catch some strays, but I hope that “really makes you think”, I guess.
To cool everyone’s jets, you will be getting your slop back, but it’s definitely not going to come without some changes to the community as a whole. I’m talkin’ constitutional amendments. We will be updating the COC in the coming week-ish to explicitly disallow misogynistic and chauvinistic language/sentiments – what will be explicitly said, I don’t yet know but I do have some ideas having reviewed the COC for the first time in 3 years last night.
Having just come back outta the blue, I didn’t have much of a stake in this struggle session nor much context for the circumstances that led to this decision being made but from what I can make sense of, it sounds like we’re combing for the aforementioned issues with too fine of a comb. My view of the situation is this:
- I will provide an example to start. There are three overlapping communities that I remember receiving heavy pushback to have separated: Politics, Electoralism, and News. Each of these communities may have the same posts on average, but the way in which users discuss the content is distinctly different. I view this attempt at community changes in a similar light. Before the next point, I will say that from what I’ve gathered, I view the dunk_tank in more of a "here is some general stinky shit regarding politics, lib brain rot, electoral copium, etc., etc. Let’s all point, laugh, crack jokes, regurgitate the lukewarm takes we saw on Twitter yesterday” way.
- With point #1 in mind, I agree with the overall sentiment of a counterpropaganda community as well as see a healthy appetite amongst users for a more educational approach to “dunking”. However, I don’t think taking out the holy centrist middle ground and asking for more effortful posts was the best step. Perhaps all we want to do is point and laugh, perhaps a baby leftist sees something Not Good TM somewhere else on the internet, and while they do not have all the context or education on the matter to make an effort post of why said thing is Not Good TM, they do have the ability to identify it as Not Good TM and can post it to let other people tear it apart. There is value in that, but we need to work on the shadowboxing and cut down on the aforementioned chauvinistic, misogynistic and overall toxic tendencies, folks.
- There is equally value in seeing chud shit online and wanting to go in-depth for new leftists about why something is reactionary, but I don’t think everyone is meant to be a poster – not that I don’t believe in y’all’s posting power, but it’s true. 353K posts, 4.75M comments. Some people just live for the comment sections and that’s okay, I love you all the same. Commenters are still braver than any troop.
I feel like the overall sentiment is that we don’t have a problem with dunk-esque content, just the means by which it’s discussed – particularly involving, again, the aforementioned issues and conversations devolving into shadowboxing.
So here’s what we’re gonna do. COC Update, then run a slop channel naming competition for a new contained community. I’m going to make a megathread for the community to decide the name of our new slop trough. Most upvoted comment after a week decides the name (some restrictions may apply, I’m not going to let this turn into the Mountain Dew naming competition, obviously).
That’s it, that’s the post. I apologize for the rustiness in making community announcements, it has been a while. Love you all.
Original post here: https://hexbear.net/post/3856299?scrollToComments=false
EDIT: Look, I just got back from a 3 year hiatus 3 days ago. I’m definitely not privy to everything that has been said or done with regards to this issue while I’ve been slowly walking down the pool stairs and adjusting to the temperature of the water. From what I’ve read, some outta pocket shit was definitely said, and I apologize on behalf of the team for the defensiveness and botched communication on this rollout. For now, I’m working on addressing things that are immediately within my control and power as per usual with these types of “TC69 picks up the pieces” posts.
We aren’t some turbo transphobic cabal, as I said 3 years ago in the exact same way, we’re just volunteers trying to continually better the community and navigate taking action against certain types of behaviors/sentiments (something literally no other social media platform gives a fuck about doing, if they aren’t actively encouraging negative behaviors to begin with). While what was said did not come from me, I can guarantee it was made under immense stress and pressure, per usual. That does not excuse it, but there is certainly a reason why the running joke is “wow TC69 is literally Stalin with her 5 attempted resignations” - see Carcosa’s attempted resignation last night. I love y’all, but this is getting outta hand.
Please be patient as we work through these issues and navigate taking steps to improve. And for the love of G O D please let me catch up some more before our next struggle session.
EDIT 2: I said it 3 years ago, I’ll say it again today. I’m not going to sit here and post every little example of things we’re describing as an issue when the modlog is publicly available. It’s accessible from any page on the site at the very bottom and in the sidebar of all comms. Please let your keyboard breath and spend like 15 minutes reviewing the modlog, lmao.
EDIT 3: Sangria was Alaskaball. Banning themself was a bit. Furthermore, they were unaware that fella was a gendered term, as was I. Yes, they did effectively misgender themselves if you consider fella to be a gendered term. They don’t consider it to be. Therefore, non-issue on this point.
EDIT 4: I’m locking the thread. I tried my best to give some decent paths forward amidst the chaos. Someone else can deal with this.
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There’s something really funny about a bunch of commie admins who want a serious leftist community, but rather than actually committing to anything like democratic centralism by gauging their communities’ thoughts on things they instead unironically do the whole undemocratic shadow cabal 1984 meme by dropping half-baked ideas on everyone with zero prior warning or discussion.
And by “really funny,” I of course mean that the admins should take their own advice and go touch grass for a bit, because this is by far the dumbest struggle session this site has had and that’s saying something.
Obviously this isn’t directed at you, TC
So, I don’t give a shit about the controversy itself, but the way that the mods in a closed chat just hyped themselves up on saying “This is what white bros do” to each other and then handing down the pronouncement that some of the most popular communities are only for chauvinists and then masking their real motives with an excuse about the names is just awful. The disingenuousness, the insular snobbishness, the immaturity, the cynicality. It’s just disgusting.
I have no further thoughts.
The antagonism shown by the admins and mods every time they decide something behind the scenes then spring it on everyone unilaterally is so exhausting. If you hate interacting with users so much that you’re making alts to harass people or just deciding to ban people who politely disagree with you then this really isn’t the right gig for you
this is being handled so childishly by what seems like a good handful of the mods and admins lol. complete shit show. why not just lock the thread and perma everyone criticizing you all at this point, or do you enjoy arguing with us that much? i acknowledge that some users have acted overly hostile and crossed lines which sucks for you all to have to deal with but you all have created this situation (problem was fake to begin with) and gone on to drop the ball on resolving it several times in comical fashion.
I went to make dinner and come back to a literal shitstorm. What the actual fuck is going on? Our admin and mod teams need to seriously do some self crit now. This is the most pathetic shit I’ve seen online in quite a long time, and that’s going back to my reddit days.
Frfr
I understand the intentions behind the original proposed change but this is just upsetting now :(
Gonna go touch grass (maybe, if my irl friend wants to go lol)
Btw @[email protected], I missed your reply to me in the first thread before it got locked, no hard feelings ofc
You’re cool and am sorry if I caused any more stress for you, I’ve never had my decisions torn apart by thousands of replies before :/
You know, honestly I had been hoping that a couple days of nothing being done would be in order. Where the old comms remained locked, and everyone just sat in their corners for a bit and maybe we just all let things pause for a while.
I am incredibly disappointed to see some users that I saw make excellent points like REgon, usa_suxxx, among many others get temp bans.
I also see that many bans are being handed out with the same comment copied and pasted, multiple times to many different people.
I understand that moderating can be a slog and there’s so MUCH SHIT that has to be shoveled, but I can’t shake the feeling that it is being done with a little bit of glee. That each ban with the same pithy one liner just gives you a little burst of dopamine, each time that you do it.
Which is sad. Truly.
I never really appreciated your moderating style TC69, because you seemed to just take it as a given that everything had to be your way or the highway, and I’m disappointed to see you return.
“To cool everyone’s jets, you will be getting your slop back,”
The slop was only the catalyst. The issue quickly became that mod statement misgendering much of the site(and having an un-CWed self harm reference), harassment against people who were against it, and the fact that other lemmy mods got told before we did. Is there any plan to address those issues?
Edit:
Or just ban people for opposing it I guess
Yeah are there going to be any consequences for whoever cooked up 20 alt accounts to harrass everyone that disagreed with them, and tell users that they should kys/their parents should never had them/should have been killed? On top of purposeful misgendering and claiming that a user who exclusively used they/them pronouns was actually a cisgender man. I really did not care about this issue much, until that started.
I’d really like some general consequences for a good part of the mod team as a whole. This wasn’t just an issue with one person, they were just the most egregious member, but they’ve been allowed to hang around for far too long. On top of that there were a lot of bullshit coming from those mods - “white cishet” being the top of a big turdpile.
white cishet
And despite that whole statement being a terrible thing to say, it wasn’t even true, you can go view the locked dredge tank community right now, I think only 4/20 posts on the front page were made by someone using he/him as their primary pronouns, 3/20 using she/her, and 3/20 using comrade/them. Certainly does not seem like a white cishet dominated community to me.
Yeah it’s almost as if we have some shitty mods that are powertripping like they’re on reddit, who use leftist rhetoric to shield their abysmal behaviour
rip
Amazing that they get banned while the user that straight up misgendered them and told everyone to go die on their dozen alt accounts has likely faced zero consequences, just great.
Link me to them and I will ban them too.
Sorta proves their point tbh lol
I mean they were obviously upset about what was said, but they were at 200+ comments in a 24 hour period, they needed a break.
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Most of that was them responding to another user viciously harassing them.
Is there a comment limit per day or should people just be banned arbitrarily even though they’re a good poster?
Banned for speaking too much truth
The poweruser/powermod thing is pretty much an unreconcilable contradiction of this site given how small the active user base is. I just came off like a two year break and I instantly recognised most of the names still posting lol.
Edit: I mean we’re literally commenting on a post made by someone who left for three years and just came back and was returned as an admin based on name recognition. No shade on TC personally but it’s pretty indicative of how things operate.
Hexbear celebrity culture is fucking weird.
and who should care if it was majority hehims?
“this activity has male vibes” is an absolutely insane way to criticise something. woke gender essentialism
Yeah that’s what I meant when I said it was a terrible thing to say in the first place.
Fire them all and put me in charge. My platform:
- I dislike most of you
- Easily the most liberal
- No posts
You get half, I get the other half. This will be the dunk-debatebro split, except on tuesdays when we swap
What about holidays and weekends?
Time for the hexbear libs to bomb the headquarters
I assume there’s not an easy way to track the original user but I’d again put down good money it was HelltakerHomosexual, just going through their modlog and comparing it to the bile the alt accounts were spewing the past couple days. Even discounting recent events I rarely see them coming in to threads to do anything but insult other users.
Who was this user? If they aren’t banned, can you at least publish their name so I can block them?
Do you know who cooked up those accounts? They can take a ban too. Link me to them.
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Or just ban people for opposing it I guess
Also not having ownership of who has actually done the post removal/ban is bullshit. Own your action. Rarely i’d say there’s been consensus. Too much happens on this site to be discussing every action.
Yeah if reports aren’t anonymous then neither should mod actions so we know if it’s being abused
According to kristina, 10% of the site are mods (hyperbole maybe but who knows). So who’s to say users having legitimate dissenting opinions aren’t being silenced by particular mods because they don’t like the blowback. Certainly no transparency around mod actions as mentioned.
With how many inactive and alt accounts, I don’t think we really can get an accurate percentage
But lol some mods absolutely chose who they ban or what comments get removed based purely off who they like, that’s been a constant since there have been mods on any forum but giving mods anonymity makes it worse
Yeah even outside the baffling mod comment, some of the posters in that thread deserve a high velocity
This is rapidly where I’m heading right now. Look, I just got back from a 3 year hiatus 3 days ago. I’m definitely not privy to everything that has been said or done with regards to this issue while I’ve been slowly walking down the pool stairs and adjusting to the temperature of the water. From what I’ve read, some outta pocket shit was definitely said, and I apologize on behalf of the team for the defensiveness on this issue. For now, I’m working on addressing things that are immediately within my control and power as per usual with these types of “TC69 picks up the pieces” posts. Please be patient as we work through these issues.This is good to hear! Honestly at this point I just really want transparency, I know it’s hard work working thru drama after the fact, not to mention all the other bs you gotta do.
Well transparency and some statement either saying “nah we fully support the mods, they’re cool and if you dislike it you can go” or “some of the mods sucked a bit of shit and now they’re gone.” But figuring out which to say is going to take time. Just glad to hear you’re not just memoryholing it.I know it’s a messy situation, hopefully the issue with transphobia and toxicity coming from some of the mods is dealt with and we can bounce back stronger.
We love our trans comrades
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Wait wtf how did I not hear abt all that shit in the statement
a plea to the admins generally: please address the flagrant transphobia/bizarre gender essentialism that was the thrust of a couple of the (anonymous!) mod takes from the big thread. if this gets swept under the rug my faith in admins/mods to consistently oppose bigotry will be severely damaged. the silence is already deafening on the issue.
This needs addressed immediately. This type of shit can’t be running rampant around leadership let alone the userbase.
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needlessly dismissive and rude. can you not see why we’re concerned that it took this long for this to even be acknowledged and it’s buried in a third level comment with this tone?
take some time off away from the site while we work it out.
This is just rude
Addressing this takes time.
Then just say you’re working on it, nowhere in the above post even mentions it
don’t worry, we got a response in the form of a third level comment from an admin I’ve never seen before saying the admins are working on it. truly my mind is at ease
It’s an alt that’s been sitting dormant for 2 years.
That is a completely unnecessary and rude response.
online enough for petty bans, though
Whats there to untangle? This is all written down and searchable. Stop being patronizing.
This has devolved to one of the original contradictions of the website: a mod team that wants to make a more serious site without holding themselves to any standard worthy of serious interaction
Why is someone who just returned after 3 years in charge of fixing this? Nothing personal but you’re in the worst position to address culture.
I said it 3 years ago, I’ll say it again today. I’m not going to sit here and post every little example of things we’re describing as an issue when the modlog is publicly available.
If mods/admins want us to take the modlog seriously they have to take it seriously first. What is a user supposed to think when they look at the modlog and see this or this?
feeling very foolish for ever thinking the internet moderators on here don’t have that much in common with all internet moderators ever
which one of you did this please
This smug condescension is exactly the kind of shit that pissed me off about the anonymous mod post. Its not like they were even shitposting they were contributing to the conversation constructively
E: and its from TC69??? Disappointing to say the least
Cool, it appears @morte was banned for this comment…
All I can say is that for me it is not disappointing. In order to be disappointed one needs to have expectations to begin with, and as apparently one of the very few people who remembers what TC69 was actually like as an admin, I am not disappointed in the least.
I haven’t had this much pure anxiety being on this forum for years. It’s the only real sense of community I have in this hellworld and this rampaging ‘le spork of DOOM’ character is handing out bans for annoying her with a random spinner like we’re not even fucking people with real feelings. It’s horrible. I fucking hate this. But it’s a joke to her and the rest of the mods and apparently that’s what the real website is. Not us.
to all the ND comrades during thisEditing to reflect that I discovered that apparently those random bans were a bit that people volunteered to take part in.
Edit AGAIN to reflect that they’re ALSO banning people who AREN’T volunteering for the bit (e.g. https://hexbear.net/u/usa_suxxx who’s just another example of “banned for being mad”)!
Yeah the other day I was so annoyed by this shit that I literally had to just walk away and go clean my room to force reset my brain and remember that this is a funny pig poop beanis forum, because otherwise these fuckers were gonna drive me insane
It’s just a relief to see that so many people are calling it out. I think for a long time the usual response to overstepping admins/mods has just been head down, pretend it doesn’t exist, move on. Toxic, negative peace. It’s good that we’re actually talking about it now, and that the arbitrary bs “stop disagreeing with me” bans are only fuelling the fire more.
It’s the only real sense of community I have in this hellworld
same. I’m trying to build something irl, but it’s fucking hard. our son is a senior in high school, we barely stay afloat every month, I don’t have the spoons to make plans and hang out and do cool shit.
most days, I barely have the spoons to get done the crucial shit. this place has been such a comfort to visit, with so many people who understand exactly what I’m going through.
it is horrible to watch and I hate it too.
right back at you.
CW: discussions of suicide, self-harm, transphobia
I do remember. I remember the sub being banned. I remember the wack ass discord. I remember the first few months of the site. I remember TC69 stepping up, organizing, cleansing the site of the transphobes, the chasers, and the bigots. Even though i didnt consider myself a part of it at the time i felt so much safer as I watched the burgeoning trans community here blossom. I never posted about it, but i was always always there.
This place became my refuge. Its laughable, I know, because its just a reddit clone, but it was, and it was all i had. As i grappled with my own identity and neurodivergency, isolated, alone, unmedicated for the numerous undiagnosed mental disorders i had, going to therapists who told me to wear emotional masks and act manly as i watched my body start to age from testosterone, tearing my body apart to feel anything beyond this emptiness. I stayed out of every major struggle session the site had because in the end i just… couldnt deal with the idea of the site breaking apart.
When i accepted my identity, put on womens clothing for the first time, confirmed that I was, indeed, trans - i was so happy. So purely happy. One of the first things I did was change my pronouns here, and i laughed and laughed and laughed. If this place hadnt been there for me i dont know how long it would have taken for me to come to terms with this part of me. Maybe i never would have. And even if i had I may not have survived regardless. I nearly didnt. I’m still quite mentally ill, after all. As I watched my state become dramatically more hostile to transfolk; as the nation began to single us out as a punching bag; as I faced the cruelty and verbal abuse from people close to me after coming out; throughout it all you were there. I found solace in your embrace and meaning in our shared struggle. I connected with other queer and trans people, found support in my city, friends at times and lovers at others. Fucked things up with some people but reconnected with people dear to me, too.
Things started to go wrong again recently. Lost my job, fell out with my parents, got fucked over by new anti trans legislation. Then the election cycle started to ramp up and we all got to watch as americans voted for an antichrist embodying some of the worst excesses of the system we live in while the people who are supposed to be our allies did nothing to defend us and perpetuated war and genocide. Nearly lost my mind again. Fell back into self harm, stopped trying to find a job, blew my savings on rent and cheap comforts and drugs. So when trump won, i did what i always do - i came back here.
It was, as always, refuge. Some hope in a hopeless world. Even better, the people that made this site a safe place for those like me had returned after nearly 3 years. I made it through yet another crisis by the skin of my teeth, avoiding a hospital visit without insurance that would almost definitely have wiped out the rest of my savings and trapped me in this state for the forseeable future.
When the decision to close the tank comms was announced, i was just sad more than anything. But not super sad. Thats how things go sometimes, yknow. This site wouldnt be what it currently is if it werent for focused, concerted efforts to change site culture that at times ignored pushback from users. Theres always always been at least some amount of chauvinism, misogyny, and other generally shitty behavior, ever since the days of the sub. Thats just a fact, although from my perspective I thought its always been handled pretty well as the site got older. So I decided to share my opinion anyway because i didnt really think of it as a strugglesesh at that point and, well, i am pro-slop as it were.
But that anonymous post was like a gut punch. I was fucking furious and sad and anxious when i woke up to it this morning. I dont pass. I never have. I get misgendered every day - its probably more like 8 or 9/10 times when im not with ppl close to me. My body is covered in scars and the lines of my body imply the years of testosterone driven aging. I want to be pretty, but i dress masc to hide the scarring and most days im too tired to wear makeup. I dont voice train consistently. Even after 10 laser sessions the hair on my face is noticeable, even through concealer. Ive never organized due to my fears and various neurodivergencies, although one day I hope to do so. Ive read some theory, but find it hard to pick up books consistently, especially after losing my medication. Im not a particularly good communist. Im not particularly good at being trans. Im barely even a person at all. But i thought i didnt have to be. Lying in the sweat and silence as the blood seeped from my wounds into my sheets and scabbed into my sheets as the days melted together and the drugs burned a hole through my skull. As long as the fire within me never flickered out. Just a worm, writhing, wriggling in the mud and the decay, surviving. Praying for the rising of a red star.
But. Because of my rage? Because of my desire to see the bourgeoisie torn into shreds and fed to the hounds? For my longing for just a tiny bit of catharsis and fun on a stupid website thats given me many laughs and much kindness over the years and that i am far, far too attached to? I get told i give off cishet man vibes, by a mod team that is supermajority trans people, scolded for being an internet communist turn off, dismissed, patronized, and paternalized as self harming by doing what? Posting a meow-knife emoji under a bigoted tweet from some dipshit with 20 followers?
So yeah i was angry and hurt and sad and very very fucking scared cause the site i love did something shitty and the response has been unsatisfactory for no reason?? I didnt expect an immediate resolution or for the mods responsible to be dragged out into the streets but good lord i just want something, anything more than an edit saying that some out of pocket shit had been said under stress and a third rank post saying to log off cause its being looked into with no real acknowledgement of the fucked-upness of the post, and other trans users i have looked up to for a long long time being dismissive about it and saying its missing context. And i just dont want to be treated as a child for speaking up about it
But im sorry if ive come across as rude, or disrespectful, and im sorry that i let my anger and sadness get the best of me when i said i was disappointed, and im sorry that i ban evaded to write this post because i get emotional and this is the only thing keeping me from ugly crying even more than i already have which i know is very very silly. Im very sorry if ive contributed to the stress of any admins, particularly @[email protected] (who really didnt deserve any shit) and @[email protected] because i know this shit isnt easy and youve only been back for a few days and i hope you can get this sorted out because you really did make this a very good place to be and i want it to stay that way.
Anyway I LOVE MY TRANS COMRADES and you can permaban this account. Sorry for the rant
Keep on speaking from the heart, sister. I’ve got nothing of value to add but I just want you to know I love you and all my trans comrades.
TC69, the original wrecker
The condescension will continue until moral improves.
Christ, the next ban was “none of you are capable of realizing when you need a break”
Mods are absolutely not beating the allegations. Irritating, patronizing bullshit tbh
Edit: and from what I can tell, @Chair was banned for this comment with the mod note “Break Time”
absolutely wild lmao, love too be infantilized on my serious commieposting forum
It gets worse
what the fuck lol who is doing these
I think alaskaball is the only mod on mainI am incorrect, alaskaball is just main enby of main
Sangria (the new admin who joked in the first one of these threads about how arrogant they looked) banned them, and called them a fella.
We really need to make mod actions public
And just like that one of the most universally supported and appreciated site rules just becomes a selectively enforced pretext to ban people who complain about this drama they created out of nowhere
The mods seem to have it in their heads that this site is supposed to be more of an org than a forum… can we start with a vote of no confidence in the leadership? Maybe once they give out enough “duration of the shock doctrine” tempbans to people who need to
because they’re upset at being lied to and treated like children.
Yea this is problematic right here, REgon can make their own damn decisions.
Want to edit before I dip for a few days: TC69 owned up to it, regardless of whether or not I think the ban was warranted my biggest issue was with the anyonymity in the face of a mod/admin team with rogue transphobic and toxic elements, so she deserves props for what I believe is a good step.
Again, logging out, I hope to see this a happier and healthier place in a few days after the energy has subsided, I really love this place and can understand that the good mods and admins have a lot on their hands right now. Love y’all, see you again soon enough
No need for temp bans when mods can instead just advise a user to take some time off
Y’all gotta get this shit sorted now
Me, y’all are literally getting conspiratorial and overly aggressive. You can be next if you want.
Thank you for the past anti-transphobia stuff, but in nearly every other way you’re super annoying, melodramatic and seem to think very highly of yourself to a smug liberal degree. Your posts are so self-important and self-aggrandizing.
Damn, I unironically want to have this framed.
Edit: Unironically saved this down to have printed and framed.
Yes, yes, you’re so cool and above it all, we get it.
You might need to be the one to log-off.
Who removals the tempbanners?Logged off for 3 years and came back with the same “im the internet celebrity who bans everyone” self-aggrandising liberal attitude lol
New embroidery project just dropped
Wait highkey keep upvoting this. The more upvotes it gets, the harder it’ll go on the wall.
Genuine question, despite appearances. If you hate the people here so much why even return?
I don’t hate the people here, but “it’s complicated” as to why I’d return. I have a great deal of love for this absolute miracle of a community project we managed to pull together and the community as a whole. I dumped a good deal of my life and mental health into it to help make it what it is today and I’m extremely proud of how the team has carried on with building since I left as well. I guess I wanted to give things another stab now that I’m in a much better place mentally and emotionally. Kinda just walked back in at a very inopportune time.
We’re getting conspiratorial because yesterday you all made fundamental decisions about the site behind closed doors and then lied about your reasoning.
e: And the only fallout from that seems to be falling on the users and not the mods
I’ve literally laid out next steps that we’re going to take navigate this clusterfuck. I’m sorry it happened like that, again, just getting back. I’m just picking up the pieces. The admin who put forth this change has stepped back for their mental health during this struggle session, and I’m taking the reigns - just like old times. What else do you want me to say that I didn’t cover in the post and edits?
There’s no sense in acting like we’re being unreasonable. You complained about the users being conspiratorial. We are completely justified in this attitude. All I did was remind you why. You’re acting like you checked every box such that we’re not allowed to feel or act that way anymore. It’s condescending.
Especially in the context of whatever plans you had to change the site rolling right along regardless. Is this site the user’s or the mod’s? Are we extras in your social club?
Welcome back from your 3 year not being a part of this community, by the way. Please don’t ban me.
We are completely justified in this attitude.
And they keep proving us right.
+REgon, they made very good points around this.
the best thing to do in a tense and stressful situation with emotions running high is to dig the heels in and quadruple down
I think people are rightly concerned about mods demonstrating pretty awful opinions & transphobia and it not being addressed directly. Banning the people who brought this to attention without directly talking about it is the problem that started all this - opaque mod decisions.
I echo this sentiment. While I do think more people should
for a few days (myself 100% included), in the context of shaking faith in a mod team that it is acknowledged includes mods that have harrassed users and expressed transphobic views, this can backfire.That being said, TC69 did own up to it, which is a good thing as it removes that suspicion, I support this wholeheartedly as a good-faith step towards healing that user/admin relationship.
Alright, see y’all later, I actually mean it this time. I’m gonna finally shut the fuck up like my annoying ass has known I should do for a while now and come back in a few days when I don’t have some awful personal shit going on. I know the good mods and admins are going through a ton of shit right now as well (aren’t we all?).
Love y’all, hope I come back to a healthier and happier Hexbear.
same, I think ppl including myself have been justifiably concerned, and my “faith” is pretty shaken atm, but this has been too stressful & aggravating for a debate about mod actions on a bear/owl/ppb based communist forum
I literally made two further edits to address things further. We’re talking in circles here.
neither of those edits address the thing people are mad at tho?
okay. I think what I’m saying isn’t being heard - I’ve watched the modlogs and it doesn’t answer it. I’m gonna let this blow over as I’m getting tired of explaining it though - here’s hoping it’s fixed whenever I get back
could you point out the aggressive elements of my comment please
I said y’all. Not you specifically. But if anyone looks at the past 3 posts and doesn’t see the conversations devolving conspiratorial nonsense about how “they’re taking too long to respond, they actually hate the userbase” , “they’re transphobic actually” , “they’re a cabal of power hungry tankie Reddit mods”, “the admins are completely detached”, then I don’t know what to tell people other than to take a break. 🤷🏻♀️
I said y’all. Not you specifically
why did you threaten me specifically with a ban then
then I don’t know what to tell people other than to take a break
you are not a cop-doctor; you do not need to telepathically sense when someone has posting fatigue and prescribe a medicinal ban, you do not need to deal out revenge timeouts when the mod team’s honour is impinged on. Your duties stop at banning actual racist homophobe etc. shit so that it can’t take root and noone has to see it. Saying an admin is ‘detached’ is unbelievably soft and you should be embarrassed if you banned someone for that.
I don’t believe many of your ‘quotes’ were actually posted verbatim by anyone to be honest, but if they were I would include those in the ban notes instead of your current HR epic quips to save on confusion. I wouldn’t have brought it up at all if the screenshotted user had been noted to have called you a tankie derogatively.
I’m honestly baffled that people are surprised by the mods’ reactions to this. This has always been how they handle things. The only difference is that the target has become a critical mass of regular Hexbear users.
When we first started, we were under threat of wreckers and other reactionary elements. Our mod tools and policies were forged in that environment. But with defederation and increasing isolation, these elements grew to be less and less. Our policies have remained the same. The tools of external subjugation have been turned inward. The techniques we used to hunt down literal nazis are now being turned against the regular userbase.
This has always been how the mod/admin team operated. Hexbear is viewed simultaneously as serious political project that necessitates a party line but also a pet website so they can arbitrarily push changes from above. The only difference is that most users agreed with the decisions at the time, or at least didn’t care enough to raise a fuss.
I’ve been here since the very beginning, all four and a half years plus a few on the subreddit. This is literally the organizational structure the users built and supported. I don’t see it changing anytime soon.
This wasn’t really adressed, so I’m just gonna include my comment from the last thread, so maybe it will get adressed, as it was way out of pocket and deserves a response.
I think there should probably be some accountability for whoever was/were behind “the white cishet man vibes” part of the post, editing it out of the original post doesn’t change that is was there, saying that shit was kinda fucked, as many people in the original post noted
Yeah if you go view the front page of the dredge tank right now, only 4/20 of the posts there are made by people primarily using he/him pronouns. So not only was it a shitty thing to say, it was also factually untrue. And that’s not even mentioning that some of those guys using he/him pronouns are likely not het and/or cis either, given the demographics on hexbear.
only 4/20 of the posts there are made by people primarily using he/him pronouns.
Eyy!
seconding this again… feels like admins just want us to move on from how wildly objectionable that was. whoever came up with that shit should certainly not be a mod and should honestly have to do some self crit or get banned.
Whoever came up with it and whoever signed off on it. Anyone who saw it, read it, and understood what it said and DIDN’T object should self-crit heavily at the very least.
Not trying to be confrontational but why is the “white cishet man vibes" remark such a big deal? That seems like something to talk about, not shut down. Why did someone feel that way? Even if the remark turns out to be off-base we might learn something from talking it out.
*edit after reading more comments, I guess dunk tank users felt misgendered, which is an example of why making flippant sweeping statements like that is dangerous, and why we should talk things out patiently and thoughtfully on this site instead of launching into whirlwind struggle sessions. I still think the remark is worth discussing.
I’m a trans woman. Many of the things I am interested in are male-dominated spaces. This has been used to say “are you really a woman? If you are, why are you in the spaces that men are? Sounds male socialized to me.” This is what the admin statement sounds like.
Considering the dunk zone was referred to as a cishet white thing
there is still work to be done in the chauvinism, misogyny, and overall toxicity departments
Doesn’t feel to great. Would it be possible to get an effort post explaining the current problems and what content needs to be eliminated?
Yeah I’m tired of the vagueposting about chauvinism. It’s been a thing for a while now that - funnily enough - the users who have been showing their asses for the past few days, have been pushing for a reckoning with “chauvinism” targeting the comms they dislike. It’s always just been a general vague handwave about chauvinism.
Words are cheap, and they’re fucking worthless when they come from people who are fine being ableist and misgendering others.Vague-posting can be toxic, but calling out specific users in a huge thread like this can be toxic too. The chaos in here is overwhelming enough as it is.
autistic user asking a genuine question for clarification:
do you truly feel like specificity would have made this more chaotic?
I have noted in other comments that I have not been on top of this the whole time, but it seems to me like a lot of the heat has come from the vagueness and generalizations. is that not your impression? if not, could you help me understand why you think that way?
That’s 100% my impression, just botched communication of the vision. Which is why I’m trying to provide clarification with the above examples and explanation. If you have questions please let me know. :)
🤷😭 I’m sorry. I’ve done my best to read everything – including the old thread you linked, and all of the comments in these threads – to try to understand. being told to just go read it all again isn’t helping.
please don’t ban me for trying to understand what is happening with one of the few lifelines I have. my 17yo trans son is a senior in high school, we live in Ohio, we need this place.
Also to add.
Can mods/admin stop making big changes to the site without posing the question to the community? Can this be written in big bold font somewhere? Was nothing learned during the vcj incident?
It needs to be an unamendable part of the Hexbear constitution. Never have these unilateral efforts gone smoothly for those implementing them or being subjected to them.
Like if something is deadass a major problem with the site, pitch you case for changing what is wrong. This site is full of good people who want it to constantly change for the better
This site is full of good people who want it to constantly change for the better
The mods don’t seem to have faith in this for some reason.
I am a mod
Like if something is deadass a major problem with the site, pitch you case for changing what is wrong.
And site examples so users actually know where the line is and why something is problematic. Can’t learn anything by just scolding and effectively saying “you know what they did wrong”
Being told “you should know what you did wrong” has been a line I’ve been told before, and I’ve been alienated by people when I LITERALLY have no idea what I did, I’m fucking autistic and I am being very honest in that I WANT to know what I did and do better but sometimes I just don’t pick up on what exactly that is. Like everything I do could be wrong! This kind of thing has been bery triggering for me in the past. Obviously there will be issues that are self evident but sometimes they aren’t and I think it should be taken in good faith that when people ask for examples they really aren’t trying to be antagonistic.
I’ve been alienated by people when I LITERALLY have no idea what I did, I’m fucking autistic and I am being very honest in that I WANT to know what I did and do better but sometimes I just don’t pick up on what exactly that is. Like everything I do could be wrong!
💔 feel this so much.
it’s really honestly scary to have come to depend on the friendships I’ve made in this place and then realize that it could be taken away on somebody else’s whim.
it makes me wonder what is the point in putting myself out there at all, you know? 😭
anybody reading this, please don’t temp ban me for saying this. I’m 42 fucking years old, I’m perfectly fucking capable of deciding when I need a break, thank you. what I need is a safe place to be an autistic leftist with a trans son.
I’m sure everyone with a temp ban will come back with a whole fresh new perspective and will see things entirely how the mods do after being kicked off and not having any complaints addressed. I’m sure it won’t lead to some just not coming back. I wouldn’t want to after being treated like that
me neither, which makes me very sad. those are good comrades. the world is a fuck, we need all the good comrades we can get.
Yeah and they shouldn’t have to come back with their tails between their legs after being made to go stand in the corner cause they got too snippy.
it makes me wonder what is the point in putting myself out there at all, you know? 😭
Fuckin same. After years of failed relationships and many blowing up in my face back to back, I mostly avoid making new friends irl for fear of rejection now. Tbf a lot of my behavior was to blsme but also I didn’t know I was autistic at the time and SO MUCH was miscommunication/perseveration/not understanding what’s appropriate and people not being straightforward with me.
I literally just got a 6 month ban from a ND discord chat I was part of for bringing up what I thought was an unfair ban in a super respectful way and that was hard, and so I came back here hoping for some community after all the election bullshit and now this. :/ I’ve also been dealing with a very similar problem at the job I’ve loved for years. Shady ass management stepping all over the workers, giving a million different fake excuses for a bunch of changes that are just destroying the org and making the frontline workers feel so demoralized and powerless. Not exactly the same but god damn it just feels like this is happening all over the place all at once.
I hope that things DO cool down after a few days and that this stuff is able to be addressed and not forgotten, and everyone lives happily ever after. But we will see.
I’m sorry that this seems to be taking an emotional toll on you
was nothing learned during the vcj incident?
I mean yeah, this current struggle session is like part 2 or 3 of the exact same, ever developing struggle session about dunking
It honestly feels like
Users:
“Please let us have a discussion if you plan on making any drastic changes to the site. We all know what’s happened in previous ongoing giant struggle sessions”
Mods:
It is shitty that the one of the many justifications for their actions are that the site is just shitposting/dunking and then they act like regular discord mods
It is, unfortunately, kinda really funny in an ironic way though
then they act like regular discord mods
Hey now, let’s not be throwing around accusations of grooming
/s cos ya never know
like 10%ish of the userbase is a mod. if you want change, sign up to be a mod and put in the work? idk its really easy to do. for trans people i literally add anyone thats trans and a regular user of the site to /c/traa. traa alone has 35 mods. youre acting like the whole mod team is just 4 people in wizard hats sitting in an ivory tower with zero discussion.
its impossible to know exactly how everyone is going to take every small change that must be done, and i feel like this is genuinely a really small change.
its impossible to know exactly how everyone is going to take every small change that must be done
Have you tried asking them
ok we’re going to instate full direct democracy immediately, i am going to poll all of hexbear about whether or not we should ban some random guy over a weird comment, whether or not to approve a user every time someone signs up, every time there is some small technocratic rule change. we must become :vote: the website. deeply unserious. its hard enough to get even the most invested users to comment on shit and do shit until it blows up in some absurd way
people are also going at the transphobia angle a lot in this thread without realizing that almost a supermajority of the mod team is trans and wouldnt have included something blatantly transphobic (including the two people are irate with, carcosa and tc69), the context is just missing.
idk this is just all nonsense to me im going back to checking out
the_dunk_tank in the past month is ranked; 6th users/month, 3rd posts, 2nd comments.
Ah yes changes to that comm are exactly like a site wide discussion on banning “some random guy over a weird comment”.
Say the line Bart
“deeply unserious”
it is
It’s fine for some decisions to be made by mods only, but keeping it quiet and rolling the changes out all at once when the decision is final seems to cause nothing but problems. It means the mods and admins are caught off guard when the users have strong objections, and have to scramble and backtrack to deal with the backlash. A heads-up about what changes were being discussed would have let the mods be aware of what complaints would be made while they were still in the decision making process. Then when the changes are made, they could already have measures ready to address the concerns, or at least consistent explanations of why the changes where necessary. Instead they had to quickly throw out multiple conflicting justifications, and added to the confusion.
If you’re surprised the users saw this as more than a tiny change, an announcement that a discussion was happening could have given a warning of what to expect.
I’m a mod and I wasn’t aware of the formerly?-secret mod chatroom until yesterday :/
Maybe Carcosa invited me after I applied and I forgot, am not sure
There is a secret /c/drugs mod chatroom but there’s no activity in there rly, biggest discussion was like picking the banner image lol
Ofc “my” comms don’t get a lot of activity, so I’m usually not doing any work lol
theres like 60+ people in it def not very secret lol. though afaik its not literally every mod in there because like you said people forget to join or something or just never sign up
I have never seen it explicitly mentioned before yesterday, I only seen like admin/mod “back channels” or something similarly vague mentioned before
It’s not explicitly secret but there does seem to be this culture among the mod and admin team of an “inside circle”, inside which decisions are made and the process behind how and why they are made is usually left mostly unspecified but ofc the statements by mods for/against this change did kinda subvert that usual process. Tbh I’ve never seen anything like this in my like 2.5 years here lol
Ofc, the “inside circle” thing does make sense considering the site nearly imploded a few times during the first year due to wreckers abusing democratic structures and many of the changes that made this site cool did have to be forced through
Idk, it seems like something has gone very wrong for a decision like this to be made apparently unilaterally given the response
I am in favor of further misogyny and other brainworms purges ofc but the whole point of the tanks was so that people could block that stuff if they don’t wanna partake lol, now people just post stuff they wanna make fun of without writing an essay about it to other comms. Is just strange to me how this decision was made given the previous sentence
Also… was that Catradora on alts in the other threads? Is kinda like another open secret that she got banned for vicious anti-veganism and stuff but she’s still here, doing it on another acct now while being allowed to moderate and maybe using alts for when she wants to be explicitly ableist and transphobic (ofc I have no way to verify that other than what it seems like to me, I guess you would have to ask the lemmy.club admins for IP addresses lol). I don’t rly like this “unbanned by vibes and the mods/admins like you” approach, I know people know about this and people’s alts are around but it’s another one of those open secret things (Like also maybe Melina still being around and DM harassing people like before and only catching a 7 day ban???)
This is gonna sound rly online but idc anymore lol, it does remind me a little bit of a communist party. Like the wrecking and bad faith shit gets so bad that leadership becomes tighter and tighter to protect the party but eventually you can end up with the leadership being disconnected with the rest of the party’s feelings on stuff lol
Anyway, maybe I have the completely wrong view of what’s going on. Tbh I don’t rly know what’s going on and that’s kinda the problem, TC69 said she’s “taking the reigns” now, again after 3 years gone?? And now people are getting banned for “touching keyboard too much” or something?? Even if that’s true and it’s a still an obscure web forum we all enjoy, how does that look good to anyone besides making the admin who did it feel better lol
I understand the position the admin/mod team must be in though, it must be rly stressful to have your decisions torn apart by 1200+ replies. Carcosa replied to me earlier but I missed replying before the thread got locked, wanted to say no hard feelings lol. Sorry this got kinda long lol
Edit: omg I just looked in the modlog wtf lmao,
see you on the other side if I get banned for this lolEdit 2: slow ass site not showing me why, I see MOST of the bans were requested now lol
Got me for a sec lol, still looks rly bad tbh
in general theres been a need for more admins and stuff that are vetted (which tc69 is). ive been offered it myself before but im mostly invested in my trans mutual aid stuff, not hexbear explicitly tbh whereas they need people that are far more focused. carcosas been having to do a lot of work on the site and the thanks they get is being misgendered by a bunch of people and being attacked for being the messenger for a very large group of people that carcosas trying to cover all the comments on and the context is lost.
Did rly suck to see Carcosa be attacked so much in spite of all they do for the site :(
Were people misgendering them? I didn’t see any except one top-level post in the first thread which hopefully is removed now :(
I hate this, removing the tanks was supposed to help the exact type of toxicity that this has now become, and admins, mods, and users are all feeding into it
its impossible to know exactly how everyone is going to take every small change that must be done, and i feel like this is genuinely a really small change.
Well it is pretty obvious from the reaction that it wasn’t
