“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and uproot from our land but from our minds as well.” - Frantz Fanon
Hello users of Hexbear, the intent of this announcement is two-fold the first is that we would like to do another community moderator drive, if you have a community idea or want to help an existing one then please send an application either through hexbear or matrix direct message.
The call for new mods is crucial to our efforts to reduce racism and misogyny on the site, we need users to report and enough mods to be able to quickly act on the reports throughout the day and night. Also, CW or content warnings are essential to the safe browsing of Hexbear.
In addition, comments or posts removed for racist or misogyny will also be accompanied by escalating temporary bans. Upvotes will not be the single reason for a ban, however they may be used in conjunction with other posts/comments/upvotes. Consider this post the warning, however, mods are encouraged to reach out to hexbear users before a long duration ban.
The second is to increase transparency with regard to the site while not repeating the mistakes of previous attempts that were ultimately counterproductive, in part due to wreckers.
Previous attempts to increase site transparency and user participation were targeted by wreckers through increasing the intensity and frequency of struggle session drama.
Using matrix’s increased level of user permissions as an anti-wrecking measure while having an increased barrier to sending messages with a clear process to gaining the ability to send messages, we hope to mitigate wrecking attempts.
Leading to the creation of the Hexbear Proposals chapo.chat matrix room.
This will be a place for site proposals and discussion before implementation on the site.
Every proposal will also be mirrored into a pinned post on the hexbear community. Any other ideas for helping to integrate the two spaces are welcome to be commented here or messaged to me directly.
Within Hexbear Proposals you can see the history of all site proposals and react to them, indicating a vote for or against a proposal.
Sending messages will be restricted to verified and active hexbear accounts older than 1 month with their matrix id in their hexbear user profile.
All top level messages within the channel must be a Proposals (idea for changing the site), Feedback (regarding non-technical aspects of the site, for technical please use https://hexbear.net/c/feedback), or Appeals (regarding admin/moderator actions).
Discussion regarding these will be within nested threads under the post.
To gain matrix verification, all you need to do is navigate to my hexbear userprofile and click the send a secure private message including your hexbear username.
In closing, I want to state that this site would not exist without the volunteer labor of the moderators, who I am deeply grateful for.
I would also like to take this moment to remind people that lemmy direct messages are not encrypted, and finally please use this post to discuss these changes, share community ideas, or express interest in moderation.
Application
What is your Hexbear username?
Do you have any preferred pronouns?
What are your thoughts on capitalism?
What are your thoughts on imperialism?
What are your thoughts on trans rights?
What are your thoughts on racial justice?
What do think about current and previous protests around the world?
What are your thoughts on Veganism and Animal Liberation?
Do you have any experience with other leftist online communities?
What did those experiences teach you?
What is your approach to moderation, and how do you work with teams?
How do you deal with online drama and people who try to start things for the sake of it?
What current comms would you be interested in moderating?
Do you have any ideas for community engagement?
What is your general time availability? (Time zone, amounts, common browsing times, etc)
Element information
Element is a messaging app that lets you talk to people over the Matrix protocol.
To get started, check out this link, where you can choose to either download Element for your platform or, if on a computer, open it in a browser.
The instructions that follow are for the desktop application and the web application, but the process is similar on all apps:
Press “Create Account”
We host our own Matrix server, so if you want you can change matrix.org to chapo.chat.
This is completely optional; users who sign up with a matrix.org username can still talk to people with chapo.chat username.
(Note: It is chapo.chat, not hexbear.net. Also, registrations aren’t always open on chapo.chat; if they’re not, just create an account on matrix.org)
Fill in a username and password
Hit register, and you’re done!
We should seriously consider implementing special conduct rules for struggle sessions, to make them less toxic.
The reason most of us hate struggle sessions, the reason so many of us lay low until these things die down, is that struggle sessions are too fast and chaotic to be dialogue. Everyone gets too heated and pressed and defensive to actually listen or reach an understanding, so it turns into people talking past each other, sometimes building up personal resentments that last long after the struggle session ends and have little to do with the original disagreement. If you wade into it, you risk making enemies, and you don’t chance making friends.
Just as spouses should approach conflict constructively because they care about their marriage, hexbears should approach conflict constructively because they care about the site.
If someone can’t do that, they should be kicked out of the struggle session.
Slow down. Listen patiently to each other. Try to understand where the other person is coming from. Acknowledge them as a person. Respond in good faith without attacking. Maybe spend a few minutes collecting your thoughts and processing your emotions before you start typing. The frantic pace and hostile tone of a struggle session put pressure on you to respond fast and become hostile to defend yourself, but when you do that you make the thread even more frantic and hostile, in a runaway feedback loop. It’s a collective phenomenon where no single person has the off switch—and, consequently, no one feels responsible for their behavior.
Which is why we need rules, and a site culture of conflict resolution, to change our behavior on a collective level.
Ideally we would have an actual dedicated thread mode, “slow mode” or “struggle session mode,” which would limit the pace of comments and encourage thoughtful effortposts over whirlwind bickering, but that would require new code, and we would still need civility rules on top of that anyway, so let’s start with the rules.
How embarrassing is it if no one needs to wreck the site because we fucking wreck it ourselves? How bad does that make leftists look? Conflict resolution is a vital anti-wrecker skill, it should be part of leftist culture online and in person. It’s so fucking terminally online and shameful that we can’t work things out like adults.
The new proposal room will have the tools to help slow down the conversation about site change proposals, feedback, and appeals. I agree with you completely and hope that these changes will actualize that.
It’s a great idea, I totally support it, but not all struggle sessions are related to site changes, in fact most have not been, so the matrix alone isn’t enough.
In the coming weeks and months I think we need to talk about how we handle conflict here, and maybe draft some rules and guidelines about it. This would also help with inclusion. We need to work toward a site culture where people are able to listen to criticism from POC, queer, and femme users without getting defensive.
very true and an excellent idea
i would like to see that become a reality