Hello users of Hexbear, there have been many changes and some drama the past few months.
The recent changes we’ve been making have been an attempt to create a more safe and welcoming environment for many demographics that have been overlooked in the past.
For any of our comrades that have been unintentionally hurt in this process, we apologise and hope to find a solution that accommodates as many people as possible while still meeting the needs of the marginalised groups who need a space like this the most.
The intent of this post is to provide a space for all users to air grievances with regard to the site. As well as provide suggestions for specific things that could be changed to address your grievance. Comments insulting the mod team or those without a specific means to address your problem may be removed. No commenter will be sitebanned, unless it clearly breaks the code of conduct.
I like the general thread so I can just post personal stuff and random comments that I dont deserve their own post, and engage with other people’s, like a chatroom. But more recently I noticed so so many more megathreads and it’s kinda overwhelming to me. Think it would be good to have more self contained posts for more robust discussion and diversity in content for sure. And this could maybe solve that issue of hexbear being a serious educational site vs a comfy shitposting site, more serious discussion can be separated into posts instead of buried in Megas with little engagement bc it’s easy to gloss over thoughtful subjects brought up in comments. Idk about the cliqueishness though, do yall mean like people kinda just “sticking to their own”, or the shit talking I see in some of those community megas?
Yeah it’s both, but also I don’t think that’s a problem in-and-of-itself? Like, I get it, sometimes we all need to vent after dealing with whatever particular set of brainworms set us off and it’s nice to commiserate with like-minded people. It’s just that I think it has contributed to developing an “us vs them” attitude that then kinda exacerbates whatever struggle session we’re having at the time?
(And to be clear I don’t have any problem with people using the mega’s like a microblog or chatroom)
Like, what happens when someone of a certain marginalized identity has a disagreement about something with someone of a different marginalized identity? Instead of trying to hash things out, it seems to me that we’ve been kinda quick to jump the gun straight to assuming the worst intentions of each other, when there’s more common ground to work with here than not. (Also, don’t get me wrong, just because someone might be from a marginalized identity it doesn’t mean they can’t carry harmful/reactionary brainworms). But then because we’re all split up into our own lanes we don’t actually try to address the problem and solve it long term, we just withdraw into our silos? If that makes sense. I hope this community level push to extend the benefit of the doubt is enough of a start, but it’s pretty clear to me that hexbear still has a lot of work to do on intersectionality
(but also, like, this shit is HARD to do in real life as well so… I don’t want to harp too much on something I don’t have a ready solution for either)
Ah got it, that makes sense. It’s gotta be hard since it’s an internet forum too. It’s much easier to be a dickhead and reactionary behind an anonymous username and super easy to take things out of context. There are also SO SO many people with different perspectives and walks of life interacting on here that would otherwise never engage eachother irl so I think it does take a certain level of emotional labor on everyone’s part to keep it a welcoming, healthy place to be. I see that as important work, like even though it’s “just a website”, trying to exercise those empathy and interpersonal communication skills could probably serve people in the real world, too. Obvs people coming from places of more privilege especially need to check themselves but all of us are capable of being shitty, as you said, and I can see the echo chambery-ness perpetuating bitterness