quick dual announcement

New Communities

we’ve tabulated the easiest part of the survey (other results coming NOW) and we’re pleased to announce that, in the future, we’ll be creating six new communities. these six choices can be stratified as:

most popular, community picks

  • World News
  • AskBeehaw

hand picked, also popular with our community

  • Tabletop Gaming
  • Anime and Manga

hand picked, base exists in our community for it and distinct enough to take a chance on

  • Vegan and Vegetarian[1]
  • Parenting

in the specific case of World News, the [email protected] community will be converted into the “World News” section, and a separate !usnews community will be spun off for US-centric news.

these communities will be created in batches of three. you’ll see WN+US news conversion/AB/TG first, then A&M/V&V/P about a week after that.

as for communities that didn’t make it, these are best fits for now:

Community Moderators

this also means we’re taking on new Community moderators. as with last time: this is not a full time job and we don’t want it to be, but this is also not a completely trivial commitment either, so please only apply if you’re comfortable with making that commitment. (if you think it’s becoming overwhelming or too much for you at a later point, that’s different and we can discuss that then.) our community mods haven’t had many issues though, so i doubt you will either.

What is expected of community moderators?

I’m sure you can surmise, but to be specific:

  • Encourage and promote respectful and constructive discussions, and address any behaviour that goes against our community’s spirit to be(e) nice.
  • Assist people by answering their questions, offering guidance, and helping them navigate the platform effectively, ensuring they feel heard.
  • Where possible, give us and/or your fellow active mods concerns, improvements, or insights you have from your section of our community.
What powers do community moderators have?

You’d be expected to use these responsibly, obviously:

  • The ability to remove or hide posts, comments, or other content that violate our community guidelines.
  • The authority to issue warnings to users who breach our mantra, and in severe cases, temporarily suspend their accounts.

We generally encourage a compassionate approach to moderating, though. Unless someone is clearly unproductive, we encourage you as a mod to engage in constructive dialogue before banning. And if you don’t have the energy for this, you can flag a post to bring it to our (or another mod’s) attention.

Additionally: blatantly misusing these or using them maliciously will be instant grounds for demotion, and in the latter case likely permanent banning from the site. Do not do that, please and thank you.

If I’m selected, how can I report stuff to the admins?

On site, you can flag it and leave it for us to deliberate. You can also reach one of us by DM on here.

If you need to immediately contact us for mod stuff, our main hubs of operation are Discord (where we have a specific channel for community mod reports) and Matrix (which is pretty relaxed and easy to follow). You can also use a DM on Beehaw itself.

How will mods be selected?

Hand selection. In the future we may supplement hand picking mods with another method—any mods selected by that method would most likely serve on a temporary basis (and that would be made clear to them on appointing).

Applications can be made here.[2]

  1. because i’ve already seen moderately concerning posts w/r/t to this: please do not make us regret this community. it is currently this grouping or nothing. ↩︎

  2. we are working on a non-Google platform here but our first alternative failed to materialize today and there are easily half a dozen other things we need to prioritize right now (including the big 0.18 update, which had its timing on here derailed by a crippling bug). we’ll get to an alternative when we do. if you do not want to use the form, DM me and we can arrange something. ↩︎

  • TKilFree@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I might be missing something, but is it the case that we won’t be able to discuss veganism? I’m vegan for ethical reasons so I do get where you’re coming from with this, but I think there might be perspectives you’re not seeing.

    I became vegan something like six years ago and prior to that I was vegetarian for my entire life. I was vegetarian because I had a moral problem with killing things. I became vegan because I eventually ended up actually listening to vegans’ arguments for why dairy etc. aren’t hugely different morally speaking from meat. If you want to create more vegans - and thereby reduce suffering - vegetarians are probably some of the most receptive people to these points, assuming they don’t get alienated.

    Assuming I’m not missing something and it is the case that we’d be able to have friendly discussions with people about why we believe veganism is a better moral choice, I don’t really see what’s so wrong here.

    • cnnrduncan@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yeah I went through basically the same pipeline as you (except I went vegetarian at ~11yo then vegan about 6 years ago) and to me vegetarianism was far more akin to a philosophy than “just” a diet - I just had some cognitive dissonance / wilful ignorance that I used as an excuse to continue eating cheese and eggs!

    • Dominic@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      There’s a real argument to be made that a combined group is better for vegans, because it exposes them to the thought process.