“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.

  • ShareThatBread [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    12 days ago

    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?

    • CoolerOpposide [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      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

      • HarryLime [any]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        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.

      • ShareThatBread [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        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”

        • ratboy [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          12 days ago

          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.

          • dustbunnies [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            11 days ago

            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.

            • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              11 days ago

              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

            • ratboy [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              11 days ago

              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 cuddle

    • Blockocheese [any]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      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

      • ShareThatBread [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        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:

        • Blockocheese [any]@hexbear.net
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          12 days ago

          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

    • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      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.

      • chair [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        its impossible to know exactly how everyone is going to take every small change that must be done

        Have you tried asking them

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          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

          • ShareThatBread [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            12 days ago

            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”

          • crosswind [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            11 days ago

            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.

      • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        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

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          12 days ago

          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

          • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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            11 days ago

            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, 07 see you on the other side if I get banned for this lol

            Edit 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

            • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              11 days ago

              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.

              • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                11 days ago

                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 kitty-birthday-sad

      • ShareThatBread [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        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