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.
EDIT/UPDATE: It’s clear that this is a lost cause, so I’m out.
Oh boy, so much to say
There’s still an unresolved contradiction between “this is just a shitposting site” and “this is a place where comrades are serious and feel safe, etc.” The worst part is that both these statements are used almost arbitrarily in a weaponized way. What I mean is, if someone raises a concern (but that concern doesn’t really strike the mods/power posters as important), then they’ll be dismissed with the “tHiS iS jUsT a ShItPoStInG obscure internet forum, dID YoU rEaLlY eXPecT a SeRIOuS DiSCUssION hurrrr durrrr.” But on the other hand, if it’s a topic that the mods/power posters are personally interested in dealing with, then all of a sudden it becomes “all hands on deck! this is Defcon 9000! We need to make sure we have a huge struggle session!” It’s a weird Motte and Bailey that’s used to basically gaslight people to only care about certain concerns over others. Very harmful.
Which is sort of tied with the next thing:
There are soooo many low-effort posts that it is ACTUALLY HARMFUL TO COMRADES. What do I mean by this? I mean that there are so many posts that it drowns out actual mutual aid posts for comrades either in the West and sadly, those who ask for help in Gaza. It also drowns out good discussions and insteads puts another “BIT IDEA: what if I stick a pineapple up my ass and then shit it out? Would I get a chocolate bloody mary pina colada?!? BEANIS BEANIS BEANIS” at the top of the feed. I’d be willing to bet that most people aren’t logged in when they browse the site. I’m certainly not gonna log in from my phone if I’m away from a computer (for obvious op-sec reasons) so no, I can’t just “disable those communities.”
Which is connected to my next point:
You know who I’m talking about, the KochHandLieutenants, DustVultures, etc. The power posters that sometimes post MULTIPLE THREADS PER DAY. And honestly, most of them are the low effort types of topics I posted about above in #2. I can’t help but think that they are suffering from some kind of social media “like” dopamine hit addiction and every time they post and get responses the cycle continues. And often these posts are super low effort beanis posts or posts about literal shit/farts. Or sometimes they are weird nostalgia-bait posts that are super specific: elder-millenials that are in a mid-life crisis and are looking for somebody to commiserate with. E.g. “Hey remember 2D Sonic from the 90s? GEX GEX GEX! (member berries, member berries, member berries) I’m living in the past as a way to cope and I’m using the hexbear community as my own personal therapy session!!” I get it, therapy is expensive, but this is not a place to get your dopamine hits and drown out mutual aid posts (which I have noticed an uptick of recently, indicating that people are really suffering out there). Also think about how this looks and reflects on us. There was a recent influx of BlueSky people and others. Do we really want to tell them “hey this is a great community, just ignore all those posts about farting in a car and how hot-boxing it is a great bit idea!” I think I’ve said enough about this particular topic.
For now that’s what I got off the top of my head. Others have already hit on things like arbitrary moderation so I won’t repeat it. If there’s anything else that comes to mind I’ll post it below.
I would like to upbear you for point #1, but then the rest of your post happened. I agree on hiding some comms by default could be a good idea. The rest is just pure armchair psychology and quite frankly very lacking of empathy. Yeah some users do use this site as a surrogate for a community, but they’ve got their reasons. I know I had.
I’m sorry, but I’ve got drugs to do and marvelslop to shit on 
It’s also kind of an odd critique because you know you can just block comms, right? You don’t have to see any posts from chat or neurodiverse or disabled or any of the other comms with posts that annoy you. It seems like you’re also annoyed by the general concept of people not building communism all the time
The ironic thing is I actually agree that some of those comms should be hidden by default, but you honestly could have done without the passive aggressive psychoanalysis. We get it, fun isn’t cool and interests have a use by date. Throw away old and consume new thing now. I … don’t exactly know what you were trying to say other than to be dick about other peoples harmless interests. Honestly just comes across as ageist and maybe even a little ableist.
From what I understand you want Hexbear to be the Mutual Aid comm only, which is odd, because it’s never been just that. I like the Mutual Aid comm, I think it’s something Hexbear should be proud of, but we have many comms. I for one would like to see more effort posts, but I’m not about to get shitty with people just because they’re not posting the way I want. Also I don’t think a completely serious atmosphere would actually bring more people in. The slop comm in particular is an odd thing to hide because dunking on reactionaries brings people in.
Like I said, I actually agree that the badposting comm should be hidden by default. But also by the looks of the edit you left at the first sign of push back so maybe you weren’t really invested to begin with.
You can tag me in your post if you’re mad at me you know, beating around the bush like this just seems cowardly. Anyway sorry you’re mad at me but I’m not going to stop posting, so just go ahead and block me (which you could have done literally anytime).
I’m catching strays from like 2 years ago
I’m sorry, but what you’re basically saying here is that a problem with the site are the posts that annoy you, personally.
The code of conduct should be replaced with a hotline to me where I can be asked wether or not I vibe with a certain post and if I don’t - straight to jail
Which is wild because they can block people on their account if they feel so strongly about it.
The whole “badposting and fake news actively harms comrades” posting is exactly what I think people need to stop. “I don’t understand this or don’t want to participate in this” is a far cry from “this is systemically harmful or reactionary.” You have the tools to hide the content so hide it. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s actively harmful and trying to conflate the two just minimizes the impact of actually harmful content. Just because you personally don’t understand it or don’t want to participate in it doesn’t make it bad content any more than any other content folks don’t want to participate in. Would you say the same about games, or movies, or furry, or vegan, or anything else you may or may not participate in? Of course not. The community can be for many things and folks can subscribe to things they like and block things they don’t. That’s how communities like this work.
I personally have blocked fake news. It doesn’t harm me by existing I just don’t like it so I don’t participate in it. It’s that simple
I feel like this needs to be emphasized more. We have the tools to curate our experience on the site now. You can hide posts, you can block comms, you can block users. I also blocked the fakenews comm, but I’m not demanding it be hidden or banned because after a certain point, I think it becomes selfish of me to demand the site cater to my experience and preferences.
GOOD post
Actually I think it’s more like “I don’t understand how someone could see this as harmful because I CERTAINLY DON’T so let’s keep the harmful stuff.” That’s what you sound like tbh. You fail to see how it is harmful and you’re projecting that on others and essentially gaslighting them by telling them that their concerns aren’t valid. Actually kinda toxic tbh.
Okay, so let’s take it seriously. How is shit posting reactionary and actively harmful to comrades in the same way an ism or a phobia would be? Explain. I’m willing to be wrong.
I didn’t say it’s reactionary, for one. But anyways, I literally explained it, it drowns out serious things like mutual aid. It will also discourage anyone from posting about mutual aid because they might have been drowned out by these posts in the past. They will see how their mutual aid request gets barely any traction while a “hey pooop shit fart beanis” post gets proportionally way more likes/upvotes/traffic. They might wonder if this really is a good place to seek help. Any potential comrades might be dissuaded by the literal shit in this posts. And on and on.
You literally didn’t, at least not sufficiently, which is why you were asked more about it. “Serious things” like mutual aid (the only serious thing on this site, everything else is pure posting) only function because the site gets enough traffic to support it. People go here because it brings them some sort of positive emotion, and a big part of that is building a community, which requires the ability to be casual. Seeing as how you’re very serious, I can assume you do some sort of political organising, so you should be aware of this. Demanding everything to be serious all the time only makes things less effective.
A counterpoint is that people come to the site because it makes them laugh. If those posts didn’t exist the site overall would have far less traffic, the posts from people needing help would have far less eyes on them, and the people making them would get less help.
Is that different from any other type of content, like gaming content, or food content, or movie content?
Yeah because they like that content
2 and 3 are fake problems not real. respectfully you sound like you just want to complain about stuff. posting about sonic is fine i think?
I wasn’t even alive when 2D Sonic was a thing. I’m just autistic.
I promise you a login to lemmy is not gonna be the things that connects your phone ownership to you personally. just log in and block people/comms you don’t like.
This you? Who I caught using multiple sock puppets to vote manipulate and have conversations with yourself to reinforce your views? Awfully similar username you got there.
Also the account is only a few months old, but has a comment dabbing on someone for being on Hexbear less than a year. Also has suspicious incel sympathizing. Also I might just be pissing and shitting myself that someone doesn’t enjoy beanis posting.
I figured they were just a wrecker. Also while I have the floor, can I comment on how being called a “power poster” is pretty hurtful and insulting? Because it is. I don’t think myself better than anyone on here at all, far fucking from it, I consider you all my friends that I can bullshit around with and also discuss stuff with. Labeling people as a “power poster” feels like it others them and excludes them from the rest of the site and it’s not fair.
So weird to get subposted like that lol I didn’t even read their full post till now cause as soon as I saw the username I knew who it was. Definitely a wrecker just here to stir shit.
Yeah power poster is a bad term. When I have a low workload I’m posting to pass the time. For many this is their only sense of community. I don’t fault anyone for how often they post.
It literally takes half a second to post lmao
We love you here buddy, I for one appreciate your posting <3
Appreciate it. I just want people to know I’m literally no better than anyone else on this site, even if I post a lot.
Nonono, don’t you get it? The things we like are old and we should feel bad. It’s much more healthy to obsess over a site we hate and continuously try and fail to wreck it.
I saved them the hassle and just blocked them. Wrecker ass.
Yeah, fuck that noise.
If anyone wants a full list of the evidence that proves this user sock puppets and is thus untrustworthy and quite possibly a wrecker just lmk
I nor the mod team are at the place of giving up on trying to resolve the contradiction without ceding to one side or the other as i would encourage anyone who doesn’t like the shitposting side to make a lemmygrad account.
We have in the code of conduct that we are not a mental health service, but I think that a safe space to open up about the silly, non-serious sides of ourselves is a healthy thing, besides if you don’t like it you can block the community or use the subscribed view this allows people to see what hexbear is about at first look and then curate to their tastes if need be.
I’m not going to chastise people for posting too much, as with the community block you have the ability to engage with the users you want to, as for what new users see i mean it says on the tin we are: “A leftist social platform centred around community building through discussion, shitposting memes, and sharing content.”
badposting and power-posters are a part of the site culture and I personally would rather keep that than give that up for the sake of more people, lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml are excellent instances that offer a more serious / less shitposty vibe while still being a member of the tankie triad.
I would say based on the popularity of badposting that most people on the site would disagree but I’m open to being wrong.
So I already explained what should be done (make those comms invisible by default, i.e. make them op-in) and I explained why this must be done: because it causes direct harm to comrades looking for mutual aid by drowning out their posts. AND THE MUTUAL AID COMM IS ON HEXBEAR, NOT LEMMYGRAD FFS. If the mods can take certain stances on certain topics, for ex luigi lionizing, then they can certainly take a stand on dumb shit like these low effort comms.
Again I explained that many, possibly most, people who browse the site are not logged in and thus are forced to see this shit (sometimes posts about literal shit). Did you actually read what I wrote?
Also the whole “actually iF YoU reAD the COde of ConDUCT” thing reminds me of how libs would defend Biden/Kamala by saying “actually if you read the policy proposal on the web site you would see that they are very committed to XYZ.” In other words, please don’t insult us with this cop out “if you read the manual” answer. Who reads that? Please think about this seriously and don’t use the lib “read the fine print” shit. It’s insulting.
And if this site culture actually does harm? As I explained before? I surely can’t think of other times the “culture” of a place hasn’t harmed ppl (/s). You literally posted this thread as a meta to air grievances, and when I pointed out that some of them are basically hand-waved away, you then proceeded to do exactly that. SMH.
Yeah I mean McDonald’s, right wing podcasts, and a whole slew of toxic shit is “popular” so it disappoints me to see this being used as a justification. And I know for a fact that the mods will shut down “popular” discussion if it goes against what they believe in (again look at the luigi struggle session)
I must say I’m disappointed by your response. It seems like the mods and power posters are indeed one big clique and if you’re not in it, then you’re an outsider who has to justify their grievances (only to be shit on). Sad indeed.
Federation mostly covers that problem though
Badposting is not comparable to fit and fresh lmao
On #1 the problem that I see is that the userbase does not agree on what the site should be, and admins, from what I’ve seen mostly don’t feel comfortable making that decision for us except where there’s an additional clear overriding purpose behind the decision (ie getting rid of the dunk tank). I don’t see a ton of users pulling either of these cards, though it has happened more in the past. And “when users care about something it is treated as a bigger deal on the site than when they don’t” isn’t the own you think it is. There isn’t a cabal of mods and powerposters that determines what gets talked about here, besides literally just enforcing a relatively minimal set of rules, its just organic interaction. Is there a specific actionable policy change (or several) the admins could make to fix this issue?
On #2, again, they aren’t “drowning out” other posts just because there’s sometimes a lot of them, they also have to get upvotes and comments to be featured, and they all decay in the rankings in the same way, it’s all going through the same simplistic sort algorithm. This case could be made about any of our posts not just the most frivolous ones. Don’t post or upvote or comment on anything even remotely unserious, because other things are more important? Is that the kind of site we want to be, or what brought people here? I agree mutual aid is important, as are a lot of other serious topics, but banning silliness won’t work and won’t make the site better. Maybe you could do a rate limit on new posts to prevent outright spam, but beyond that I don’t see this as being helpful. I don’t know what “obvious op-sec reasons” you have for not signing in, especially as you can trivially use a throwaway account just for mobile if you like (and other opsec concerns are almost all shared whether you log in or just browse), but overall this ask just seems like a personal preference thing, and we’ve moved away from hidden comms because it just ends up making them wastelands and ostracizing the people who wanted them in the first place (ie c/furry used to be hidden). If we want mutual aid posts to be boosted or pinned by default, we could do that, but those aren’t the core aim of the site, despite being very important. In fact the Gaza fundraisers have been pinned lately sitewide, which is far more effective than “hide posts I don’t like”.
On #3, don’t you think it’s cruel to call out specific people for having an “addiction” in your words, and using the site to cope? I guess you’re just built different, but a lot of people here are struggling or have been, and while there is a standard of behavior that we should all be held to, having hobbies and interests and senses of humor that you don’t share isn’t against the rules and shouldn’t be, no matter what bluesky people think of it, and neither is commiserating or nostalgiaposting, which you needlessly pathologize. Again, if we can set a standard of how many posts is too many in a given time period, fine, but banning content that does no harm and in fact gets engagement from other users, goes too far for no benefit.
Yes I already suggested it in my original comment: make those low effort comms invisible by default (i.e. opt-in) so that people who are just lurking/logged out/newcomers don’t get bombarded by them.
They are, they absolutely are. This didn’t happen a year ago, or two years ago. The number of super low effort “shit” posts has absolutely increased. And making it a “personal responsibility” thing by saying “just don’t upvote” is very patronizing. We don’t tolerate that when it comes to racist/misogynist/etc. stuff by saying “just ignore that stuff don’t upvote it.” That’s some reddit shit.
I’m just calling it as I see it. I’ve seen users describe other users as XYZ/whatever based on their comments so why am I not allowed that same right?
Because those things are actually harmful. The point isn’t “its your responsibility not to upvote them” it’s “the upvotes show that other users actually do enjoy them”. It’s the opposite, it’s nobody’s responsibility to cater their posting or upvoting to you.
This is some actual reddit shit. I’m not saying you don’t have the right, I’m not a mod, whatever, it’s just a shitty thing to do.
Edit: also your suggested change does not resolve the contradicition between trying to be Serious Leftists and a shitposting site. it just hides some of the shitpost genres that you don’t like, it’s almost unrelated
I’m never going to stop beanisposting but I agree that those type of comms should be hidden by default