During the brief time DroneRights was active on the site, DroneRights was treated, by default, in bad faith and as a wrecker, even by moderators. Very first post made by DroneRights, (where it references its experiences as someone with NPD) First comment responding tells it to “fuck off” and that narcissist is not a slur. DroneRights defended how it feels narcissist is a slur, and then the next comment was “I have literally never heard or seen it used that way. Edit: new account, good troll” A statement that Thus begins the saga of DroneRights, and the half of the userbase that treats it like a troll that couldn’t possibly be real because what it talks about is nothing the users here have ever heard about. And just to be clear, ableist slurs are commonplace on this site. Incredibly common everyday words, phrases, and most intelligence or sanity-based insults come from medical words for disabilities. I would imagine a lot of users would be upset if ND users started insisting, we never used words like “stupid”, because they are so commonplace. But if someone with NPD tells you that using Narcissism as an insult is hurtful and dehumanizes those who have NPD, then don’t speak over them.

Now, DroneRights is an interesting user. I, like most of you, did not know much about anything DroneRights talked about in its posts. From how I see it, DroneRights has been ridiculed for its beliefs, its disabilities, and its gender since it started being open about its gender online. It tried talking about its experiences with neurodiversity and its gender on several instances before posting on hexbear at all, making a new account after being doxxed on its old one. Every instance treated DroneRights in bad faith, invalidated and belittled it, and it comes to hexbear where “we love our trans neurodivergent comrades!!” and it instantly gets treated like someone so unfamiliar and so unbelievable that DroneRights couldn’t possibly be real or valid.

This is the shit we have a thousand dunk tank threads about. Libs saying hexbear users are bots, or not really trans, or paid shills, anything they can say instead of doing some self-crit or considering the experiences of other people. Except now we are doing it, while claiming to be a welcoming, shining beacon of inclusivity. Now, even if you wrongly think DroneRights could not possibly be genuine in the posts it made, I would briefly like if the readers of this post looked at DroneRights post history for a moment, and interpret its posts giving the benefit of the doubt that should be given to someone with NPD, autism, a lack of communication skills, who does not fully understand left wing politics like you might. Take how it interprets its gender seriously, without assuming it is a troll. And look at how users on this site respond to what it says.

https://hexbear.net/u/DroneRights?page=1&sort=Old&view=Overview

Okay, assuming you looked for a little over 5 minutes, you have probably seen some hurtful exclusionary shit said to DroneRights out of bad faith assumptions. The mod log is similarly bad, if you believe that ND users shouldn’t be seen instantly as trolls or worthy of being banned for a couple bad takes, or for communication problems. These takes are entirely understandable for DroneRights to have, given how it views itself as a non-person. Especially noteworthy, is how DroneRights post got removed and bad faith comments were made towards it (initially, got restored later) in the dedicated comm for neurodiversity, with rules dedicated to not making bad faith assumptions about other peoples experiences. In The rest of the site without those rules, it faced constant ridicule and mistreatment. Saying DroneRights had “bad, wrecker vibes” without attempting to understand DroneRights is ableist, and so is labeling DroneRights as a wrecker when its actions could easily be interpreted as a good faith ND user who isn’t quite as aware of Marxist theory unlike other users. Even if for some reason some bad faith troll decided to learn and lie about the experiences DroneRights has had with its gender and how its NPD has changed how it views itself, the normal standards of engagement on this site should not be one where ND users, and users in general should be invalidated like that. Now, the problem of ableism and bad faith assumptions about posts is a very complicated one. Let me first address our site culture of struggle sessions, hostility, and bad faith assumptions. Threads frequently devolve into arguments and dogpiling, often on established users who make comments or posts with no intention of rudeness. The solution to this problem of hostility by hexbear? Don’t talk about it. If drama is brought up, even if its very important or relevant to the site, it is removed. There used to be containment comms in UserUnion and c/Strugglesession. They got removed about three months ago. I never heard about any new place to talk about the site, the code of conduct still tells users to post at userunion, so unless a user looks a little harder and tries to find whatever comm “meta” posts are allowed in, criticism looks purposefully ignored. A cool soviet propaganda poster once said, “Kill it at the Root.” Most struggle sessions either wouldn’t have happened, or been a lot less toxic, if there were sitewide rules saying that “if a user posts something that seems unintentionally harmful or reactionary, ask them what they meant by that comment. Don’t immediately go on the attack. Behave in good faith, and don’t assume the worst from posters by default “

Now, this potential solution obviously increases moderator workload and would make genuine ill-intentioned trolls harder to get rid of, but compared to previous moderation policies, if implemented properly, it would give many users the safe, welcoming space they desire from the site. Now, Hexbear itself has had a rocky start, with issues of inclusivity and toxicity since the beginning. The solution for the past few years? Ban anyone you can label as a liberal! I don’t really have an issue with the initial ban of those labeled transphobic. Were some well-intentioned ND users banned in the process? Probably. But the site is much better without blatant transphobia. The issue is that the policy of banning on the pretenses of “seems like a liberal” or “has a take I don’t agree with” is really only fitting on clear, black and white issues like trans rights. Now, admittedly, a lot of left wing issues are black and white, but not all of them are, and having a bad take on an issue or believing in common misconceptions doesn’t mean a user is malicious or harmful, and the policy of banning “sus” accounts over not having all the facts or not communicating properly is actively communicating that the policy is: that it is ok to ban ND users regularly and make it so those who don’t get banned are constantly worried about it, as long as it gets rid of liberals. When you say “Embrace TC69 thought” what you are advocating for is sacrificing good faith users and the ND community so that liberals are banned quicker. Of course, I’m not the first person to criticize the site on this. Two or so years ago, the site had a lively and welcoming Neurodiverse mod team dedicated to making their comm a great place for ND users to talk, but with the site’s constant hostility, struggle sessions, ND users often got unjustly banned outside of the comm, and those who did not felt like they could be banned at any moment without understanding what they did wrong. When ND users and the mod team representing them asked for users to be unbanned or for site policy to change to be more inclusive to ND users, they were frequently not being listened to. After around a year of moderating and advocating for ND users, (often with no results), an incident where a well-known user made an “I’m leaving post” targeted at an ND user who criticized them. The user was immediately banned, the ND mod team had to fight hard to convince the mod team that they didn’t deserve to be immediately banned for a tiny incident that was not intended to be hurtful, and after convincing the mods to unban the user, they were promptly re-banned by another site mod with no explanation given, and the consequences of that event and the feelings of mistreatment by the mod team prior in combination with that, led to most of the ND team leaving the site completely. The comm has seemingly had little to no leadership since in the past 2 years, and this important history of the site is largely forgotten about.

ND users need a voice, and ableism needs to be discussed and acknowledged to be a problem in this community. Discussion on ableism or ND inclusivity on the Neurodiverse comm should not be removed, especially if the conversation is civil.

[@[email protected]](https://hexbear.net/u/Egon

Has expressed a desire for tone indicators like /s to be normalized and encouraged on the site, which I would agree with. Having /s and other tone indicators would help users with interpreting comments in they way they are intended, and /s being from reddit is not a good enough reason to not use it.

As for what I want to see from the site to be more inclusive to ND users, rules such as ““if a user posts something that seems unintentionally harmful or reactionary, ask them what they meant by that comment. Don’t immediately go on the attack. Behave in good faith, and don’t assume the worst from posters by default “and “do not talk over ND comrades about things you have not experienced” are rules I would want to be enforced site wide.

The most important thing is to acknowledge these issues in our community and address them. Inclusivity of ND comrades should be just as important as other issues the site makes a priority. If one of the main concerns with our site is losing the safe space that hexbear has.

    • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I cut it a lot of slack in my first interactions because I’ve worked with people with NPD and can totally appreciate not just using it as an insult, particularly if it’s something people are working on.

      It was completely correct get banned for saying all of the above, for all of the understanding that it was asking from others, it didn’t seem engaged in doing the same for them.

      • Anarchist [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        for all of the understanding that it was asking from others, it didn’t seem engaged in doing the same for them.

        This is core regardless of whether it was a troll, yeah.

        • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I think we need that fixed line, individual circumstances should be taken on a case by case basis but with a firm no bigotry stance.

          Completely agree, there’s a limit to understanding, and it has to be when behaviors begin to negatively affect others. If someone can’t pick up on that and correct the behavior it requires a ban.

          I wasn’t following particularly closely either, and given the context 100% deserved.

    • Anarchist [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Thank you for reposting this. I wish OP had only made a single post here. Making multiple posts made it very difficult for me to track as an ND person.

    • BadTakesHaver [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netOP
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      1 year ago

      Tbh dronerights was banned for posting some things that had nothing to do with it being ND:

      enbyphobic

      " “They” is a non gendering pronoun. If you use they/them, you’ll never misgender anyone, but you’ll also never gender anyone correctly either. Some people are okay with not being gendered and some people aren’t. You should respect their wishes once you’ve heard them, but I don’t believe you have any obligation to check them in advance"

      As I have said in other comments, I don’t think I would be a great judge of what is or is not Enby/Transphobic. If Users want to make judgements on DroneRights response to that claim, it talked about that in a post here https://hexbear.net/post/533767 that was deleted before anyone could respond to DroneRights or ask for clarification about what it meant, and I would ask that users please not respond with the assumption that DroneRights is guaranteed to be a troll, when it is possible that it is not faking being xenogender or ND.

      racist

      To anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with China, this is laughable because “Han” is less of an ethnicity than it is an umbrella term for a melting pot of ethnic groups. At the time white supremacy was invented, whiteness was a melting pot of ethnic groups. White supremacy itself was instrumental in getting all the European races in the Americas to gang up on brown and black. And the “white” people in the Balkans still haven’t got the memo that they’re actually the same race

      https://hexbear.net/comment/3913462 On the cross posted version of this post where this comment was also mirrored from the ND comm, there was confusion on if this comment was even racist, or if the comment was intended to be racist. @[email protected]’s comment in that comment thread claimed, “I don’t know if that’s racist, per se, but it’s reductive and needlessly provocative. Why tolerate it?” My response is that changing policies to encourage or require asking for clarification from “sus” comments before removing them or instantly labeling someone as reactionary without knowing what they intended is a worthwhile effort, if one of the goals of the site is to be a welcoming space for ND users and a welcoming space in general.

      If users and moderators believe that no policy change is necessary because giving users the chance to explain themselves or asking for clarification makes it harder to moderate, or isn’t compatible with our site culture of aggressively dunking on people instantly, then address the response that not changing or addressing these policies is saying to ND users “It’s okay to not keep your community in mind, because embracing “TC69 thought” and getting rid of and ridiculing lib’s as fast and efficiently as possible is worth it.”

      reactionary

      “The world has enough humanity in it. That’s how climate change started”

      This comment obviously looks horrible out of context. But if DroneRights deserves to be labeled as an EcoFash, then ask it what it meant before calling DroneRights an EcoFash. DroneRights post history does not imply that is what it is intentionally advocating for, unless assumed in bad faith to just be a fake impersonation of a xenogender ND user. https://hexbear.net/comment/3830263 As I interpret the comment, DroneRights is angry at Neurotypicals and the concept of “humanity” because it feels it is treated as less than a person because of their NPD. https://hexbear.net/comment/3836070

      Was DroneRights banned for these specific removed comments, their entire post history, toxicity, or just “wrecker vibes”? If DroneRights was treated in good faith by default, and asked to clarify what they said on any “wrecker vibes” comments, would they still have been banned, and does intention matter in these cases and others like them? Its worth discussing.

      Maybe I’m just misguided myself, and DroneRights was a just malicious, bad faith, transphobic wrecker the entire time and there’s no way I could be right, and I’m making a complete fool of myself.

      But can we, for the sake of ND users, consider the possibility that DroneRights is infact who it says it is, and ask ourselves if our site policies and culture of assuming bad faith without asking for clarification is hurtful, and if it should be improved if it is so.

      The post is not just “was DroneRights a malicious troll or not”. or “We should unban DroneRights”. It is discussing how our site policies and culture of bad faith assumptions deserves criticism and can be harmful. Is DroneRights a 1 to 1 flawless example of how our culture policies can exclude people? No, but DroneRights is an example, and criticism of our site policies and how users act on this site is not made invalid by the argument that DroneRights was an “obvious” troll or that users believe DroneRights specifically deserved how they were treated.

      sidenote: this comment is not aimed at you specifically, and just incase my comment might imply that i want to clarify it is not my intention.

      • HodgePodge [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        But can we, for the sake of ND users, consider the possibility that DroneRights is infact who it says it is

        as an autistic trans woman I do not want anyone taking a transphobic and enbyphobic troll at face-value on my behalf. thanks but no thanks.

        regardless it was banned for being transphobic. the response post you linked to is talking about something entirely offtopic from what got DroneRights banned.

      • EnsignRedshirt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        My response is that changing policies to encourage or require asking for clarification from “sus” comments before removing them or instantly labeling someone as reactionary without knowing what they intended is a worthwhile effort, if one of the goals of the site is to be a welcoming space for ND users and a welcoming space in general.

        I just want to say that I agree entirely that asking for clarification and trying to establish intent should be the first step if someone says something inappropriate. My point was that regardless of intended meaning, inappropriate comments don’t need to be tolerated, period. That doesn’t mean “ban everyone who ever says anything remotely problematic” it means that even if someone is clearly acting in good faith, bad behavior still can’t be ignored.