It's definitely different seeing it here versus seeing it on an instance that has 1/10th the activity.
Sometimes we forget that we're basically the largest instance and also have an incredibly well organized group of posters. Something that can be jarring initially when you're exposed to it, but we really do try to be nice for the most part.
We've also been through the growing pains of having a new instance. We grew from 2000 to 20000 users in like 6 months a few years back and the friction from that nearly broke the site, but after like a year and a half of working through it we've arrived at a very in sync and harmonious group.
Also means we've been exposed to every possible struggle session imaginable and through the type of aggressive effort posting we do managed to arrive at conclusions. Which is another reason we can be overwhelming to new instances.
An interesting side effect of this is a sort of self regulation. I've been moderating several decent sized comms there for a while now and almost never have to deal with moderator actions or reports because the community takes it on themselves to self moderate and do this sort of dog piling on people who come in posting bullshit.
This is my first and only account on hexbear, so haven't been here since the beginning, but have come to love this environment even if I'm still too much of a lurker for the culture. It really felt like finding an online home instead of a subreddit. Seeing only a few of the major struggle sessions, I've come to much better understand socialist principles of communication around contentious issues, even if it's just the terminally online version. I hope some of these federated communities come to understand these principles instead of just blocking it out of their minds like libs are wont to do.
It's definitely different seeing it here versus seeing it on an instance that has 1/10th the activity.
Sometimes we forget that we're basically the largest instance and also have an incredibly well organized group of posters. Something that can be jarring initially when you're exposed to it, but we really do try to be nice for the most part.
We've also been through the growing pains of having a new instance. We grew from 2000 to 20000 users in like 6 months a few years back and the friction from that nearly broke the site, but after like a year and a half of working through it we've arrived at a very in sync and harmonious group.
Also means we've been exposed to every possible struggle session imaginable and through the type of aggressive effort posting we do managed to arrive at conclusions. Which is another reason we can be overwhelming to new instances.
An interesting side effect of this is a sort of self regulation. I've been moderating several decent sized comms there for a while now and almost never have to deal with moderator actions or reports because the community takes it on themselves to self moderate and do this sort of dog piling on people who come in posting bullshit.
This is my first and only account on hexbear, so haven't been here since the beginning, but have come to love this environment even if I'm still too much of a lurker for the culture. It really felt like finding an online home instead of a subreddit. Seeing only a few of the major struggle sessions, I've come to much better understand socialist principles of communication around contentious issues, even if it's just the terminally online version. I hope some of these federated communities come to understand these principles instead of just blocking it out of their minds like libs are wont to do.