And we shouldn't allow this concept to go unchallenged here on Lemmy.
Commenting on an active post is not brigading
Posting a link to something is not brigading
Commenting on something you were linked to is not brigading
The only thing that might be brigading, but isn't because it isn't a real thing, is someone explicitly going, "Hey everyone, go here and harass this person"
It's all fine and good that we have some new rules to keep the peace with other instances but we must fight against 
I agree that there were a bunch of silly accusations of brigading when we were posting on threads at the top of all. I disagree that posting a link or commenting through a posted link don't count as brigading, especially when it's a specific comment thread.
I realize I'm in the minority but I've always regarded the dunk tank with disdain and the only reason I unblocked it is to keep track of the drama. I don't think it serves any useful purpose, except containing all the posts I don't like to see. I'm here for the good takes, the shitposts, the trans-inclusivity, and yes, the dunks, but only when it's a) ganging up on a wrecker who came here, or b) done on an individual level, when a good faith conversation is impossible.
Every veteran Hexbear has been forged by the fires of a hundred struggle sessions. Not to mention that the point of our rules of engagement are their effectiveness, and we also have the advantage of being right. Our weakest posters should be able to take on their strongest. Piling on with numerical advantage just makes it look like that's the only way we can win. Plus, where's the thrill of the hunt? If it happens organically fine, but I don't respect anyone who doesn't fight their own battles. Though if you're the one getting dogpiled, that's a different story.
The dunk tank has some sort of place, maybe, but recent Hexbear rules is not to dunk_tank on other instances. I think that's a fair compromise.
The new rule is actually not to directly link the dunked content, and not to dunk on mods/admins of other instances (even though they definitely deserve it in many cases)
B-but isn't rule #1 of dunk_tank to link the content? I was just consolidating, dangit.
They've made libs of all of us!
The new rule is literally my 9/11. Let the dunks not discriminate due to place of origin, what are we, a bunch of [insert current minority we're supposed to be mad at here]'s
I don't think that's true, what I saw was you can post stuff from other instances, you just can't link directly to them.
I would love it if all federated lemmy content was banned from the dunk tank, because then I'd feel more comfortable blocking it again. Like I know myself and I'm going to have to constantly hold in the urge to go in and be contrarian, that comm just really brings that out in me. Probably I should just block it anyway. I just can't really defend this place if I don't know what shit-stirring people have been up to.
Why should we care what our culture looks like to others? Most of them are not worth treating with respect or as peers with whom one can have a meaningful conversation. There's no thrill to this. The vast majority of the people we end up tussling with are extremely ignorant. They have nothing new or interesting to say. They don't even really have beliefs or viewpoints most of the time, they're just parroting things they've heard. That's not hunting, that's throwing baseballs at toddlers. They're not arguing with us, they're arguing with half-understood phantasms they couldn't articulate even if they were aware of them. This isn't fun. It's not a challenge. Dogpiling them a hundred deep at least gets them to shut up and log off sometimes.
It was fun for a few days and then I started to remember how profoundly, profoundly ignorant and incurious most liberals are. This is just reddit 2016 all over again, except back then there was at least some novelty in taking the muzzle off. Now the dunks are boring because we're saying the same things to the same liberals who have learned nothing and not changed at all.
Honestly if this is your mentality then I don't get what the point of dunking is at all. Imo, dunking serves two purposes: keeping people on the straight and narrow for good faith discussions, and being fun. If you can't amuse yourself and you can't get people on track, then dunking has become useless and vestigial and should be abandoned altogether.
Personally, I've had tons of fun, like with the bit where I pretended to be shocked about what Hexbears believe and asked someone for "a good source to throw at them." Get better bits.
Imo gaining one comrade is worth any number of libs. We have nothing to fear from libs. There's no reason why they should make us retreat. If we defederate, their ideas will be able to go unchallenged which will allow them to propagate. The fact that most people aren't willing to completely redefine their worldview within a week is hardly surprising.