Hello users of Hexbear, we wanted to inform you that we are going to be locking the_dunk_tank and dredge_tank communities. We have created two new communities /c/gossip and /c/counterpropaganda to serve a similar but clearly distinct purpose than the dunk/dredge tanks.
Not only is the dunk tank a term that has racist origins, but also many posts there were almost no effort and often times requiring later edits to show how they weren't reactionary, not useful with regard to developing rhetoric and furthering dialectical analysis of that which we dunk upon.
To that end, we wish posts of reactionaries to be placed in !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net along with an accompanying explanation (as simple or complex as desired) with the intent of countering the reactionary propaganda in the post body, as of now comments are not subject to the same rhetorical rigor rule.
For the posts that are not "low-hanging fruit' of notable people we ask that you use !gossip@hexbear.net .
These changes are mainly part of a continued effort to remove the racist and misogynistic elements from our community and grow.
Any moderators of the dunk tank or dredge tank that want to be a mod in the new communities let me know.
Any users with questions or comments please use this post, this change was made at the behest of the entire Hexbear mod and admin team. We will be looking for more moderators in an organized volunteer drive shortly, if you wish to submit an application you may send it to me via hexbear or matrix direct messages.
Use this post as a place for discussion to these changes. We will keep things as they are for 2 weeks and then reflect on the feedback, including this post: https://hexbear.net/post/3858346
As a personal addendum I am sorry if the closing of the tanks these changes removes a beloved space on the site and if you want to suggest a community to replace them you may do so at !commrequest@hexbear.net or submit a mod application to take a more active role in shaping the site.
Sitewide or community changes come from proposals put forth from the mod team, discussed, and voted on by the mod team.
Any users wanting to suggest a community to replace the tanks, may do so at !commrequest@hexbear.net current discussion is here https://hexbear.net/post/3858346 or submit a mod application to take a more active role in shaping the site.
You may also consider using !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml as a substitute for dunk/dredge tank posts as well
The mod statement can be found here: https://hexbear.net/comment/5613033
Application
What is your Hexbear username? Do you have any preferred pronouns? What are your thoughts on capitalism? What are your thoughts on imperialism? What are your thoughts on trans rights? What are your thoughts on racial justice? What do think about current and previous protests around the world? What are your thoughts on Veganism and Animal Liberation? Do you have any experience with other leftist online communities? What did those experiences teach you? What is your approach to moderation, and how do you work with teams? How do you deal with online drama and people who try to start things for the sake of it? What current comms would you be interested in moderating? Do you have any ideas for community engagement? What is your general time availability? (Time zone, amounts, common browsing times, etc)
Not well thought out change, not well thought out names, 1/10. How are posts about disphits opinions gossip? We don't post counterpropaganda for a simple reason we defedded with anyone who might find it counter.
Did you become unburdened by what has been together with dnc or some shit?
Guess i could post anticommie propaganda into counterpropaganda comm
fr if we wanted to be a revolutionary consciousness-spreading organization then we probably shouldn't have done that lol
Like, if the mods want to make counterpropaganda and raise revolutionary consciousness then the thing to do is to join a damn party. Hexbear is not a political party, it's a shitposting website.
Especially because we specifically defederated from a bunch of people with the reasoning that the chance to interact with people outside the community wasn't worth exposing people to all the bad faith dumbasses, which I'm pretty sure is why the dunk tank was created originally.
So we've defeded from everybody that doesn't already align with us but also all posts have to be high effort to spread communism and grow the movement or something.
I think you're overestimating how many people want to use a website to write essays about why they agree with everything everybody else said.
Tbh whether the site is a cozy safe space or if it's supposed to be the starting point of a vanguard party has been an issue which feels like it has been intentionally glossed over ever since federation
I thought with all the defederations we'd pretty much settled on Cozy.
So much this. I do plenty of irl shit, to the point of activist burnout, and it’s fun to come here as one of the only (somewhat…) sane places in the internet where I can chat with other commies.
Not to say I don’t mind serious posts about theory, history, and news - education is good, but the website itself is not activism. I can’t stress this enough people. Posting on an extremely niche website for a couple of hundred other commies is not a political act.
At least one of the mods of the dunk tank seems to disagree with you lol: His comments in the thread and his attitude about the dunk tank and his vibe towards those that liked it gives me a bit of a better idea of what the whole line of thought was for shutting down the comms
Kamala's campaign just ended, and now we get this. Coincidence?
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Most comms defedded from us first. I think the only ones we defedded from were straight up nazi comms.
Though we definitely would have defedded from them if they hadn't and that is something that gets lost whenever the other point gets brought up. There were constant calls for votes about defederation, shit was tiring. It's gonna come again at some point for sure, the next time the people against federation have a negative experience.
Still, who is our audience? us. Who are we countering then? not us? it doesn't make sense. People wanting arguments against specific talking point make their posts sometimes, with varying degrees of success, but like
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Yeah for sure. I don't see the point of focusing on debating dorks, when we've decided we don't want to debate dorks. I just felt the need to point out the defedding thing, because I know it's something the admins like to bring up, and I wanted to get in before them so I could sneak in my little counterargument like a good little piggie
we defedded blahaj, arguably the best instance to recruit from. Not that Im in favor of refederating, just if the aim was to recruit and not create a safe space then we'd have to
I am not arguing for or against defedding anything
I know, that's not what I meant but it's not very important and if it's ok with you don't want to look for a better formulation of what I meant.
Please do say if you'd like one but it's very inconsequential
No it's fine, I just felt like making it clear, because this thread is seeing a lot of activity and some people struggle with reading comprehension, so they'll see one person comment on something and then their mind jumps halfway around the globe. It was mainly to pre-empt somebody starting a new discussion.
I appreciate the offer though
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