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.
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)
First, let's just get out of the way that yes, this is a new account, but I am an older user. This is a new account made for opsec reasons as everyone should do.
Anyways, this is a wonderful change and I would urge anyone complaining to consider the reasons it would be made. A lot of the posts made on c/the_dunk_tank, while not nearly all the time, sometimes fell into weird sideways dunks on things unrelated to the weirdness or reactionary stuff being mainly dunked upon.
A good evergreen example would be the always-popular "liberal furry posts something cringe" posts, which are, even when not explicitly done in any capacity, really just a thinly veiled reason to dunk on furries. To those who disagree, I challenge you to give a good reason why such a post would be significantly more 'cringe' than the mountains of other existing liberal take slop with the exact same level of incorrectness.
As well as, don't forget all the weird side tangents where some user named "mustardlover2077" posts cringe and gets put in the dunk tank, and then the comments have tons of people talking about how they hate people who eat mustard and think it's inherently problematic.
I doubt you need to make a huge essay to post something. The requirement is almost definitely just about stating the reason whatever you're pointing out is a dunkable thing. This is good! It means posts getting off course or having misdirected anger is much less likely. You can still find joy dunking on people and finding people to dunk on. It just means you can't slip punches downward into your posts as easily.
Stress relief is good but it shouldn't come at the risk of spontaneously generating new forms of brainworms
Both your examples of bad practices occuring in the dunk tank are things that rarely occurred and when it did was cracked down on by both mods and users.
neither of those things are true
Then I declare your text to be lies as well
idk what you want me to say, i have never seen anything but affirmation for the most strange and unhinged derision of unrelated things
Honestly dude idgaf if people are talking about mustard on the commie bear website.
Furry bashing, sure delete the comments, ban people if they’re really being an issue. Personally I haven’t seen it but I also touch grass so I might have missed it.
The idea that hexbear has a furry bashing problem seems silly to me. Like 2/3 of the power posters here are furries.
I haven't told you to say anything. I am responding to you in disagreement. That's how conversations function at times.
I know???
Super
The problems you stated are moderation-related. A comment removal & 1 hour ban with "mustard is cool and good" addresses this concerns.
no, any time something like this is brought up it is laughed down by the exact demographic of people who dislike this change