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)
This is a very important point and I don't see it brought up much. We should not be blanket deciding that low effort posts are not welcome on Hexbear because Hexbear unironically needs low effort post as an indispensable part of the site culture.
Low effort posts by their nature are a dime a dozen, they help keep the place active and lively. High user activity for the size of our userbase has always been a defining feature of both Hexbear and the subreddit before it. High effort posts come naturally as a consequence of discussion often originating in lower effort threads.
I would even argue that most Hexbears do not even read/participate in high-effort posts. 90% of the Top Posts from the last 3 months are all from the Chapotraphouse comm and DunkTank, with a random main or news post thrown in there. News is actually probably more active than Chat/Mutual Aid when you look at popular posts over time like that, but I can't find a legitimate capital e Effort post in the first 3 pages of the Top 3/6/9 months.
That's right.
Imo all the effortpost activity /c/news would have has just gone into the megathread. Which is too bad because unless someone reads the entire mega, they'll have no chance to see those effortposts, and a mega is a lot less easily searchable than a comm.
Yeah lol, sort by top/alltime and you will not see many effortposts. However if you sort by controversial... You get some juice.
Wish we had a function to sort for comments that wasn't just "most comments of all time"
On top of low effort being good (and if it isn't we need to get rid of a lot of comms and posts) they are also more likely to result in effortposts, than comms requiring effort. An explanation for what I mean can be parsed in this comment https://hexbear.net/comment/5610121