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)
There’s this strange drive towards “x variety of posting/content is not a productive way to spend time as a communist, therefore we must eliminate it” that emerges sometimes here.
I hate to break it to you, but hexbear will never be the most productive thing you could be doing to advance the revolution. If we follow this tendency to its conclusion, the wisest decision would be to close the site and everyone goes and reads books or does work for their local org instead.
As long as it’s not for a joke
Hexbear is inherently not productive, it's a weird logic in itself. Mutual aid is good, but that's about it. Mutual aid can only be good as long as there's users on the site. There's users on the site for all the low effort shit
Having a severe, disabling mental illness shitposting on this site is often the only thing I can do other than suffer. I'd love to be out in the wild doing cool adventurist hero shit with my comrades but I often literally cannot think straight enough to prepare food or perform hygiene tasks, but due to some weird quirk of my brain my ability to expel huge amounts of semi-coherent text remains functioning longer than most of my other faculties.
and yet fakenews (a literal containment board) still exists
And yet the dunk tank and the dredge tank (a literal containment board) no longer exist
Removed by mod
I really don’t see how TDT made the site more toxic, and people that disagree were already able to block the comm, whereas now the same kind of content is getting posted in various other comms like cth and memes. Baffling decision tbh but alas.
People don't seem to be having much fun now
Yeah you've been a stellar example of non-toxicity elsewhere in this thread.
Toxicity is not inherent to the dunk_tank. Even if it was, you could just block it.
You have directly attacked other members and even misgendered users and used transphobic language without being banned. Your words and actions are rapidly transforming this from a question of the direction of the site to a personal conflict between users.