Hey everyone, I've removed bans for everyone that did not request one in the previous admin thread. (I think. If you got banned and I didn't restore your account yet, let me know and I'll fix it.) Don't worry! We're not gonna just ban people for no reason.
In case anyone hasn't seen it yet, Alaskaball confirmed that Sangria was their admin alt. They were messing around with their admin tools on their own account and figured it would be seen as a funny bit, but without being informed of the bit many of the mods and admins were just as shocked, confused, and appalled as you were. I've talked to the other admins and mods, and we're all gonna take it easy on bits for a bit. (Pun intended. This is the last one, I promise.)
If you're afraid that there's been an infiltration of transphobic, egomaniacal wrecker mods who hate the users, I want to assure you that's absolutely not the case. The overwhelming majority of mods and admins on this site are trans. Our admins are all trusted, long-time users in good standing. We regularly browse, comment, and post on our main accounts. You post and chat with us daily as comrades, and we value all of you. You may not recognize the usernames on our admin accounts because we regularly swap the alts used for admin privileges. This is why you'll see really old or unused alt accounts as well as really new accounts on the admin team.
I've seen a lot of speculation down below, some entertaining, some upsetting. We absolutely do not accept transphobia or any form of bigotry on this site. Some of the statements provided by mods and admins have been seen as transphobic and bioessentialist. I want to offer some transparency, but also clarify that I can't get much more specific on this for personal security reasons.
During the earlier discussions on how we felt things could be improved with these communities, multiple trans mods and admins described their reasoning in favour of the change by expressing with a variety of wording that it's the [he/him] demographic in particular that has been the source of toxic and troubling behavior in the tanks. That the he/hims haven't been beating the accusations, so to speak. With that group being largely cishet white guys on this site, these two terms were assumed to roughly correlate. We weren't making prepared statements for release, the comments that got posted here were paraphrased and combined from more casual comments made by trans people, in the mod chat to mostly other trans people about some of the chauvinistic and ironically bigoted posting habits that they saw as alienating and unhealthy for the site, and what we could do to improve the situation. We genuinely didn't foresee the potential for a miscommunication of those statements as being bioessentialist, and want to extend our sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding.
Edit: Please feel welcome to post in c/gossip as you would have posted in the_dunk_tank, and in c/counterpropaganda as you would have posted in the_dredge_tank.
This account has made it 4 and a half years and still going strong because every time there's been a struggle session with TC69 around, I've had the unfortunate survival instinct to shut the fuck up. I'd like to feel free and able to speak as an equal member of the community, but that shits not allowed and anyone who says anything to the contrary isn't around to tell their side of the story.
Look, I'm as grateful for this being a LGBTQ+ welcoming space as anyone, but clearly transphobia/chauvinism or whatever aren't the only reason that particular admin starts silencing people. We can be grateful for their contributions in some important aspects but acknowledge they're pretty bad at handling a "community manager" role. I hope they come back as a user, not a mod or admin, because this community is genuinely a really nice place when shit stirrers aren't at the helm and they deserve to know what that feels like.
thank you. i've been here since we got banned from
(i delete my account and spin a new one every few months specifically so as not to ever be a "power poster but that's another topic) and hard same. the pronoun wars had to be waged and i'm glad that tc69 handled that so ruthlessly but i thought after her hiatus that she was returning as a poster, something i would've welcomed. was genuinely a little disconcerted when i saw the [A] account spin back up but was hoping time had had a mellowing effect. i wish her nothing but the best in general but ya, i agree that managing a largely cohesive community is not a great fit and not after a period of absence like that which only reaffirmed my skepticism towards the power poster clique(s)
I am glad someone else stated this. The first couple months of Hexbear I distinctly remember choosing to say nothing because it was very clear that at certain points that reasonable dissent was Not Allowed. It's stupid that a forum can at the same instant be both simultaneously some of the highest stakes emotionally, while also the stakes are so low because it's a fucking WEBSITE. At that moment the stakes were very high for me emotionally so I wanted to stay around and not feel hurt by being banned or my comments deleted, so I would choose to log out or shut the fuck up.
That time passed and the last couple of years it has not felt like that. This week, that old feeling came back.
Forreal. Not even just TC69 to blame for that either, given their very recent and ill-timed return. Clearly some other folks behind the M/A badge yearn for the struggle, and honestly, thought we were well and truly over it so that's a shame. Whoever has all these axes to grind needs to get a new hobby than administrate/mod a website they don't like. Glad to see this turn in tone on this post in particular, but wow what a shit show up until this point.