"ChapoChat is dying"
"userbase has been torn to pieces by division"
"website is an absolute failure"
"the community is already dead"
"I literally saw Mother Hexbear get slaughtered by the CIA and served at an Outback Steakhouse during MysteryMeatMondays™" (vegan gang btw)
These are some paraphrased examples but I see this sort of defeatist, all-is-lost attitude all over the place and on c/main right now. It is annoying and actively contributes to the problem you are complaining about.
I know you all are liberals because this is the same kind of cringe posting that we'd see on our all favorite reddit defaults everytime those admins decided to make a change that removed 'borderline content' like child pornography and genocide. You'd have a million heroic posters coming out of the woodwork to declare "reddit just killed Aaron Swartz's vision", "I left digg for this", "admins are officially chinese" in order to 'save' reddit.
Have y'all been on an internet forum before? Bans always cause this sort of discontent in their wake, this community is not dying because some wreckers got banned and some good posters left. There are ten thousand posters here, give or take for the bots and alts. All of us are united in a sacred mission to destroy capitalism and dunk on the libs. Moderation and struggle sessions are part of both of those goals.
We trust the mods and admins to enforce the site policy and in return users are trusted to set site policy but also to adhere to it. The site currently has problems with wreckers and transphobic content, so the site policy was corrected and crackdowns began on those things. That is how things are supposed to work. Where is the issue? Besides YOU (the user, hi!) this process only has three elements.
- Acknowledging there is a problem with transphobic content and wreckers
- Trusting the Mods and Admins
- The site policy
Now topic no.1 has seen plenty of posts and I'm not here to rehash. Chances are if you're reading this you've read them too. There was a problem that needed to and still is being addressed.
Topics no.2 no.3 have been more recent popular topics, which is good because it reflects a desire for the userbase to improve the structure of the site. We have /c/userunion for those discussions to take place. Some people do have some legitimate questions and concerns about these two topics, and there should be discussion (in userunion) about them. That's participatory policy making, as socialists we literally demand it, express issues and suggest changes there. Improvements to site policy and moderation are good!
What is NOT good is seeing post lamenting the fall of ChapoChat, posting like doomers because the community has too much "drama" or "lost too many people." Just chill. The defeatism and complaining without suggestions basically wrecker behavior. You are a leftist in the 21st century, you should be used to setbacks and corrections of policy by now, you should know that we will face lost after lost until we suddenly win the world. All the dumbass stupidpol wreckers and every local internet Klavern who attempts to start shit on here are jacking off to your doomer posts right now. They have screenshotted you and are currently laughing at you and calling you a liberal. This is the worst fate for a poster: all that saves us all is our theory and praxis.
For this site: our theory is the Code of Conduct and the rules created in /c/userunion. Our praxis is seeking the issues in our theory, correcting them, and moving forward even more vigorously, with more knowledge and righteousness. Let us advance unified in purpose and constantly strive to forge the best leftist social platform possible.
Have a Marx quote in conclusion:
"If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people." Marx, Reflections of a Young Man (1835)
I swear, if people keep unironically using leftist organizing terminology and comparisons to labor movement history to describe forum shit I'm gonna lose it.
What purpose do you believe ChapoChat serves? Is it simply just a distraction/procrastination from real praxis? How should we approach our time spent on the site here? Genuinely interested.
Opium of the masses
Yes.
Chill the fuck out, you guys all care way too much
I've actually gained a lot from browsing and participating here. I've been exposed to a lot more information and viewpoints about leftism and various tendencies than just passively absorbing on my own, as well as what the general leftist community's beliefs are. You get what you put in. If we resign ourselves to low effort shitposts and allow things like transphobia go on, ChapoChat really will be opium for the masses. The discussions here are good. The struggle sessions here are (and/or have been known to be) good. I feel included and not judged when I try to learn more or put in my ideas. I want ChapoChat to continue on that path rather than start sliding into some terrible meaningless hole, which means explicitly not dismissing it. It's a public forum \o/
Aka somewhere normal, not terminally online people actually want to be
Could you elaborate? ... Or am I being memed right now
People just want a place to fuck around and post memes, e-forums will never be a replacement for IRL organization and cooperation, unless you think rona will go on forever
We should try to leverage all the platforms we have available to us. I see no reason to give up here, as long as everyone is clear on the goal. We got this, including you <3
I'm sure the few left will be.
Then not all is lost
It's a place for memes where every now and then people learn something new and important, but mostly don't, and in any case the active userbase is far too small to matter very much. It's not a "pipeline" since there is very little interaction with the rest of the internet, we don't do organizing (because of course we don't, it's a forum), and again, every now and then something educational happens but it's not the most important thing in the world when at best 500 people take part in it. Yes, online does matter, but it doesn't matter THAT much, and it definitely doesn't matter in small, obscure forums. Talking to real people you can actually know and doing real stuff is far, far better, everyone should at least try to do that instead of hyper-focusing on stuff going on here. It's kinda hard lately due to rona and all but there's still some things you can do. If this forum disappeared tomorrow, nothing would really change for the left, neither positive or negative.
Well, I’m learning a lot from here about what a community that applies leftist standards for community involvement and conduct look like. That is incredibly valuable to me, especially because that sort of community doesn’t exist for me in real life. I can’t build something like that myself without a role model, so organizing ChapoChat to the those standards is actively beneficial to people like me.
That's not necessarily a good thing.
No, it gives you a skewed view. If you do this shit irl the org will probably implode, and in an irl organisation issues will crop up in much different ways than they do in an online forum. The way online shit works is really not that similar to real life organisations.
Idk where you live and what things are like over there, but try to look for local chapters of something that aren't way too far or at the very least communicate with someone. If possible, try to at least communicate and talk with already existing orgs even if they don't have a local chapter.
Well, all the more reason for this forum to adhere to standards for realistic organizations as best it can then, I guess. You're right that I should try and get in touch with an organization in the area though. There doesn't seem to be a robust one around me, and I'm pretty shy, but I'm trying to read more and pluck up the courage. I appreciate you patiently trying to explain, also! Participating in discourse here does help me feel a bit more confident, even if it's not 1:1. We all have to start somewhere.
But this is not possible because it is a forum, not an org. People don't know each other. People don't even converge on a ton of issues which depending on the kind of organization (big tent or dem cent) may not look at all like most orgs. In real life you don't get "banned" or "temp banned" and you can't make a new account. It's very different for many reasons. It's a forum, it's not an organization simulator and it can't be that, neither is there any point in trying to make it like that.
It's cool that you learn stuff here, it's just that when you start participating in organising you'll see it is much different from here and more serious. Now of course it depends on the specific org what it's gonna be like. You don't have to join the first thing you see, just contact people and see what's up, talk to them, hear what they have to say about their aims and tactics and what they're working on etc and see what best suits you, it's actually not a bad way to make friends too even if you're shy.
Is that not praxis? We are a community after all
No, it isn't praxis, what we do here doesn't matter very much.
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Praxis is when you are a community
unironically yes