We've seen an uptick in people posting dunks in here that belong in dunk_tank, as well as low-hanging fruit that gets removed from or isn't allowed in dunk_tank anymore. For context, rule 8 of dunk_tank:
Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this.
There's a reason that dunks are cordoned off to their own comm, some users rightfully don't want to see reactionary nonsense all the time, even if we're making fun of the person who said it. /c/cth is a general-purpose comm but it's NOT for posting some random nobody asshole twitter user's bad takes, the absolute best course of action to take when you see that stuff out in the wild is to either directly shit on them yourself, or ignore them and don't give them more attention.
From this point on I'm going to be more stringent about moderating this. I get it, it's fun to dunk on the libs and the blue checks and the 
and that's why we have a whole dedicated comm for that. Any post that's obviously meant to be "hey look at this piece of shit, let's laugh at how bad their opinions are, upbears to the left and emojis in chat" belongs in the_dunk_tank. And any super low-hanging fruit doesn't belong on this site, period (see TDT rule 8 above). We have better things to do with our time than give unearned attention, time and energy to low-follower-count nobodies yelling into the void.
Thanks for your discretion comrades, stay sicko 
edit: as others have pointed out, /c/shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml is a good place for any and all dunking content not allowed here. Post that ragebait to our comrades at the 'grad, they'll make good use of it. Also, per rule 9 of TFT dunking on fediverse users is still explicitly allowed so it's still open season on those in our own backyard.
So there's a type of post that people enjoy posting and engaging with, and a dedicated place to post that type of post. Then you make a rule that that type of post is no longer allowed in that dedicated place, so people naturally post it outside the dedicated place.
Just revert this shitty rule change and the "problem" will be solved
Noooo but I don't enjoy seeing those posts! I have better things to do!
This is an entirely predictable result of the addition of the bad rule 8 to the_dunk_tank
The purpose of this comm is literally to quarantine all of the "finding an idiot to get mad at" posts. This rule change is gonna make the rest of the site worse.
-ElGosso, 30 days ago on the dunk tank rule change post. Hm. Must be a psychic. Only explanation.
I called it too and asked for a quarantine zone for those kinda posts but was denied. LET US HAVE OUR SLOP
This conviction the mods seem to have that "[dunking on] super low-hanging fruit doesn't belong on this site, period" is weird and bad
Also "low hanging fruit" are posts not a lot of people have seen, while I guess the "high effort dunks" are posting whatever garbage Elon and jk have been up to because they have more views. Seems backwards to me :shrug-outta-hecks:
"I saw this and now you have to see this too" is not a good reason for posting. People don't need to see every bad take on the internet.
And the cousin of that one: “I got into an argument with a lib on Reddit so here’s our chain of single upvote comments, please tell I won the argument”
Exactly! That's the type of thing that should be clear is banned.
There's gonna be a middle ground between there and "moderately famous poster" that's gonna take some figuring out, but even just trimming that and things like 15-like YouTube comments from someone with a couple of subscribers, random anonymous racists arguing in the comments of a local newspaper article, things like that.
"I saw this, thought it was a funny bad take, and am now sharing with other people who will laugh at this fool" is usually my thought. I imagine the same is true for other dunk tank posters?
now you have to see this too
No one actually has to view the dunk tank. They can block it, scroll by, whatever. I scroll past a lot of posts. Hextube gets pinned all the time, but is of no relevance to me. Other comms I've blocked all together 🤷
The comm for that is now https://hexbear.net/c/shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml
So a popular type of post many hexbear users like is no longer allowed on Hexbear at all? Why?
A coalition of site mods and the admins came to a consensus. It's no longer considered permitted content on the site.
It's a done deal, there's no point in crying over spilled milk.
It's a done deal, there's no point in crying over spilled milk.
its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in posting.
So are we no longer allowed to disagree with rule changes now?
A done deal can be undone, especially one which has effects on the site as a whole and was made without input from the site's community as a whole.
It's not irreversible. We're just not going to reverse it. We decided to trim back on one of the most unhealthy things on the site over a month ago and most users seem to be in agreement with the change. We don't plan on reversing course over a handful of people who are frankly overreacting about the severity of a rule change on a small shitposting forum and calling the messenger a nazi.
Well, I'll subscribe to that too, but lemmygrad posters are more serious, less fun and that comm is drastically less active than TDT
not a good reason for posting
i didn't need a reason to keep posting
Right. Seems kinda backwards if the criteria is "low hanging"
the numbers below a post do not actually affect its dunkability.
Yeah, but it should cool off after a while. I'm sure that now both comms are going after the low hanging fruit posts the posts will just wean off.
What is wrong with low hanging fruit anyway
It's not like making fun of reactionary losers is important work or anything
They belong better in some of the Lemmygrad lib showcase comms. I've seen too many posts on here and /r/trueanon that are just random nobodies saying deranged things 4 years ago. I don't mind it too much and it's ultimately not dissimilar from the approved posts, but it's extremely reddit energy to be dunking on low hanging fruit from trolls.So ignore them and let them settle to the bottom of the pile with all the other poor engagement posts
So, what you're saying is to defeat bad posts in the marketplace of ideas, rather than to use political power to do so?
Why do we have to "defeat" bad posts at all? Hexbear is a site where a significant portion of the posts are bad on purpose. We have an entire comm dedicated to posting the worst posts we can come up with. Title: I farded, body: hehe is a completely valid Hexbear post. In fact, it's probably been posted multiple times already.
We should be "defeating" posts that are racist, ableist, transphobic, liberal, etc. We shouldn't be "defeating" posts that are bad, that's what this site is for
Your application of your political ideology to how you think the site should be run is incoherent enough that being facetious in that fashion doesn't work.
Maybe if you could articulate an actual reason that you've chosen one particular genre of hexbear post to bully people with your mod powers over, I would be more open to laughing at your jokes. As it stands, your communications here just sound lifeless and corporate and make it difficult to entertain any humor involved.
"The mods are bullying people." Hexbear gets so dramatic when faced with the prospect of doing something else with its time rather than scraping through and being dragged down by the absolute dregs of humanity.
Why do mods want to insert themselves into how I spend my time, and why do you care enough to express your support for that?
Because I think that dunk posts are actually kind of toxic in general. They're fine in moderation but so often they're "here's this horrible thing that I saw someone online do or say, and I'm going to post it here for everyone else to see, and we're all going to get depressed by it and use some of our finite emotional bandwidth for the day on it, despite the fact that we can't do anything about it."
Prime example: Just yesterday I learned on this site that people make (CW: zionazi demon shit)
spoiler
Palestinian bombing montages to rock music
and it actually just straight up made my day worse. I didn't want or need to know that, it doesn't make my life better in any way, and now I have to just live with this disgusting and horrible fact.
If this rule prevents shit like that, I think it's a net good for everyone in a multitude of ways.
If you don't like the kinds of posts that the dunk tank are for then you can and should block that comm, not tell everyone else that no fun is allowed and threaten to ban them
Like I said, dunking is fine in moderation, but to quote someone else in the thread, I don't need to see every bad take on the internet.
then block the comm until you're in the mood to see bad takes and then unblock it until you're tired of seeing bad takes? do you want to ban posts about RTS games from !games@hexbear.net just because you don't want to hear about every game on the internet?
some of us have been against c/badposting for the entirety of its existence
then block the comm and leave us alone? "i don't like this kind of post so mods need to remove it and ban people for posting it" is baby shit
i already did but surely you understand that my blocking a comm because i think it's a bad idea and bad for the culture doesn't change my opinion on it. and that my ability to block it doesn't have shit to do with my pointing out my position as a contradiction of your argument.
and that my ability to block it doesn't have shit to do with my pointing out my position as a contradiction of your argument.
first off, you didn't articulate any such position. you just said that you don't like the badposting comm.
second, who cares whether you (or the mods) like a certain comm or a certain type of post? since when does that matter? how many more types of posts are just going to be arbitrarily, randomly, unilaterally banned by the mods for no articulable reason?
my "some of us" was plural, and "against" is a fair bit stronger than "don't like"
the only baby shit i see here is your crying about the mods' decision.
why are you so angry that I'm trying to get the mods to explain their unilateral decisions? you already have your preferred outcome, let the people who actually want to achieve something with the conversation be. you're literally just here to gloat about how the mods are on your side
im... here to gloat about how the mods are on my side? yeah, real coherent
nah
why are you so angry
maybe you should get some sleep
i work overnight, this is right in the middle of my day. who's projecting now?
Is the fruit somehow higher if the person has more followers? I honestly don't understand.
A post is higher effort the more eyeballs the original had?
Yeah, part of the problem with these rules is that there's no good way to draw a line between what's low-hanging fruit and what's a legitimate target for hexbear dunking. The rule relies on the mood of the mod present at the time of posting.
Surely everyone will stop posting the posts they like to post because the two comms those posts best fit in ban those posts
Yeah? We had people posting casual transphobia and casual racism here in the early days, heavy moderation put an end to that. Obviously bad posts and bigotry aren't comparable but you get the idea, moderation is like cyberbullying but with institutional power; and if we've learned anything from the posting wars it's that bullying works.
That's not really comparable. Racism and transphobia are actually bad and ideologically opposed to the ideals of the site, making fun of bad opinions but with numbers that are too small under them is not. Getting rid of people who post racism and transphobia is a good thing to do, but are you actually suggesting banning low-hanging-fruit-dunkers?
As I said, it's not about the morals of the behavior, just the behavior itself and the fact that moderation will inevitably tone it down. And I don't think bans make sense for rule 8, but do you think people who post random twitter screenshots to the dunk tank are gonna keep going after their 36th consecutive post gets removed?
You seriously want to ban people for posting dunks you don't like? This whole campaign against "low hanging fruit" is silly.
I don't want to have to ban anyone for anything, no mod here does. If someone is just going to keep spamming the whole site with content that keeps getting removed, then yeah. They'll likely catch a ban for spam.
dunks on posts that don't have the right (arbitrarily and secretly defined) numbers under them are not garbage
Then post them on !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml, the appropriate community for those types of posts.
So the dunk tank should be empty and all posts that once went there should go in !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml instead? Because you, the mods, have consistently refused to actually define what "low-hanging fruit" even means. When I raised this point a month ago in the rule 8 announcement thread on TDT, mod replaceable told me he would do "a vibes based analysis on every post" which is clearly a joke, but also clearly not actually an answer.
Bad takes abound in our society, the dunk tank will never be empty.
As other people have mentioned both here and when rule 8 was announced, different platforms have different levels of engagement so what's considered "notable" is going to have a differing level from site to site.
I don't know that we've drawn out like more specific thresholds for different sites but I know we're still working on getting the feel for it.
Famous, household names like major celebrities or sports players are obviously going to be allowed, as are political figures like senators, congresspeople, heads of state. There's a sort of moderate level of notability we're still figuring out, but a good sort of guesstimate area is whether a person has passed milestones like having a wikipedia page, passing 100k subscribers on YouTube or being talked about in newspapers of record, being a leader in an organization of note. Things like that are a good place to start.
If it's a name you don't need to explain or you can reasonably explain why an individual you're posting is a notable person, that's a good start.
So it actually has nothing to do with number of upvotes/likes/views, which is the ill defined, vibes based metric in the text of the rule, but is actually about notability of the poster, a completely different ill defined, vibes based metric? That's even more restrictive than the rule as written, which would seem to allow, for example, a post from some random jackass so long as it got an arbitrarily high number under it.
A level of fame is easier to quantify. Upvote counts and Facebook likes can climb to absurd levels from bot activity, like those 350,000 like "AI happy birthday injured babies" or posts someone shared the other day.
It's going to be a little harder to quantify what level might make that post sufficiently worthy of note.
A post is low effort/low hanging fruit when few people saw the original, obviously.
But what's "few"? Where should we draw the line? Yeah, mods can pick some arbitrary number (as is often the case for these kinds of things, it's the problem of the lump!) but this is also more complicated because there are different standards for different platforms. Like, what number of views on a youtube video is equivalent to what number of upvotes on reddit is equivalent to what number of followers on xitter, etc.? And what about blogs vs news sites? It really does just end up being so blatantly vibes-based.
your really fucking calling a jewish person a nazi over your fucking internet treats?? fuck off get a life.
It's interesting how your account has made a grand total of 11 posts and comments in a year, and now you're here doing whatever the fuck this is
Seems very organic
So now you're implying there's some kind of conspiracy against you? A cabal of people trying to "control the narrative?" The fact that a lurker is disgusted enough by your behaviour to comment on it should be a wake up call, but apparently you'd rather just double down.
So now you're implying there's some kind of conspiracy against you? A cabal of people trying to "control the narrative?"
Considering your comment earlier, the context of what you said looks fucking awful. Care to explain yourself?
The idea that I ever tried to make this about "a cabal of people controlling the narrative" rather than one specific individual is all in your head.
Ok good, glad to hear you're not doing nazi dogwhistles then. Though I think if anyone has stuff "all in their head" its you imaging sockpuppet conspiracies against you. Even if it were true, why bother? They had a point about getting too attached to internet treats, once you start accussing anyone who disagrees with you of being a sockpuppet, it's probably time to log off and touch grass. This isn't a healthy thing for a person to be worrying about.
Agreed about touching grass, but what you were saying was really weird, I should've been clearer with what I was saying, I was too accusatory there, I wanted you to clarify what you were saying. But I was way too combative there.
Same here. Sincerely sorry about that.
My grandfather was a literal fucking nazi and an all round piece of shit, and I tend to overreact when I feel like I'm being compared to him. (Not saying you were doing that of course)
I'm also not very good with words, especially when I get all fired up and start rambling lol. That's on me.
I totally get that, my family were pieces of shit too, and I get a knee jerk reaction anytime anyone compares me to them too. Glad we could sort this out, one of my favourite things about hexbear/lemmygrad, we can stop talking past each other and actually calm down and fix things. :)
lmao
simply dont be antisemitic, if you dont want to be told to not be antisemitic. no Idea why this is so hard for people.Good luck with pointing out me being antisemitic anywhere
This is so fucking stupid lol
It's crazy, some people are actually so addicted to the emotional feedback loop of human misery that is posting every loser's shit take, that they get hostile when you try to take it away. Couldn't be me.
Yeah it's crazy that some people enjoy different things than me. I just can't understand it.
Thank you, exactly! But if they stop being terminally online, they might have to actually take some action, and action is scary.
Better to "dunk" on miserable 4 follower accounts that you only encounter in hour 7 of doom scrolling.
We have better things to do with our time than give unearned attention, time and energy to low-follower-count nobodies yelling into the void.
No we don't.
what I'm getting from this is that super low hanging fruit dunks are bad posts so if we had a place for those 🤔
Uncritical support to the mods in their struggle against posts featuring bait from edgy 14 year olds with 3 followers
Can we have a /c/garbage comm for low hanging fruit for us trash goblins
Just a slight correction, the correct lemmygrad comm is !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml
Looks like their c/shitreactionariessay works.
edit: But I am with you for the most part, and would like there to be a place locally where hexbears can post that sort of thing if they want to.
I just blocked thedunktank a while ago because I dont want to use my free time looking at bad takes
I support the mods 100% on this decision.
There is effectively an infinite supply of horrible people and horrible takes whereas your time and energy is limited.
I am somebody who lives in an almost constant state of rage and I think that this is the only normal reaction to the hellworld in which we currently live. But that's not a healthy way to live so I try to limit my exposure to the stuff that gives me psychic damage.
That's why I blocked the dunk tank - I enjoy dunking on bad people and bad takes as much as everyone but being exposed to a constant stream of that every day is not a great use of your time and energy.
Since it looks like a lot of people are not happy with this (but others are and make good points), can I be an enlightened centrist for a minute and suggest a compromise? How about a weekly megathread for the low-hanging fruit? That way the reactionary takes stay cordoned off in the dunk_tank comm but the low profile losers don't get much attention drawn to them by someone making an entire post about them, yet those of us who want to can still have the opportunity to show them to others so we can collectively point and laugh. Does that seem like a good middle ground?
I can't see it lasting longer than two weeks tops. The idea is that these types of post are too low effort in the first place. If users had to post them in a specific thread guaranteed to exponentially reduce views and interaction, they'd just decide it's not worth posting at all.
Counterpoint: Newsmega. The news megathread is one of my favorite parts of this site and it is very active even on "slow" news days. Obviously it's not a 1:1 comparison, but I think it illustrates pretty well that posting to a megathread is not at all a guarantee to exponentially reduces views and interaction. In fact, commenting to a megathread takes less effort than making a regular post, and that slight increase in the ease of making a contribution might make it more likely that people here will take the time to share some fool they happened to see somewhere else.
Well we needed a war to get the war/news-mega off the ground. What would a dunk tank mega need to become popular?
There's massive Drake slander that's happening right now with people digging up and rehashing all the times he has acted like a creep, so I guess that could work.
the trans mega got popular on its own so maybe it could be the same for the dunktank one
trans people are valuable and deserve community and built one, no-effort "look at this nonsense my friend's uncle said" posts are not sapient beings and I don't expect this tantrum to reach much beyond the current thread.
