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)
Between the revelation of the dunk tank mod who hates the dunk tank, the person ITT harassing people on alts being widely believed to be a mod that has already been permabanned once and now this, there needs to be some kind of reckoning with whatever the hell is going on internally in the mod/admin team
how? very few of them post from admin accounts, I've said this before but it's very unclear what's going on with the admin team ever. like, if you notice there were a bunch of admin accounts who got removed [26 days ago] (https://hexbear.net/modlog?page=1&actionType=ModAdd) and then others added back, and one was even just added today! i assume they were probably just the same admins on different accounts? but then most of them never comment or post on their admin accounts either, and I have no clue what their main accounts are. or at least that's what I'm assuming, the admin team is really opaque like i said
So a bunch of admins got purged because a controversial decision was made? What makes me think these two are not a coincidence?
no this was around the misogyny crackdown a month ago
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Then why are you an admin? I'm not really putting forward an opinion either way, and I'm new here too. But doesn't it seem odd that a new user with no post history is made an admin?
Admins have used burner accounts since the Beatnik doxxing. I assume they're a new admin, but not a new user.
Okay, I see that I misunderstood the conversation. I think your interpretation is right, that this is an old user who was newly made an admin for the first time on an alt account. I think there is a very reasonable concern about transparency in that case though. But that's all I'll say on it, I don't have enough context for what's going on in this thread and people keep talking about users who have been gone since long before I got here.
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thanks for the info! but like this wasn't announced (or if it was i somehow missed it and i check the site pretty much every day), and I really don't understand why, when I mostly browsed thru grad they pinned all they admin decisions for a day or 2 at least and I'm not really sure why hexbear doesnt do that
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that in of itself is fine, i get why admins might not want to comment on their admin account and not let everyone know what their main account is, but doing that while combined with no announcements about when new admins are stepping down/stepping up it makes it feel even more confusing to me.
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nah its an internet forum lol. just let them cook.