I requested a perma yesterday and was IGNORED by MALICIOUS admins would refuse to ban me
"To cool everyone’s jets, you will be getting your slop back,"
The slop was only the catalyst. The issue quickly became that mod statement misgendering much of the site(and having an un-CWed self harm reference), harassment against people who were against it, and the fact that other lemmy mods got told before we did. Is there any plan to address those issues?
Edit:
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Or just ban people for opposing it I guess
Yeah are there going to be any consequences for whoever cooked up 20 alt accounts to harrass everyone that disagreed with them, and tell users that they should kys/their parents should never had them/should have been killed? On top of purposeful misgendering and claiming that a user who exclusively used they/them pronouns was actually a cisgender man. I really did not care about this issue much, until that started.
I'd really like some general consequences for a good part of the mod team as a whole. This wasn't just an issue with one person, they were just the most egregious member, but they've been allowed to hang around for far too long. On top of that there were a lot of bullshit coming from those mods - "white cishet" being the top of a big turdpile.
white cishet
And despite that whole statement being a terrible thing to say, it wasn't even true, you can go view the locked dredge tank community right now, I think only 4/20 posts on the front page were made by someone using he/him as their primary pronouns, 3/20 using she/her, and 3/20 using comrade/them. Certainly does not seem like a white cishet dominated community to me.
Yeah it's almost as if we have some shitty mods that are powertripping like they're on reddit, who use leftist rhetoric to shield their abysmal behaviour
Amazing that they get banned while the user that straight up misgendered them and told everyone to go die on their dozen alt accounts has likely faced zero consequences, just great.
Pretty sure the alts have already been banned, what people are wondering is if the user who created them is going to be dealt with or not. The user is supposedly a mod.
Edit: Never mind, didn't see your reply further down.
I mean they were obviously upset about what was said, but they were at 200+ comments in a 24 hour period, they needed a break.
Most of that was them responding to another user viciously harassing them.
Is there a comment limit per day or should people just be banned arbitrarily even though they're a good poster?
Look, I'm not saying they were wrong, but it was basically spam at some points.
The poweruser/powermod thing is pretty much an unreconcilable contradiction of this site given how small the active user base is. I just came off like a two year break and I instantly recognised most of the names still posting lol.
Edit: I mean we’re literally commenting on a post made by someone who left for three years and just came back and was returned as an admin based on name recognition. No shade on TC personally but it’s pretty indicative of how things operate.
and who should care if it was majority hehims?
"this activity has male vibes" is an absolutely insane way to criticise something. woke gender essentialism
Yeah that's what I meant when I said it was a terrible thing to say in the first place.
Fire them all and put me in charge. My platform:
- I dislike most of you
- Easily the most liberal
- No posts
You get half, I get the other half. This will be the dunk-debatebro split, except on tuesdays when we swap
I assume there's not an easy way to track the original user but I'd again put down good money it was HelltakerHomosexual, just going through their modlog and comparing it to the bile the alt accounts were spewing the past couple days. Even discounting recent events I rarely see them coming in to threads to do anything but insult other users.
Who was this user? If they aren't banned, can you at least publish their name so I can block them?
Or just ban people for opposing it I guess
Also not having ownership of who has actually done the post removal/ban is bullshit. Own your action. Rarely i'd say there's been consensus. Too much happens on this site to be discussing every action.
Yeah if reports aren't anonymous then neither should mod actions so we know if it's being abused
According to kristina, 10% of the site are mods (hyperbole maybe but who knows). So who's to say users having legitimate dissenting opinions aren't being silenced by particular mods because they don't like the blowback. Certainly no transparency around mod actions as mentioned.
With how many inactive and alt accounts, I don't think we really can get an accurate percentage
But lol some mods absolutely chose who they ban or what comments get removed based purely off who they like, that's been a constant since there have been mods on any forum but giving mods anonymity makes it worse
Yeah even outside the baffling mod comment, some of the posters in that thread deserve a high velocity
This is good to hear! Honestly at this point I just really want transparency, I know it's hard work working thru drama after the fact, not to mention all the other bs you gotta do.
Well transparency and some statement either saying "nah we fully support the mods, they're cool and if you dislike it you can go" or "some of the mods sucked a bit of shit and now they're gone." But figuring out which to say is going to take time. Just glad to hear you're not just memoryholing it.I know it's a messy situation, hopefully the issue with transphobia and toxicity coming from some of the mods is dealt with and we can bounce back stronger.
We love our trans comrades
Wait wtf how did I not hear abt all that shit in the statement
a plea to the admins generally: please address the flagrant transphobia/bizarre gender essentialism that was the thrust of a couple of the (anonymous!) mod takes from the big thread. if this gets swept under the rug my faith in admins/mods to consistently oppose bigotry will be severely damaged. the silence is already deafening on the issue.
This needs addressed immediately. This type of shit can't be running rampant around leadership let alone the userbase.
needlessly dismissive and rude. can you not see why we're concerned that it took this long for this to even be acknowledged and it's buried in a third level comment with this tone?
take some time off away from the site while we work it out.
This is just rude
Addressing this takes time.
Then just say you're working on it, nowhere in the above post even mentions it
don't worry, we got a response in the form of a third level comment from an admin I've never seen before saying the admins are working on it. truly my mind is at ease
It's an alt that's been sitting dormant for 2 years.
https://hexbear.net/comment/2658216
Whats there to untangle? This is all written down and searchable. Stop being patronizing.
The antagonism shown by the admins and mods every time they decide something behind the scenes then spring it on everyone unilaterally is so exhausting. If you hate interacting with users so much that you're making alts to harass people or just deciding to ban people who politely disagree with you then this really isn't the right gig for you
Obviously this isn't directed at you, TC
So, I don't give a shit about the controversy itself, but the way that the mods in a closed chat just hyped themselves up on saying "This is what white bros do" to each other and then handing down the pronouncement that some of the most popular communities are only for chauvinists and then masking their real motives with an excuse about the names is just awful. The disingenuousness, the insular snobbishness, the immaturity, the cynicality. It's just disgusting.
I have no further thoughts.
this is being handled so childishly by what seems like a good handful of the mods and admins lol. complete shit show. why not just lock the thread and perma everyone criticizing you all at this point, or do you enjoy arguing with us that much? i acknowledge that some users have acted overly hostile and crossed lines which sucks for you all to have to deal with but you all have created this situation (problem was fake to begin with) and gone on to drop the ball on resolving it several times in comical fashion.
I went to make dinner and come back to a literal shitstorm. What the actual fuck is going on? Our admin and mod teams need to seriously do some self crit now. This is the most pathetic shit I've seen online in quite a long time, and that's going back to my reddit days.
Frfr
I understand the intentions behind the original proposed change but this is just upsetting now :(
Gonna go touch grass (maybe, if my irl friend wants to go lol)
Btw @CARCOSA@hexbear.net, I missed your reply to me in the first thread before it got locked, no hard feelings ofc
You're cool and am sorry if I caused any more stress for you, I've never had my decisions torn apart by thousands of replies before :/
This wasn't really adressed, so I'm just gonna include my comment from the last thread, so maybe it will get adressed, as it was way out of pocket and deserves a response.
I think there should probably be some accountability for whoever was/were behind "the white cishet man vibes" part of the post, editing it out of the original post doesn't change that is was there, saying that shit was kinda fucked, as many people in the original post noted
Yeah if you go view the front page of the dredge tank right now, only 4/20 of the posts there are made by people primarily using he/him pronouns. So not only was it a shitty thing to say, it was also factually untrue. And that's not even mentioning that some of those guys using he/him pronouns are likely not het and/or cis either, given the demographics on hexbear.
only 4/20 of the posts there are made by people primarily using he/him pronouns.
Eyy!
seconding this again... feels like admins just want us to move on from how wildly objectionable that was. whoever came up with that shit should certainly not be a mod and should honestly have to do some self crit or get banned.
Whoever came up with it and whoever signed off on it. Anyone who saw it, read it, and understood what it said and DIDN'T object should self-crit heavily at the very least.
Not trying to be confrontational but why is the “white cishet man vibes" remark such a big deal? That seems like something to talk about, not shut down. Why did someone feel that way? Even if the remark turns out to be off-base we might learn something from talking it out.
*edit after reading more comments, I guess dunk tank users felt misgendered, which is an example of why making flippant sweeping statements like that is dangerous, and why we should talk things out patiently and thoughtfully on this site instead of launching into whirlwind struggle sessions. I still think the remark is worth discussing.
I'm a trans woman. Many of the things I am interested in are male-dominated spaces. This has been used to say "are you really a woman? If you are, why are you in the spaces that men are? Sounds male socialized to me." This is what the admin statement sounds like.
This smug condescension is exactly the kind of shit that pissed me off about the anonymous mod post. Its not like they were even shitposting they were contributing to the conversation constructively
E: and its from TC69??? Disappointing to say the least
All I can say is that for me it is not disappointing. In order to be disappointed one needs to have expectations to begin with, and as apparently one of the very few people who remembers what TC69 was actually like as an admin, I am not disappointed in the least.
I haven't had this much pure anxiety being on this forum for years. It's the only real sense of community I have in this hellworld and this rampaging 'le spork of DOOM' character is handing out bans for annoying her with a random spinner like we're not even fucking people with real feelings. It's horrible. I fucking hate this. But it's a joke to her and the rest of the mods and apparently that's what the real website is. Not us.
to all the ND comrades during thisEditing to reflect that I discovered that apparently those random bans were a bit that people volunteered to take part in.
Edit AGAIN to reflect that they're ALSO banning people who AREN'T volunteering for the bit (e.g. https://hexbear.net/u/usa_suxxx who's just another example of "banned for being mad")!
Yeah the other day I was so annoyed by this shit that I literally had to just walk away and go clean my room to force reset my brain and remember that this is a funny pig poop beanis forum, because otherwise these fuckers were gonna drive me insane
It's just a relief to see that so many people are calling it out. I think for a long time the usual response to overstepping admins/mods has just been head down, pretend it doesn't exist, move on. Toxic, negative peace. It's good that we're actually talking about it now, and that the arbitrary bs "stop disagreeing with me" bans are only fuelling the fire more.
It's the only real sense of community I have in this hellworld
same. I'm trying to build something irl, but it's fucking hard. our son is a senior in high school, we barely stay afloat every month, I don't have the spoons to make plans and hang out and do cool shit.
most days, I barely have the spoons to get done the crucial shit. this place has been such a comfort to visit, with so many people who understand exactly what I'm going through.
it is horrible to watch and I hate it too.
right back at you.
CW: discussions of suicide, self-harm, transphobia
I do remember. I remember the sub being banned. I remember the wack ass discord. I remember the first few months of the site. I remember TC69 stepping up, organizing, cleansing the site of the transphobes, the chasers, and the bigots. Even though i didnt consider myself a part of it at the time i felt so much safer as I watched the burgeoning trans community here blossom. I never posted about it, but i was always always there.
This place became my refuge. Its laughable, I know, because its just a reddit clone, but it was, and it was all i had. As i grappled with my own identity and neurodivergency, isolated, alone, unmedicated for the numerous undiagnosed mental disorders i had, going to therapists who told me to wear emotional masks and act manly as i watched my body start to age from testosterone, tearing my body apart to feel anything beyond this emptiness. I stayed out of every major struggle session the site had because in the end i just... couldnt deal with the idea of the site breaking apart.
When i accepted my identity, put on womens clothing for the first time, confirmed that I was, indeed, trans - i was so happy. So purely happy. One of the first things I did was change my pronouns here, and i laughed and laughed and laughed. If this place hadnt been there for me i dont know how long it would have taken for me to come to terms with this part of me. Maybe i never would have. And even if i had I may not have survived regardless. I nearly didnt. I'm still quite mentally ill, after all. As I watched my state become dramatically more hostile to transfolk; as the nation began to single us out as a punching bag; as I faced the cruelty and verbal abuse from people close to me after coming out; throughout it all you were there. I found solace in your embrace and meaning in our shared struggle. I connected with other queer and trans people, found support in my city, friends at times and lovers at others. Fucked things up with some people but reconnected with people dear to me, too.
Things started to go wrong again recently. Lost my job, fell out with my parents, got fucked over by new anti trans legislation. Then the election cycle started to ramp up and we all got to watch as americans voted for an antichrist embodying some of the worst excesses of the system we live in while the people who are supposed to be our allies did nothing to defend us and perpetuated war and genocide. Nearly lost my mind again. Fell back into self harm, stopped trying to find a job, blew my savings on rent and cheap comforts and drugs. So when trump won, i did what i always do - i came back here.
It was, as always, refuge. Some hope in a hopeless world. Even better, the people that made this site a safe place for those like me had returned after nearly 3 years. I made it through yet another crisis by the skin of my teeth, avoiding a hospital visit without insurance that would almost definitely have wiped out the rest of my savings and trapped me in this state for the forseeable future.
When the decision to close the tank comms was announced, i was just sad more than anything. But not super sad. Thats how things go sometimes, yknow. This site wouldnt be what it currently is if it werent for focused, concerted efforts to change site culture that at times ignored pushback from users. Theres always always been at least some amount of chauvinism, misogyny, and other generally shitty behavior, ever since the days of the sub. Thats just a fact, although from my perspective I thought its always been handled pretty well as the site got older. So I decided to share my opinion anyway because i didnt really think of it as a strugglesesh at that point and, well, i am pro-slop as it were.
But that anonymous post was like a gut punch. I was fucking furious and sad and anxious when i woke up to it this morning. I dont pass. I never have. I get misgendered every day - its probably more like 8 or 9/10 times when im not with ppl close to me. My body is covered in scars and the lines of my body imply the years of testosterone driven aging. I want to be pretty, but i dress masc to hide the scarring and most days im too tired to wear makeup. I dont voice train consistently. Even after 10 laser sessions the hair on my face is noticeable, even through concealer. Ive never organized due to my fears and various neurodivergencies, although one day I hope to do so. Ive read some theory, but find it hard to pick up books consistently, especially after losing my medication. Im not a particularly good communist. Im not particularly good at being trans. Im barely even a person at all. But i thought i didnt have to be. Lying in the sweat and silence as the blood seeped from my wounds into my sheets and scabbed into my sheets as the days melted together and the drugs burned a hole through my skull. As long as the fire within me never flickered out. Just a worm, writhing, wriggling in the mud and the decay, surviving. Praying for the rising of a red star.
But. Because of my rage? Because of my desire to see the bourgeoisie torn into shreds and fed to the hounds? For my longing for just a tiny bit of catharsis and fun on a stupid website thats given me many laughs and much kindness over the years and that i am far, far too attached to? I get told i give off cishet man vibes, by a mod team that is supermajority trans people, scolded for being an internet communist turn off, dismissed, patronized, and paternalized as self harming by doing what? Posting a meow-knife emoji under a bigoted tweet from some dipshit with 20 followers?
So yeah i was angry and hurt and sad and very very fucking scared cause the site i love did something shitty and the response has been unsatisfactory for no reason?? I didnt expect an immediate resolution or for the mods responsible to be dragged out into the streets but good lord i just want something, anything more than an edit saying that some out of pocket shit had been said under stress and a third rank post saying to log off cause its being looked into with no real acknowledgement of the fucked-upness of the post, and other trans users i have looked up to for a long long time being dismissive about it and saying its missing context. And i just dont want to be treated as a child for speaking up about it
But im sorry if ive come across as rude, or disrespectful, and im sorry that i let my anger and sadness get the best of me when i said i was disappointed, and im sorry that i ban evaded to write this post because i get emotional and this is the only thing keeping me from ugly crying even more than i already have which i know is very very silly. Im very sorry if ive contributed to the stress of any admins, particularly @CARCOSA@hexbear.net (who really didnt deserve any shit) and @TransComrade69@hexbear.net because i know this shit isnt easy and youve only been back for a few days and i hope you can get this sorted out because you really did make this a very good place to be and i want it to stay that way.
Anyway I LOVE MY TRANS COMRADES and you can permaban this account. Sorry for the rant
Keep on speaking from the heart, sister. I've got nothing of value to add but I just want you to know I love you and all my trans comrades.
Christ, the next ban was "none of you are capable of realizing when you need a break"
Mods are absolutely not beating the allegations. Irritating, patronizing bullshit tbh
Edit: and from what I can tell, @Chair was banned for this comment with the mod note "Break Time"
absolutely wild lmao, love too be infantilized on my serious commieposting forum
I think alaskaball is the only mod on mainI am incorrect, alaskaball is just main enby of main
Sangria (the new admin who joked in the first one of these threads about how arrogant they looked) banned them, and called them a fella.
https://hexbear.net/comment/5618797
And just like that one of the most universally supported and appreciated site rules just becomes a selectively enforced pretext to ban people who complain about this drama they created out of nowhere
The mods seem to have it in their heads that this site is supposed to be more of an org than a forum... can we start with a vote of no confidence in the leadership? Maybe once they give out enough "duration of the shock doctrine" tempbans to people who need to
because they're upset at being lied to and treated like children.
Yea this is problematic right here, REgon can make their own damn decisions.
Want to edit before I dip for a few days: TC69 owned up to it, regardless of whether or not I think the ban was warranted my biggest issue was with the anyonymity in the face of a mod/admin team with rogue transphobic and toxic elements, so she deserves props for what I believe is a good step.
Again, logging out, I hope to see this a happier and healthier place in a few days after the energy has subsided, I really love this place and can understand that the good mods and admins have a lot on their hands right now. Love y'all, see you again soon enough
No need for temp bans when mods can instead just advise a user to take some time off
We're getting conspiratorial because yesterday you all made fundamental decisions about the site behind closed doors and then lied about your reasoning.
e: And the only fallout from that seems to be falling on the users and not the mods
There's no sense in acting like we're being unreasonable. You complained about the users being conspiratorial. We are completely justified in this attitude. All I did was remind you why. You're acting like you checked every box such that we're not allowed to feel or act that way anymore. It's condescending.
Especially in the context of whatever plans you had to change the site rolling right along regardless. Is this site the user's or the mod's? Are we extras in your social club?
Welcome back from your 3 year not being a part of this community, by the way. Please don't ban me.
We are completely justified in this attitude.
And they keep proving us right.
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+REgon, they made very good points around this.
the best thing to do in a tense and stressful situation with emotions running high is to dig the heels in and quadruple down
Thank you for the past anti-transphobia stuff, but in nearly every other way you're super annoying, melodramatic and seem to think very highly of yourself to a smug liberal degree. Your posts are so self-important and self-aggrandizing.
Genuine question, despite appearances. If you hate the people here so much why even return?
I think people are rightly concerned about mods demonstrating pretty awful opinions & transphobia and it not being addressed directly. Banning the people who brought this to attention without directly talking about it is the problem that started all this - opaque mod decisions.
I echo this sentiment. While I do think more people should
for a few days (myself 100% included), in the context of shaking faith in a mod team that it is acknowledged includes mods that have harrassed users and expressed transphobic views, this can backfire.That being said, TC69 did own up to it, which is a good thing as it removes that suspicion, I support this wholeheartedly as a good-faith step towards healing that user/admin relationship.
Alright, see y'all later, I actually mean it this time. I'm gonna finally shut the fuck up like my annoying ass has known I should do for a while now and come back in a few days when I don't have some awful personal shit going on. I know the good mods and admins are going through a ton of shit right now as well (aren't we all?).
Love y'all, hope I come back to a healthier and happier Hexbear.
same, I think ppl including myself have been justifiably concerned, and my "faith" is pretty shaken atm, but this has been too stressful & aggravating for a debate about mod actions on a bear/owl/ppb based communist forum
neither of those edits address the thing people are mad at tho?
okay. I think what I'm saying isn't being heard - I've watched the modlogs and it doesn't answer it. I'm gonna let this blow over as I'm getting tired of explaining it though - here's hoping it's fixed whenever I get back
I said y'all. Not you specifically
why did you threaten me specifically with a ban then
then I don't know what to tell people other than to take a break
you are not a cop-doctor; you do not need to telepathically sense when someone has posting fatigue and prescribe a medicinal ban, you do not need to deal out revenge timeouts when the mod team's honour is impinged on. Your duties stop at banning actual racist homophobe etc. shit so that it can't take root and noone has to see it. Saying an admin is 'detached' is unbelievably soft and you should be embarrassed if you banned someone for that.
I don't believe many of your 'quotes' were actually posted verbatim by anyone to be honest, but if they were I would include those in the ban notes instead of your current HR epic quips to save on confusion. I wouldn't have brought it up at all if the screenshotted user had been noted to have called you a tankie derogatively.
Yeah I'm tired of the vagueposting about chauvinism. It's been a thing for a while now that - funnily enough - the users who have been showing their asses for the past few days, have been pushing for a reckoning with "chauvinism" targeting the comms they dislike. It's always just been a general vague handwave about chauvinism.
Words are cheap, and they're fucking worthless when they come from people who are fine being ableist and misgendering others.Vague-posting can be toxic, but calling out specific users in a huge thread like this can be toxic too. The chaos in here is overwhelming enough as it is.
autistic user asking a genuine question for clarification:
do you truly feel like specificity would have made this more chaotic?
I have noted in other comments that I have not been on top of this the whole time, but it seems to me like a lot of the heat has come from the vagueness and generalizations. is that not your impression? if not, could you help me understand why you think that way?
🤷😭 I'm sorry. I've done my best to read everything – including the old thread you linked, and all of the comments in these threads – to try to understand. being told to just go read it all again isn't helping.
please don't ban me for trying to understand what is happening with one of the few lifelines I have. my 17yo trans son is a senior in high school, we live in Ohio, we need this place.
Also to add.
Can mods/admin stop making big changes to the site without posing the question to the community? Can this be written in big bold font somewhere? Was nothing learned during the vcj incident?
It needs to be an unamendable part of the Hexbear constitution. Never have these unilateral efforts gone smoothly for those implementing them or being subjected to them.
Like if something is deadass a major problem with the site, pitch you case for changing what is wrong. This site is full of good people who want it to constantly change for the better
This site is full of good people who want it to constantly change for the better
The mods don't seem to have faith in this for some reason.
Like if something is deadass a major problem with the site, pitch you case for changing what is wrong.
And site examples so users actually know where the line is and why something is problematic. Can't learn anything by just scolding and effectively saying "you know what they did wrong"
Being told "you should know what you did wrong" has been a line I've been told before, and I've been alienated by people when I LITERALLY have no idea what I did, I'm fucking autistic and I am being very honest in that I WANT to know what I did and do better but sometimes I just don't pick up on what exactly that is. Like everything I do could be wrong! This kind of thing has been bery triggering for me in the past. Obviously there will be issues that are self evident but sometimes they aren't and I think it should be taken in good faith that when people ask for examples they really aren't trying to be antagonistic.
I've been alienated by people when I LITERALLY have no idea what I did, I'm fucking autistic and I am being very honest in that I WANT to know what I did and do better but sometimes I just don't pick up on what exactly that is. Like everything I do could be wrong!
💔 feel this so much.
it's really honestly scary to have come to depend on the friendships I've made in this place and then realize that it could be taken away on somebody else's whim.
it makes me wonder what is the point in putting myself out there at all, you know? 😭
anybody reading this, please don't temp ban me for saying this. I'm 42 fucking years old, I'm perfectly fucking capable of deciding when I need a break, thank you. what I need is a safe place to be an autistic leftist with a trans son.
I'm sure everyone with a temp ban will come back with a whole fresh new perspective and will see things entirely how the mods do after being kicked off and not having any complaints addressed. I'm sure it won't lead to some just not coming back. I wouldn't want to after being treated like that
me neither, which makes me very sad. those are good comrades. the world is a fuck, we need all the good comrades we can get.
Yeah and they shouldn't have to come back with their tails between their legs after being made to go stand in the corner cause they got too snippy.
it makes me wonder what is the point in putting myself out there at all, you know? 😭
Fuckin same. After years of failed relationships and many blowing up in my face back to back, I mostly avoid making new friends irl for fear of rejection now. Tbf a lot of my behavior was to blsme but also I didn't know I was autistic at the time and SO MUCH was miscommunication/perseveration/not understanding what's appropriate and people not being straightforward with me.
I literally just got a 6 month ban from a ND discord chat I was part of for bringing up what I thought was an unfair ban in a super respectful way and that was hard, and so I came back here hoping for some community after all the election bullshit and now this. :/ I've also been dealing with a very similar problem at the job I've loved for years. Shady ass management stepping all over the workers, giving a million different fake excuses for a bunch of changes that are just destroying the org and making the frontline workers feel so demoralized and powerless. Not exactly the same but god damn it just feels like this is happening all over the place all at once.
I hope that things DO cool down after a few days and that this stuff is able to be addressed and not forgotten, and everyone lives happily ever after. But we will see.
I'm sorry that this seems to be taking an emotional toll on you
was nothing learned during the vcj incident?
I mean yeah, this current struggle session is like part 2 or 3 of the exact same, ever developing struggle session about dunking
It honestly feels like
Users:
"Please let us have a discussion if you plan on making any drastic changes to the site. We all know what's happened in previous ongoing giant struggle sessions"
Mods:
Show
It is shitty that the one of the many justifications for their actions are that the site is just shitposting/dunking and then they act like regular discord mods
It is, unfortunately, kinda really funny in an ironic way though
then they act like regular discord mods
Hey now, let’s not be throwing around accusations of grooming
/s cos ya never know
like 10%ish of the userbase is a mod. if you want change, sign up to be a mod and put in the work? idk its really easy to do. for trans people i literally add anyone thats trans and a regular user of the site to /c/traa. traa alone has 35 mods. youre acting like the whole mod team is just 4 people in wizard hats sitting in an ivory tower with zero discussion.
its impossible to know exactly how everyone is going to take every small change that must be done, and i feel like this is genuinely a really small change.
its impossible to know exactly how everyone is going to take every small change that must be done
Have you tried asking them
ok we're going to instate full direct democracy immediately, i am going to poll all of hexbear about whether or not we should ban some random guy over a weird comment, whether or not to approve a user every time someone signs up, every time there is some small technocratic rule change. we must become :vote: the website. deeply unserious. its hard enough to get even the most invested users to comment on shit and do shit until it blows up in some absurd way
people are also going at the transphobia angle a lot in this thread without realizing that almost a supermajority of the mod team is trans and wouldnt have included something blatantly transphobic (including the two people are irate with, carcosa and tc69), the context is just missing.
idk this is just all nonsense to me im going back to checking out
the_dunk_tank in the past month is ranked; 6th users/month, 3rd posts, 2nd comments.
Ah yes changes to that comm are exactly like a site wide discussion on banning "some random guy over a weird comment".
Say the line Bart
"deeply unserious"
It's fine for some decisions to be made by mods only, but keeping it quiet and rolling the changes out all at once when the decision is final seems to cause nothing but problems. It means the mods and admins are caught off guard when the users have strong objections, and have to scramble and backtrack to deal with the backlash. A heads-up about what changes were being discussed would have let the mods be aware of what complaints would be made while they were still in the decision making process. Then when the changes are made, they could already have measures ready to address the concerns, or at least consistent explanations of why the changes where necessary. Instead they had to quickly throw out multiple conflicting justifications, and added to the confusion.
If you're surprised the users saw this as more than a tiny change, an announcement that a discussion was happening could have given a warning of what to expect.
I'm a mod and I wasn't aware of the formerly?-secret mod chatroom until yesterday :/
Maybe Carcosa invited me after I applied and I forgot, am not sure
There is a secret /c/drugs mod chatroom but there's no activity in there rly, biggest discussion was like picking the banner image lol
Ofc "my" comms don't get a lot of activity, so I'm usually not doing any work lol
theres like 60+ people in it def not very secret lol. though afaik its not literally every mod in there because like you said people forget to join or something or just never sign up
I have never seen it explicitly mentioned before yesterday, I only seen like admin/mod "back channels" or something similarly vague mentioned before
It's not explicitly secret but there does seem to be this culture among the mod and admin team of an "inside circle", inside which decisions are made and the process behind how and why they are made is usually left mostly unspecified but ofc the statements by mods for/against this change did kinda subvert that usual process. Tbh I've never seen anything like this in my like 2.5 years here lol
Ofc, the "inside circle" thing does make sense considering the site nearly imploded a few times during the first year due to wreckers abusing democratic structures and many of the changes that made this site cool did have to be forced through
Idk, it seems like something has gone very wrong for a decision like this to be made apparently unilaterally given the response
I am in favor of further misogyny and other brainworms purges ofc but the whole point of the tanks was so that people could block that stuff if they don't wanna partake lol, now people just post stuff they wanna make fun of without writing an essay about it to other comms. Is just strange to me how this decision was made given the previous sentence
Also........ was that Catradora on alts in the other threads? Is kinda like another open secret that she got banned for vicious anti-veganism and stuff but she's still here, doing it on another acct now while being allowed to moderate and maybe using alts for when she wants to be explicitly ableist and transphobic (ofc I have no way to verify that other than what it seems like to me, I guess you would have to ask the lemmy.club admins for IP addresses lol). I don't rly like this "unbanned by vibes and the mods/admins like you" approach, I know people know about this and people's alts are around but it's another one of those open secret things (Like also maybe Melina still being around and DM harassing people like before and only catching a 7 day ban???)
This is gonna sound rly online but idc anymore lol, it does remind me a little bit of a communist party. Like the wrecking and bad faith shit gets so bad that leadership becomes tighter and tighter to protect the party but eventually you can end up with the leadership being disconnected with the rest of the party's feelings on stuff lol
Anyway, maybe I have the completely wrong view of what's going on. Tbh I don't rly know what's going on and that's kinda the problem, TC69 said she's "taking the reigns" now, again after 3 years gone?? And now people are getting banned for "touching keyboard too much" or something?? Even if that's true and it's a still an obscure web forum we all enjoy, how does that look good to anyone besides making the admin who did it feel better lol
I understand the position the admin/mod team must be in though, it must be rly stressful to have your decisions torn apart by 1200+ replies. Carcosa replied to me earlier but I missed replying before the thread got locked, wanted to say no hard feelings lol. Sorry this got kinda long lol
Edit: omg I just looked in the modlog wtf lmao,
see you on the other side if I get banned for this lolEdit 2: slow ass site not showing me why, I see MOST of the bans were requested now lol
Got me for a sec lol, still looks rly bad tbh
in general theres been a need for more admins and stuff that are vetted (which tc69 is). ive been offered it myself before but im mostly invested in my trans mutual aid stuff, not hexbear explicitly tbh whereas they need people that are far more focused. carcosas been having to do a lot of work on the site and the thanks they get is being misgendered by a bunch of people and being attacked for being the messenger for a very large group of people that carcosas trying to cover all the comments on and the context is lost.
Did rly suck to see Carcosa be attacked so much in spite of all they do for the site :(
Were people misgendering them? I didn't see any except one top-level post in the first thread which hopefully is removed now :(
I hate this, removing the tanks was supposed to help the exact type of toxicity that this has now become, and admins, mods, and users are all feeding into it
its impossible to know exactly how everyone is going to take every small change that must be done, and i feel like this is genuinely a really small change.
Well it is pretty obvious from the reaction that it wasn't
then run a slop channel naming competition for a new contained community
this will be the most important election of our lives
This post has mentioned chauvinistic, misogynistic, and toxic tendencies three times but provided literally no examples of such - nor did Carcosa's original post. I am not trying to say that these things have never existed or never will exist in posts/comments on my beloved Hexbear nor am I saying that you (or any other admin/mod) should have to provide examples of literally any/everything TC69 - but I am begging you to actually provide some legitimate examples because otherwise this just sounds like the same "we don't want the dunk tank because white cishet male behavior" justification that everyone was like
toYou want examples of these issues? The mod log is publicly open to see what kinds of content gets removed
But if the mods are removing these posts then it seems as if the problem is being resolved right there? Why do we need more rule changes to entire coms or the site, or site-wide discussion of our culture when the rules that already exist are being well-enforced? It seems unreasonable to expect that a rule-breaking post never gets made in the first place.
For example:
Misgendering from one mod to another mod, after the ban:
Show
Show
Just to be clear, are they exempted from the rules?
The modlog literally does not include the comms for any post, removed, locked or otherwise and cannot be searched by reason or otherwise, so telling someone "go look in the modlog" is - in my opinion - unhelpful as hell to any justification the mod/admin team is making about any comm or the site culture as a whole. Like I said in my original post, my intent is obviously not to downplay any actual misogyny, chauvinism, etc but to close two of the most popular comms for such things - I would expect you (i.e. the admin/mod team) to at least have some sort of screenshots or links to a handful of posts highlighting the issue.
How many transphobic posts do you see nowadays
Very few because of the mod team - but should we shut down Chapotraphouse, Main, and every other comm because someone might make a transphobic or misogynistic comment or post??
The justification just doesn't make sense to me.
I’ve heard whispers on the wind about the state of Hexbear – telling me that while things have massively improved for trans people, there is still work to be done in the chauvinism, misogyny, and overall toxicity departments.
What IS the source of the problem then, in your view? Should we just ban the words cocksucker, bitch, and twat since those were quite literally the reason the first two comments & post I found in the modlog, like 8 pages in, were removed for misogyny/homophobia?? It just seems like this is, like many have already said, the team intentionally being vague when really - from the 15 pages of the modlog I've looked through while writing this reply - it seems like this is a war on gendered words/insults, even if they aren't being used as such. Why would you (again, the admin/mod team) just not say that outright literally two posts ago instead of claiming it is 'cis het male behavior'??
I don't think any normal Hexbear would have a problem with any of the above words being banned. It shouldn't even really be a huge mod issue anyways, given we had - and still do have to my knowledge - a filter that will literally replace unallowed words in comments but what do I know
The modlog does kind of suck, and I think some things just aren't logged. While trying to find things to help myself understand the issue further, I came across an unrelated commbanning of someone for a surprising given reason. Then I found that there was no removal messages for the comments that incited the ban, though they were removed. Trying to parse the log itself is frustrating too, as it (and the frontend itself in some cases like viewing user profiles) tends to sort by putting every type of "content" on the list, so I'm seeing stuff from a year ago on the first page unless I limit it to a specific type of mod action, which isn't helpful when I'm trying to gauge the vibes.
Cool, like I said - I don't think any normal Hexbear is going to have a problem with this.
I have always respected you & the rest of the team for volunteering your personal time & arguably mental health to administrate this site so I won't continue airing my personal grievances with this and will wait for the next update from y'all (which is funny because I don't think I've ever actually made a Dunk or Dredge post & was quite vocal about rule-breaking posts after the notability rule was introduced) but can I say that banning @REgon@hexbear.net & a few others like @Aradina@lemmy.ml and (@morte@hexbear.net - who were in this thread adding valid criticism (especially when it comes to the misgendering/transphobia by the mod team on the previous post) and telling them to take a break is pretty shitty?
I get you're in a tough position - you haven't even been back officially for a week (afaik) and you're having to deal with arguably the biggest struggle session we've had since you left - but I don't think either 3 of those users should've been temp banned and to tell them to 'take a break' honestly is kinda irritating. This will probably sound harsh, but I think the moderators & admin team need to come to a decision on whether they want to be the user-base's babysitters or they want to be the enforcers of the actual rules of the site/comm.
Temp banning someone who arguably is one of the most justified users to be up and down this thread angry at the moderators but never actually made any insults or flew off the handle & giving a reason like "go take a break", "come back when you're not mad", or "sorry to disappoint" may work when you're talking to a child about watching the next episode of Blue's Clues, but to say that to a long-standing user (Morte has been here since the inception of the site, Aradina has been posting from .ml for over a year) when they voice disappointment with seeing how you've banned another user? Come on - I think the entire team, who again I do genuinely respect for volunteering their time and effort, should be better than that. No one even tried to make a comment like "Hey can you chill out or you're gonna catch a temp ban" but I understand why that wasn't done, it would've been seen as ridiculous and likely set them off given again - none of them were being inflammatory or insulting..
Don't really expect a reply for this - just felt like it would be wrong if I didn't point this out before logging out for a bit.
Fwiw that's a good change. The second one is already a de facto banned word, just not part of the filter yet. Definitely get to that.
It's not all bad
anything in there is already getting removed though
presumably you're talking about stuff that currently isn't banned but should be, could you be specific?
Reposting my comment lol
Yeah I'm tired of the vagueposting about chauvinism. It's been a thing for a while now that - funnily enough - the users who have been showing their asses for the past few days, have been pushing for a reckoning with "chauvinism" targeting the comms they dislike. It's always just been a general vague handwave about chauvinism.
Words are cheap, and they're fucking worthless when they come from people who are fine being ableist and misgendering others.There is work to be done dealing with chauvinism, but the call is coming from inside the house.
Why is someone who just returned after 3 years in charge of fixing this?
Nothing personal butyou're in the worst position to address culture.I said it 3 years ago, I'll say it again today. I'm not going to sit here and post every little example of things we're describing as an issue when the modlog is publicly available.
If mods/admins want us to take the modlog seriously they have to take it seriously first. What is a user supposed to think when they look at the modlog and see this or this?
I'm glad to wrt to the slop things and the rules things. I'm surprised there's no mention of any actions wrt to the mods or transparency. Unless that falls under COC somehow, but that's not the vibe I'm getting.
This strugglesession evolved slowly over time as it became clear the actual reasons for closing the comms were not the reasons given. It gradually became evident a subsection of the mod team have really shitty attitudes about what it is they do and the position they have in the community. They're reddit power mods wishing to rule over ever shrinking digital fiefdoms. If we want to reckon with "chauvinism" then we need to start with those holding the most influential positions, and we need to set in place a system that makes it so this cliquey backdoors ratfuckery shit does not happen again.
Like the labour shitfuck to your tory fuckshit I applaud your initiative, but I invite you to go further :tory:
There's a lot that could be done to achieve more transparency. I'll find my old comment for some of the bulletpointsedit: Christ I had to scroll thru a lot of dreg to find it. Can't believe you'd literally force me to see all those dumb takes and not even give me the ability to post, truly this is onethousandninehundredeightyfour.
Anyway, link to long post The relevant bit:I don't think this is the last time this situation will erupt, if nothing changes about how moderation is handled and how site changes are handled.
Keeping the two comms open just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Not kicking the mods who wrote that shit out is also a bad sign, for the direction this whole thing is headed.I would really recommend that mod discussions aren't anonymous anymore. Have the matrix board or whatever it is, but make it so everyone can go and look what is being posted, just like with the modlog. The only time discussions should be anonymous, should be when there is a risk to operational security, and not a vague risk, an actual one. It should also be announced whenever those anonymous discussions take place and explained why they have to be anonymous.
Early in the site days we went away from displaying which mod took an action in the modlog, and just blaming everything on automod. I think reverting that would go a very long way to bust a lot of this cliquey shit.
When users notice certain users get special treatment, they get banned for commenting on it, until the situation becomes so egregious that it cannot be hidden anymore. Not allowing the userbase to call out bad mod practice, is also not good. We've closed both userunion and feedback because the mods don't like the "drama" - Getting called out for shitty behaviour. We really need a comm where the userbase is free to voice concerns and grievances. That would also go a long way towards avoiding these situations in the future. And this time mods shouldn't remove posts just because they dislike them, that's pissbaby shit.
Other good effortposts I found while scrolling thru the dreg
- Ratboy on transparency
- Frank On healing
- Frank On some of the stuff that needs to be healed
- Morte On what made people pissed, which really wasn't the tanks
- CoolerOpposide On what ought to happen
Finally: For those who are just now tuning in and wondering if all the fuss is about the naming of some comms. It's not. It's about people feeling lied to, talked down to and mistrustful of the mod team due past behaviours and the way this was handled. This comment thread probably gives you the best idea of what was the catalyst for being Very Mad Online.
@TransComrade69@hexbear.net I'm done now, you can dunk on me knowing no more edits will come.
I'll still think Naruto is worse than One Piece thoughAh yes these transparency suggestions are exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned you having good ideas about it. I do think that there should be some sort of safeguards in place to keep mods from getting super overwhelmed from bad faith complaints but better to do that than not have any arena for constructive feedback and concerns
Good post. This sums up quite a lot of my feelings on the matter. @Frank@hexbear.net's posts on this strugglesesh have been truly excellent (and far far more eloquent than mine but ty for including me anyway lol)
Its clear there needs to be some shakeup in the moderation. Everything about that post not neutrally discussing policy changes was simply unacceptable in my opinion and accountability not being taken would be a grim portent for the future of this site. Which would suck because this is by farrrrr one of the best trans spaces on the net. Maybe this stems from the fact that we were fundamentally always a reddit clone, and a similar moderation system will inevitably attract types similar to reddit mods, and I dont really know what is to be done ab that. We do have some great mods and admins and im sure that the mods behind that post are well intentioned for the most part. Moderation is not easy. Bring constantly exposed to the worst users is not easy. The site wouldnt run without the hard work of a lot of comrades devotong their time and energy. But whoever contributed to that post needs to get over themselves, own up, and do some self crit. This cliquish, smug superiority needs to end because if its allowed to continue the site is going to end up like every other dead leftist forum
No half measures waltuh
Both are good but One Piece is 100x better than Naruto and I said what I said.
feeling very foolish for ever thinking the internet moderators on here don't have that much in common with all internet moderators ever
for a bit (hehe, bit)
it is
