Hey, everyone. Hope this post finds you all well! A few days ago, PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS opened a comm request thread to name the community formerly known as The Dredge Tank. Now that it's been about 4 days and the votes seem pretty steady, we're rea-

angry-place "STOP THE COUNT!!!"

top-cop "Mr. President, she's talking."

As I was saying, we're ready to call the vote. Nobody's been happy with counterpropaganda, and we've heard you loud and clear. I'm excited to announce that Slop. is now open for all the posts you'd have previously posted to The Dredge Tank.

El Chisme continues to remain the new space for posts that would have been at home in The Dunk Tank.

In case anyone's confused about this, I'm gonna give a really quick explanation so everyone's on the same page with what's going on with the Tanks. The names of The Dunk Tank and The Dredge Tank have racist origins. The moderators of those communities agreed that the names of these communities should be changed. Unfortunately, while Lemmy allows the display names of communities to be changed, it does not currently allow the actual comm names to be changed. In order to change the names of these communities, we would have to shut them down and re-open new comms under new names. The mods of the dunk tank and dredge tank requested the name c/gossip. While there are some legitimate arguments being made relating to misogynistic societal perceptions of that word, the mods include women and enbies who disagree and specifically requested this name. I feel that this situation parallels the initial pushback that was experienced with disabled in which users voiced concerns that this name could be ableist, but the moderators of that community are themselves disabled and specifically requested that comm name, verbatim. Along with this name change, the mods felt that slightly expanding the scope of the community and simultaneously lowering the bar for the previous Rule 8 would allow users to post about more minor public figures as well as more major ones. This was seen as an expansion of the community's role, allowing posts to the new Dredge Tank replacement (counterpropaganda) to become a little more focused. We communicated this poorly, but the intention was to have users offer a sentence or two countering the reactionary take shown in the screenshot. Given how things spiraled from there, we've taken a step back from changing any of the rules during the switchover from The Dredge tank to Slop. We're trying to take time to let everyone breathe without changing too many things too quickly, but we also want to actually make sure people can get back to posting. Hopefully you're all okay with this pacing, lemme know below.


EDIT: thanks to @niph@hexbear.net for pointing out that this post didn't include the descriptions of the comms.

Where am I supposed to post...?

Slop is for what the old dredge_tank was like. Roast anonymous reactionaries to your heart's content!

Gossip for an informal discussion regarding people with power / notable / tools of power

Counterprop for a formalized discussion regarding reactionary people no matter how powerful/notable.


In upcoming admin updates:

  • I'll post some analysis of mistakes and missteps that were made in recent days, including some of the context that led up to those errors.

  • I'll offer a clearer and more complete explanation and description of the ongoing site culture issues that have been previously mentioned. These were poorly communicated before, but I'll do my best to explain both the issues at hand as well as the importance of dealing with them.

The last few days have been really confusing and frustrating for a lot of people and a lot has happened. This is not an appropriate place to reopen, re-litigate, or rehash the struggle session. I will not be debating either the struggle session or the subjects of the upcoming admin update posts here. Please refrain from doing so as well.


trump-feed "Folks, we're feeding the fish their slop, they're tremendously hungry, incredibly famished. And look: I get to feed them. They say: Mr President, please feed the koi fish, its din din time, and it is! I get to do the little shaka-shaka with the can, and they're happy, they're eating -they're eating- out of the palm of my hand, and they're getting so big and so strong. Look at all these koi fish! I bet they won't have any issues finding -finding- a special someone. And it's wonderful, it's great. Greydon Carter could never be a tremendously effective keeper of fish. His party is not so hot, and all of his betta fishes are dying! But Lyudmila's letting me feed them, and I'm doing a tremendously great job, and a looot better than what Sleepy Joe would do!"

  • brainw0rms [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    I don't really care what the new dunk comm is called, but there needs to be serious consideration put towards the volume of posts and the effect excessive time in the tank has on poster's (and lurkers) mental health. Don't get me wrong, I love a good dunk, but in recent months the volume and low quality of the posts on the dunk/dredge tank comms made me unsubscribe from them entirely, because it was filling up my entire feed with posts that felt like they were literally just re-litigating how much a piece of shit <insert known piece of shit here> is multiple times a day.

    My suggestion would be an automod-enforced limit on post submissions per user per day. Some may strongly disagree with me here, but first consider whether it's a good thing that people may be encouraged to subject themselves to- or actively seek out bad take slop- just for the purpose of posting (yes, we all love that upbear dopamine hit). I don't think every post needs to be an effort-post or even an especially good dunk, but maybe it would encourage people to stop and consider if they want to use up their finite number of daily dunk posts on low hanging fruit.

    • REgon [they/them]
      ·
      1 day ago

      You're not my superviser. This is just ableism, we've been through this.
      This "health" argument has been gone thru a whole bunch, don't relitigate it.

    • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      I'm perfectly able to decide for myself what I want to spend my internet time on, thanks.

      Here, have this: downbear

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
      ·
      1 day ago

      To be fair, a lot of it was just UlyssesT repeatedly dunking on Musk and AI. Well, he has deleted his account since then, so I don't think your impression of the dunk tank should be based on his activity.

      • brainw0rms [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        24 hours ago

        To be fair, a lot of it was just UlyssesT repeatedly dunking on Musk and AI.

        You would be correct.

        Well, he has deleted his account since then, so I don't think your impression of the dunk tank should be based on his activity.

        I disagree here. Yes, it was tiring, this is true, and I've stated as such elsewhere. But I just don't think it's reasonable for me (or anyone else) to be required to block the dunk comms entirely, or even just block specific overly ambitious users (or in this case, having to wait for for them to delete their account), for the site to become somewhat usable again. Like, I didn't and still don't have anything against UlyssesT specifically, so blocking him seemed excessive. That said, all things in moderation. His posts would've been totally fine if it wasn't literally the only thing I saw on the site for weeks at a time. I just don't think having unlimited posts that foment unproductive negativity is a good thing.

        But clearly this is not a popular opinion to have here, so I guess I'll just shut up.

    • SwitchyWitchyandBitchy [she/her]
      ·
      1 day ago

      100% agree and for those not getting it, this isn't about you or being your guardian. It's about keeping the site a decent place to be. A rate limit on inherently toxic/negative comms sounds like a wonderful idea.

    • Mardoniush [she/her]
      ·
      1 day ago

      Agreed, I'd also suggest a high but finite comment limit too, perhaps 100 comments a day in the comm