I was part of the group that got banned yesterday, and I need to apologize to you all.
I have seen people mention previously that sometimes mods take upvotes for agreement, but I haven't trained myself to stop the reddit habit of voting on "food for thought" things, useful-addition-to-the-conversation-but-not-my-pov posts, and placemarkers in active threads, and there aren't downvotes here to easily mark the shitty stuff I want to come back to and learn from. I should always be opening things in new tabs instead.
I foolishly upvoted this comment as a "food for thought" comment and planned to come back to the thread yesterday evening to find it and read the responses and learn from them. instead my upvote counted as agreement and got me banned, which I know is my fault for not adapting to site culture and not foreseeing how that would be interpreted.
I totally understand, feel like the worst kind of fool, and spent my ban time thinking about what a piece of shit I am. far worse than that is the thought that any of you might think I agree with that comment, so I am posting here to apologize profusely and publicly for my upvote. I'm really, truly, terribly sorry, and idk what to do to about it except fuck off and try not to be such a fuckhead in the future.
explanation (not excuse) for those who care to understand why
I live in Ohio, which is immersed in the kind of chud culture that comment was talking about – I see my formerly borderline leftist little brother slipping into it, and it kills me. it's a point of view I remember seeing a lot when I was in DSA and not liking then, but I lack the information and wisdom to effectively articulate my problems with it. I very much want to understand what to do about it and how to talk about this stuff with people who believe it, but I get why it was offensive and shitty to mark it for myself in a way that would default mean "this is good" to others instead of pushing back on it at all or just opening it in a new tab to look at later. I'm very sorry about doing that.
I didn't open it in a new tab because I'm pushing triple digits of tabs open and knew it would be easy to find later because the Amber bot was inflating the comment activity. I keep forgetting to be judicious with my upvotes because I'm AuDHD and unlearning a decade of reddit habits is hard.
you didn't know that was why I upvoted it, it just looked to you like a bunch of your alleged comrades liked that post, and I was one of them. I hope you can forgive me, but I understand if it made you think differently about me. I get it, and I'm just really, really sorry.
as soon as I figured out that I was banned and why, I sent a version of this via DM from my old account to an em_poc user who is very near and dear to my heart, but I don't feel right only apologizing to one person when so many of you could have been hurt by my upvote, hence this post. I'm sorry that my apology to the rest of you wasn't that immediate, but I was worried that posting it from my old account would be seen as ban evasion and make my contrition seem insincere.
I appreciate very much the kindness and compassion so many of you have shown me, and it is devastating to know that I have repaid it in this way.
I'm very, very, very sorry.
please heap your scorn and excoriation here.
I sometimes upbear comments from people having a discussion on a post, especially outsiders, who have bad takes but are engaging in good faith as a little way to indicate that I am sending dopamine along as a gesture of good faith and to encourage them to stick around and maybe learn.
Maybe that's irresponsible or something, I see them as a tool in my conversations.
I do this exact thing. I want to see hexbear grow and will sometimes upvote a baby leftist with a bad take if they indicate a willingness to learn. Just like you said, I want to encourage them, and signal with a little hint that even if they're getting rightly excoriated for something, that their willingness to stick around and talk about it (without the typical liberal bad faith bullshit) and learn will be rewarded here. I realize it would be best for me to comment and express this exactly, but for one it's not always appropriate to do so given the context, and for another it's simply not always practical for me to type out a reply, depending on where I'm at and what I'm doing while browsing the site. I want these baby leftists who are steeped in inescapable propaganda to stick around and get dewormed, (rather than get turned off by a dog pile, even if it was justified, and go do the easier thing of hanging out on fucking .world where their brainworms will only multiply). I want this for their sake and for the sake of the site via community growth.
But now I feel like I could be punished for that, or even if not punished, that some mods will be looking at my upbears and thinking to themselves that I'm a shitty person. That I harbor reactionary beliefs that I don't actually believe because I upbeared a comment that contained a reactionary sentiment. Maybe that shouldn't matter to me, but it does. I'm extremely sensitive to that sort of disapproval. It's already why I don't comment a lot more to be honest. I can't not think about it, be effected by it, and it simply makes me not want to upbear which also sucks because that's mostly how I engage here.
There are also many times when I read a comment and I'm enthusiastically nodding along for 90% of it, but then run into something I strongly disagree with. But because the rest of it was good, I'll still give it an upbear especially if the user seems to be speaking in good faith (which I may or may not have accurately judged!) Once again, ideally I would respond and call out that one thing I disagreed with, but like I said, it's just not practical for me to respond most of the time. Now I'm going to have an internal debate every time that happens about whether I should upbear it or not, who will think ill of me if I do, and that will inevitably make me feel shitty and worry, even if needlessly so, and in turn, I will feel turned off to wanting to engage with the site.
Maybe I'm just too neurotic about this sort of thing and that's on no one but me. But I can't help it. This little episode has had (or will have) a profound chilling effect on how much I want to upbear which in turn has a chilling effect on how much I want to engage at all.