Hey, sorry Carcosa and others if this isn't the right place but I don't have the energy to get myself back on the matrix shit.
I have a very simple proposal which I believe will not stigmatise anyone nor stifle discussion etc, but would benefit a vulnerable segment of the hexbear community. I don't know if this is actually "simple" in practice because I don't know if the codebase supports this.
- confine all in-depth discussion about drugs and drug use to the c/drugs community
- remove c/drugs from the local/all feed
- link, clearly, to c/drugs from the sidebar so it is easy for people to find the community and the information or discussions they are interested in
Speaking as a trans person, this is hands down the best site for my people on the entire internet. We are a statistically vulnerable population, we need safe spaces for our discussions, we can rarely participate in the rest of the internet and/or real life without running into some fuckin bullshit that we shouldn't have to. Hexbear is different. Hexbear provides it all.
Speaking as an active drug addict, multiple-time relapser and veteran fuckup, I believe the recovery community is similarly statistically vulnerable, has to live in a world that normalises alcohol and other types of drug consumption, etc.
Speaking as somebody who was at one time a habitual methamphetamine user, I can attest to the fact that for some of us (and I've heard of this before I ever got that far down the path) the way, for example, news sites / tabloids etc, love to put a meth pipe on the cover or headline article whenever they have an excuse to attract attention- simply seeing those photos can be a relapse trigger.
A photo of a filthy pipe that I did not choose to look at but was right there on the cover of a fucking newspaper while I was in a shop, has in the past triggered me into recurring dreams of getting high, followed by days that feel like lost progress as I found myself fighting intrusive thoughts, impulses and romantic nostalgia trips that would have led nowhere good.
I've lost a lot of people to addiction, a variety of ways. My community, the trans community, notoriously loses a lot of our people to addiction.
I believe it would be wise for us to start posting with consideration about these topics and to be aware that there are users amongst us who are white-knuckling their way through a process of recovery that will take some of them years if not the rest of their lives.
I think it's worth the small burden of effort on the part of the drug using and drug agnostic segment of the community to post with an eye to harm minimisation and that includes protecting our recovering users from relapse triggers.
It should be on us, the posters, and on the site (if it's feasible) to put these discussions in a place which has to be actively sought out to be found.
We can provide the signposts in the sidebar, I don't think acknowledging that drugs exist is the problem here, it's the fact that c/all can throw a curve-ball at you at any time. We shouldn't expect recovering addicts to visit the drugs community and elect to block it, we should hold ourselves accountable and recognise that what might feel like a harmless discussion might be somebody else's trigger point.
I'm thinking very specifically of the ketamine discussion in c/cth yesterday. It's hard to talk about these things without potentially triggering that "romantic" connection some of us have with our drugs of choice. It would be better and more thoughtful to partition these discussions away from the most prominent and accessible feed.
Again, sorry for not visiting on matrix. I hope this post is appropriate. I'm just trying to be informative and I think I've recognised a pretty serious blindspot in our otherwise excellent site culture.
I hope the changes I propose are already supported by the software. I don't think I'm asking for much. I've probably written more on the topic than I needed to. But I don't think this is the sort of change that would or should upset the community.
Please.
Edit: If we have a recovery community it should probably be treated likewise. The post titles alone can be a trigger.
and I don't have a solution for how to treat alcohol in this. It's not a major issue that I've noticed but I just don't know. Alcoholism is one of the most destructive and the most pervasive. But THAT might be a bone of contention for some users so I elect to leave it out of this proposal.
As one of the mod of /c/drugs, I agree. /c/drugs is marked as a NSFW comm so that users can easily block it out, or just block the comm as a whole. I'm a recovering alcoholic and frequently use content warnings when discussing it outside of the drug comm. I've always wanted it to be a containment comm ever since my comm request, and I wanted to be one of the people running it so that people weren't glorifying things that were stupid (my example in the side bar is mixing downers). This community has been druggy since the Reddit ChapoTrapHouse days, and still is. I wish people were more aware that not everybody wants to see it. I know I'm in recovery and don't have a hard time moderating the comm, but I know from my AA meetings that not everybody is like me.
Also, we kind of have a recovery comm, self-improvement has been adding that content to their comm recently.
I appreciate your work. I appreciate that most of the drug discussion stays small enough and confined in that space that it doesn't actually end up on c/all that's some low key good shit resulting from your efforts.
Maybe it's evidence that making the community hidden isn't even necessary if the community and its posts don't tend to hit critical mass and CWs stay enforced.
I agree that we've been druggy-adjacent since the bad old days, but we also used to have trans cuties threads and shit. Hexbear is so much more well grounded and safer in general than the subreddit was.
i am a (admittedly) part-time mod on c/drugs and recently when looking at the profile of one of our new arrivals
i saw this person (can't remember pronouns sorrry) listed strong triggering to specific drug discussion and was thinking of something like this myself when pondering how to keep them safe
i think i cw outside that comm? maybe not in the first few months i was here.
but yes it would be a good thing to have it sort of "delisted" or just default not subscribed to. if such a thing is possible without completely hiding the comm
i saw this person (can't remember pronouns sorrry) listed strong triggering to specific drug discussion and was thinking of something like this myself when pondering how to keep them safe
This is an extremely important addition to the discourse. I don't check profiles, assuming it was posted there, so I'd easily not notice that and with lax posting discipline, could cause harm to someone like that.
a lot of the new people from bluesky have pretty info dense profiles, very social media style.
but im an old so i tend to check everyone's just to see if there's any info/cute things/jokes/whatever. it's one of the aspects of lemmy that i think is superior to reddit and makes it feel like a more comfy old school forum
im an old so
Same but I'm afraid of forming parasocial connections on here so I aint bout it. It is fun when I do occasionally stumble onto someone's cool profile tho.
edit: I shouldn't have read yours. Damnit. lmao
and i wouldn't exactly call it "parasocial" if you actually interact with the person. parasocial is more just sort of listening in/viewing someone's social life (whether real or not) and developing a bond. there's no actual back and forth.
sure we're all anon internet people but i would say it's a slightly higher level.
Okay I can see your point. I'm a lonely MFer and wish I hadn't been expelled from so many platforms and communities. I'm usually in the poweruser/moderator/admin pipeline within weeks of getting into any real social platforms.
I wish I could agree with you about that on hexbear but I think it is either:
- risky for me, in particular
- risky for people who might feel a social connection with me
- probably risky for everyone for many overlapping and additional reasons
I think encouraging it encourages bad praxis for more serious forums for discussing direct action and could lead to infiltrators finding our vulnerables and grooming them into doing a thing. I think we should try to just be a list of almost forgettable names.
HB is a weird place sitting at a place of "clearnet, but you're safe to shitpost about how many ways to kill a CEO you have tried IRL" and the sort of space that could produce some real fucken hitters if we're "not careful" (do it right lolol) and I just don't know how I feel about it as a place to form and break social bonds within. That sort of thing can fuck up communities.
Like I'm fucking gutted that popular user recently left and (probably irrationally) worry it was somehow my fault. They probably just needed a break or realised we aren't as serious as they are about taking a hard line against <some behaviour> and it's got nothing to do with me at all. Gutted because we connected over something I wrote, in a brief few exchanges in the thread, and now they're gone and their nice words are gone and I never wrote down their final music recommendation to me so I'm pissed about that too. I'm fucking pissed.
There is another user who if they read this will probably know who they are who I made a point to avoid posting anything but the vaguest and comfiest replies to originally, before I took a break, cuz "they just like me fr" and I've had discord people end up in psychiatric care / relapsed / permanently damaged because of a brief online fling.
So while I agree that we're at a higher level, and real recognise real here and there- I just.. i've seen it go catastrophically bad many times before.
Should have a mastodon thingo for that sort of "getting to know each other thing" imo. I'm not gonna pretend like there aren't posters forming deep friendships via DM already on here but it just. It's risky. I'm a casualty of a community turning their back on me and supporting an abuser who once ousted me from the community got me perma'd from discord (nbd, i am hackerman) but like, it hurts on an epigenetic memories type level from the tens of thousands of years where people had was each other to stay alive.
I dunno. I still think about this issue a lot. Like whether I should put feelers out to see if anyone wants to invite me to a more appropriate specific community to hang out and get a better social itch scratched. Maybe I will maybe I won't. I hope to be in prison for direct action reasons within ~18 months or to have moved on to a more holistically healthy IRL lifestyle.
Do you really have an up-armored stormchaser rig? Mommy?
hey i was going to DM a response but read on your profile that you won't see it. been super busy lately (am in one of those jobs that is hell during holidays and weather events).
so been forced to touch grass but the grass is on fire and my face is being pressed into it
without going into deets i understand where you are coming from. im an elder millennial, and have a weird past with social media/online during that "golden age" period when images were scarce and we were all just profiles/handles
i made some RL relationships, however short, and met people as well as figured myself out by that kind of socializing. basically broke out of my social anxiety, especially towards women (cis and trans).
while simultaneously being rejected by very early proto-trans communities. so yeah i get squishier about this place mostly because it brings back good feelings again from the early 00s. feels more real then any other social media, especially reddit. perfect mix of old and new school.
and as far as the last question lol the armored stormchaser rig is a reference to a comment i made here months ago about transforming the U.S. military into the Climate & Weather Corps and turning an entire armored division into stormchasers
im just a lowly volunteer weather spotter i wish i lived somewhere where i could chase
transforming the U.S. military into the Climate & Weather Corps and turning an entire armored division into stormchasers
best idea.
I want to reply more to this but I'm just waking up. I appreciate the reply and, despite what my profile says I am now back in the habit of keeping my eye on my inbox.
Sounds like you and I probably unknowingly crossed paths at some point if that's your age group and experience with the net.
I've been exploring other protocols and stuff lately and been scratching that good itch for "the old internet" in surprising places. Lots of weird gems still to be found.
Feel free to DM if theres stuff you wanna say, I'll see it and I'm in the habit of checking so yeah I'm so back lol.
Do dig that you found time to reply. Sorry to hear you dont get to chase storms haha.
Oh, and I'm also really sorry and hope you're doing okay if any of the current fires are fucking with your life.
alcohol tobacco
IMO it should. I've known enough alcoholics to know even hearing brand names is triggering. It's incredibly difficult to stay sober when you're constantly being bombarded with advertisements, stores having it out in the open, etc. I imagine alcoholics on hexbear probably want to come here and not have to worry about it.
As for tobacco, it's not life-ending or anything...until it is. Don't know if people here are struggling with emphysema or cancer or anything, but again, it's one of those things easily triggered by even mentioning a brand name. I'm a former smoker and will sometimes get cravings from weird places, though I can't say I've struggled abstaining from tobacco use. For others, it's incredibly difficult.
I don't know anything about marijuana/THC addiction to have an opinion.
I don't know anything about marijuana/THC addiction to have an opinion.
Runs in my family. It's an incredibly disrespected plant. Shit ruins lives just as effectively as anything else if it's done too early, too much, too long or if you just got dealt a shitty hand. I take breaks but I always come back to it, it's impossible for me to know if that's entirely free of addiction factors. It's definitely habit forming which is another aspect of addiction that is sort of under appreciated.
Still don't have a strong opinion on how it should be treated on HB, my personal biases are too strong.
Content warnings for these things outside /c/drugs would probably be beneficial.
Asking the real questions. Like why are there not more blunt smoking emojis (for me to use responsibly in a CW'd posting environment?)
You know, I misread the part about in-depth discussion, I thought it was about mentioning drugs. I don't think there's ever been much in-depth discussion of the drugs I mentioned, so probably not an issue to resolve in the first place
Yeah, mentioning it in passing isn't a big deal but here's one about cigarettes that I think would be worthy of a content warning as an example. If you recently quit smoking, I wouldn't recommend opening this because it's an intentionally triggering statement to make things clear
CW: Cigarettes
I just fucking love Newports in the winter time, it's the greatest goddamn feeling. The mix of my menthols with the cold air just hits me right, especially with a nice cold cup of water with it. It's even better when there's snow outside and it's a little humid but not too humid. I'll just chainsmoke out on the back porch with some tea sometimes, it just makes the whole thing feel natural to me.
Fill that in with any other drug, and it should either be in /c/drugs or have a content warning imo. Most people who use the drug comm don't even talk about drugs that way, but I've seen some comments like that about alcohol and weed in other comms. Like I said, I'm not personally bothered by it, but some people have already spoken to me about being uncomfortable with the drug conversation on Hexbear.
every time I scroll past this now I want to bum a smoke and I only read it once. I don't even smoke lmao. Excellent example.
Yeah I feel like a casual mention of sucking down cigs while you cope with a situation is not something CW worthy.
The fuzziness of this question (where to draw the line) might indicate we need to think more about just nudging the culture if and when it backslides, requesting mods move threads to the appropriate communities and perhaps make zero changes to the actual function of the site.
Edit: to clarify, I also think casually mentioning a drug use in passing of any kind is possibly low-risk, hence the "in-depth" part of my post. It's when things get focused and upbears and replies draw attention to them that they start to gain more visibility and more likely to expose vulnerable people or draw them into the "collective rationalisation" of normalised substance use.
Great idea, honestly surprised we don't enforce that already! I think the list of things that need CWs should probably get updated, CoC hasnt been updated since mid 2023. I agree with the emoji comment as well.
I explicitly left alcohol out because I don't care to struggle over it. But we probably should treat it with more respect than the general public in this regard.
Weed, probably yes, even though I blazeit. Tobacco, I don't have an opinion even though I'm a nic fiend.
I'm not sure how to resolve the problem of where to draw the line, it's a worthwhile discussion to have. My positions on what's "okay" and what's "not okay" are all basically emotional / irrational / vibes based. So I'm not able to really contribute usefully.
Even demarcating a subset of substances (alcohol, tobacco and fire ass weed) as "okay" is sort of irresponsible towards our younger and/or more vulnerable-for-other-reasons users.
But like, they are also a component of almost every culture on the planet and have been since at least the old dead dude they dug out of the glacier, or was it the dead dude in china with the hemp seeds? (or are they the same thing? wait was that a dude? lol)
This is a serious and seriously hard thing to figure out though. I would not want to be the admin who told hexbear they can't talk about their vape without a spoiler and content warning that's for damn sure.
I'm not sure the trio of generally acceptable "california-sober" drugs have the same reach as far as deep and damaging addiction and subsequent trigger risks go compared to "hard" drugs or "interesting" drugs that are habit forming and risky to use regularly.
CW for pics of animal products
That's a really apt comparison that I totally glossed over somehow on first reading. Definitely a potential solution to the "fuzzy area" drugs and casual discussion.
Also is a good backstop for the core of my concern- are vegans going to be triggered into eating meat? Nah. These stakes are higher.
[deleted for reactionary humor]
CW: animal product joke
or what if, "These steaks are HIGHer"
This should be CWed for animal products :)
tru tru. please leave your quote copy intact for the bemusement of other simple minded proles like myself.
Hm. I appreciate the insight from a technical point of view.
I don't want to make significantly more work for anyone or create a situation where a community gets broken. Maybe it's worth spinning up a hidden community again as a test to see how well things function. I dunno.
I agree in principle with the alcohol points. I'm just not gonna fight on that hill. I'm probably an alcoholic in denial at the moment.
I usually just try and not talk about my use and abuse of things on hexbear at all because I'm old enough to have witnessed more impressionable people be influenced by my casual attitudes end up on the path to ruination. I try not to be casual about any of this shit anymore but ugh, you know, sometimes you just say some shit and realise later you're doing a foolishness.
Good points from a recovering addict myself. I didn't realize that thread could potentially be triggering.
At the time I posted in it, neither did I.
CW: drugs/relapse?
now I have a gram of ket on the way. Coincidence? Not even mad. It's not a problem drug for me. (yet?)
.
I think the majority of the discussion focused on harm minimisation and critiquing the particular operation Corgz was looking at. Some of my posts, however, were probably irresponsible given the venue, in retrospect. I'm coming to this realisation after watching some "recovery" oriented youtuber who despite telling HARROWING tales, left me feeling like I wanted to [redacted.]
I feel that thread should be moved to the drugs sub but idc it will soon be history at this point I'm thinking towards the future.
Your posts were extremely well tempered and cautious as is. I found myself repeatedly upvoting posts like yours that contrasted my own.
Just FYI if you're ever interested in recovery stuff, we post that in !self_improvement@hexbear.net I've been trying to make it into the recovery comm in addition to a general catch all for self-betterment.
Appreciate that. I'm glad the space exists. The last decent subreddit I used before leaving reddit was an alcoholic recovery sub. Just to lurk though.
I'm fiiiiine. ;)
erasure
