Hello users of hexbear the mod team wanted to make this post as the past couple weeks of federation have been quite eventful.
First off, I want to apologize to any hardship, stress, discomfort, alienation, or any negativity users have experienced as a result of federation. I want to especially extend apologies to marginalized comrades and those that have voiced their disapproval, disagreement, or concern about federation.
Second, in every vote based discussion we have had on federation, the votes for federation and votes for federation with large instances have trended to be near-overwhelming majorities. In the spirit of operating the site in accordance with the desires of most users, we have gone with these decisions.
Third, I want to remind everyone that you are able to set your default feed in your user settings. This is an important tool, as setting your feed to Local prevents posts from federated instances from showing on your feed. You may further curate your feed by setting it to Subscribed, and ensuring that you are only subscribed to communities you wish to see posts from. The Subscribed feed allows you to for example unsubscribe from the_dunk_tank while subscribing to all the other hexbear communities, preventing you from seeing federated instance posts as well as the_dunk_tank posts mentioning other federated instances.
We are now federated with two instances with more than 200 daily active users:
lemmy.ml
lemm.ee
Forth, I wish to remind everyone that there is a pinned post in the hexbear community that allows users to nominate a federated instance for defederation, it can be found here: https://hexbear.net/post/277518
In closing, we would like to state that this post is also a space for Hexbear users to comment on how federation has been for them.
As we are in one of those weeks when decades happen on this site, your feedback is crucial to us in deciding the direction of this forum. As such, we ask of you two questions:
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What are your thoughts on the Fediverse, and how has your experience changed through federation?
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What would you like to be done going forward, in an ideal situation?
Once this feedback is collected, we will sift through the answers to find the most popular measures advocated for, as well as the overtones of the experiences submitted, and plan what is to be done accordingly.
Other instance users, if you comment on this thread, you will be banned from hexbear and your comment will be removed.
While mistakes have been made the in federation, they were made democratically, and the admin team has continued to be based
The biggest lesson for me has been if an instances' admin sucks, federation with them will also suck. Should stay the course for now, now that shitjustshit has been defedded
Also the
meme somehow never stops being funny to me or funny to post at some one in a hostile mannerThat one admin's "my Estonian heritagerino makes me an authority on USSR bad akshully" gave me
vibes and is why I will always cast a lemmeeee.eeeee hate vote. Also many of their posters are trashMore ok with Lemmy.ml a friend there first told me about this site and he was correct I would like
Federation with other good and small instances is good
I think, overall, that federation has been a net positive for site culture. ADHD-fueled longpost incoming. Tried to edit for easier reading after.
The vibes were always off
I see a lot of people lamenting the loss of the "cozy pre-federation vibes" and I don't really get it.
I left this site some months before federation, because the vibes were just off. Every day was just a new strugglesession, and it wasn't ever about anything really. It was just a static group of active long-time-posters that assumed the worst possible interpretation from one another. People misinterpreted each other in order to find someone to dogpile on - Hell we've got such a thread going right now, and it's practically all hexbear users, the few exceptions are pretty clearly leftists as well. That thread has a lot of users being very hostile to one another, assuming the other means the worst. It's a strugglesession about the Romanovs! Except it isn't, it's about killing kids! Except it isn't and it is, because the thread is just a bunch of people speaking past each other in order to continue some argument. That's what pre-fed vibes were to me. I recall seeing a strugglesession over bicycle helmets!
When it weren't that is was meaningless stuff that still turned into arguments - BRICS chicks for example, which was also reawakened recently. Yet another bad vibes negative struggle session containing mainly hexbears.Every thread was just meaningless hostility, and the ones that weren't were users congratulating each other on not being a redditor, or repetition of stale memes and low effort posts like "Whoops I pooped my ass out, who wants some?"
Treat discussion was everpresent and everybody held weird grudges. To me the only thing that kept this site somewhat good was the discussions on the news thread.
The cozy vibes people spoke of seemed reserved for cytube and the megathread - which are still just as cozy as ever, or they're at least as free from wreckers as they always have been.
People like to bring up strugglesessions of days gone by - those weren't fun. It's fun in retrospect, but in the present it was uncomfortable. Those strugglesessions, those bad vibes came in spite of us being defederated, and every struggle session would be followed by users sub-tweeting each other with mocking posts. It was childish and shitty. Plenty of people carried weird grudges.
Things ain't what they used to be, but they also are
The sites mythology of the first year and the latest year stand in stark contrast to me as well. While strugglesessions have always been a thing
, it used to be counteracted by the aforementioned agitprop. That has stopped, yet we like to pretend as if we're still that place - people love to bring up @Eugene_V_Dabs@hexbear.net though that user stopped posting a long time ago. We stopped being the place that did agitprop and the like, we stopped being an organising ground. The exception, which makes me very happy to see, was the funding of u/Nakoichis project in recent months.
In the latest year it seems to me like it's just always
and nothing else, the only notable exception being the news mega, which has had a large group of long-time users being against it, and then nakoichis fund-raiser.
Plenty of users have complained about the news mega, accused mods or 72trillion of being bigots in disguise or the like.I see plenty of users write sentiments about federation giving a sudden influx of bad vibes and needing to be on edge. I'd ask them to check the modlog from months back. Back then people were on edge due to wreckers, before that due to strugglesessions. There's a reason the rule of wrecker-jacketing was implemented, and it's because we constantly accused each others of being wreckers. That accussation was often valid as well, we had constant wreckers, plenty of our LGTBQ users got DM harassed or spammed or stalked. How many power users haven't turned out to be chuds as well? We act as if the site has suddenly been discovered by a bunch of transphobes, when they've always been here in one way or another.
Looking back it's remarkable how much site culture has changed over the years. In the first year we had a bunch of AMAs and effortposts seem to have been much more common than now. The discussion was lively as well. The site culture changed around the time one of the many lifeboat communities got onboarded, and again when there was that whole accusation of the admin, and again with the whole drama about name changes and whatever. Why should we say that that change was good and this change is bad? Back then some users were against the change as well, and others were for it.
This site was started as a lifeboat to r/cth and the culture of being agressively leftist is still on it. Insofar as posting is praxis, that was what r/cth did. It kept reddit from turning into a nazi bar, it provided another narrative than the one fed by astroturfed media. Some users talk of the idea of "growing the site" being pure capitalism, but that argument of "growing the site" isn't really one I see pushed by people for federation - it's not what I'm arguing for here. I'm arguing for returning this site to its' roots of being a counterbalance that makes sure an online space doesn't turn into a nazi bar. Typically the argument against "growing the site" also mentions that we had a cozy vibe, but that vibe comes in part as a result of the userbase, a userbase that wouldn't have been here if this site didn't start as a lifeboat for r/cth - If for nothing else the fact that there's plenty of leftist forums that didn't ever reach a critical mass to sustain acitivity enough to make the place lively, and this site started with that critical mass due to being a lifeboat.
As many users that mention not coming here due to something related to r/cth it seems to me that there's an equal or greater amount that came to this site - at least initially - because they missed the old r/cth.
federation is good, actually
I think federation has in a lot of ways brought the best of us forward. We aren't just repeating talking points, we're sourcing them and checking them. We like to say that what separates us from the libs is that we investigate, but I've seen plenty of our own users that haven't been able to source their claims, until pressed by some lib. In some discussions I was that user that suddenly had to recognize I hadn't really interacted with the effortposts made by others, I'd just scanned headlines. There's lively discussion now, people are putting in work to make sure what they say is true and can be proven as such. Memes aren't just stale reposts anymore.The_dunk_tank serves a purpose now. It's not just a twitter screenshot of some rando going "Hey [some streamer] said [other streamer] was [slur/based/cringe]. It now highlights threads on the fediverse ripe for doing agitprop.
What now?
I don't think we should federate with nazi instances, I think it's good we defederated from ShittyJingoisticWankers. I don't think the site culture has changed for the negative, and I think federation was good for hexbear, and I think hexbear does a lot of good for the fediverse. I'd like to see federation continue and I'd like to see us reach out to more communities. Maybe with some more vetting - specifically of those instances mod teams beforehand. The issue with ShitJustWonks wasn't so much the users as it was their mods not doing anything about them - like with blahaj and 196.If we're doing the airlock thing to preserve the "cozy vibes" (which again I don't think were ever really present) then I think it should be reversed. Hexbear stays federated, we have one instance that is only federated with hexbear, and that one is then for all the cozy vibes.
edit: Looking thru this thread and the other one discussing defederation, I do also think it's sus how many new accounts speak of the site being ruined due to federation, talking about the good old days and arguing for complete defederation. I know I'm throwing bricks from a glass house, since I also lost my old account and so this one is also new, but I dunno... Felt the need to point it out anyway.
double edit: For the many people that lament this sites loss of being a safe space, I can feel a bit frustrated as this lamentation has never been present over the loss of the sites neurodiverse mod team. c/neurodiverse used to be very vibrant and living, and that comms mods all more or less disappeared due to the r/vcj strugglesession. Since then I personally have felt as though I missed a safe space for ND people, yet that loss was acceptable back then, as a result of the site growing or whatever. I don't think the queer safe space should disappear either, but I hope it's clear from my post that I also don't think it has or is disappearing. As long as our mods are on it things aren't really all that different from before. There's always been transphobic wreckers.
Maybe one day we can get someone like quillquote back and actually make this site inclusive for ND people as well. Would be nice.tl;dr:
- The site needed something new. It was stale. So many low effort posts.
- The vibes weren't ever cozy
- The vibes didn't suddenly turn bad, they were off before. We were constantly arguing over petty shit. It was common discourse to complain about the bad vibes as well. People kept assuming the worst of each other.
- All the strugglesessions people like to bring up were pre-federation hostility too.
- The vibes in the mega and cytube are still cozy.
- The liberals have forced us to put effort into our thoughts.
- Federating allows us to keep the fediverse from turning into a nazi bar. The fact that it is not run by CIA ghouls means we don't get deleted like on reddit.
- The site was once more focused on organising and agitating. It changed away from that. I think it is okay that it changes back to focus more on that again.
- Pre-federation we also had wreckers. There's a reason we have a rule against wrecker-jacketing. Anyone disagreeing used to be accused of being a wrecker.
- Federation has encouraged more creativity, I see less reposts of the same old memes, I see less low effort posts in general.
- We are arguing less amongst one another.
- Federation is good for hexbear and hexbear is good for the wider fediverse.
- We should vet the mods of sites we think we would federate with.
- If we are going with the airlock idea, then I think it should be reversed. Hexbear stays federated, we have one instance that's only federated with hexbear for the "cozy vibes."
I guess I am convinced by your arguments here, especially on the inhibition of nazi/alt-right people hijacking lemmiverse, but I reject the notion that posting is praxis and substitute for genuine political leftist evangelism when it's just the fabrication and cultivation of more subcultures for residents of the
to become more amenable to socialism. The developing world is not afraid of embracing socialism as are the int'l communities are.
There was another poster who said the utility of this space for any political activist purposes is more useful as a network for material and financial support/fundraising than it is for dissemination of political propaganda and evangelism of errant liberals looking for new vocabulary and ideology to articulate their grievances and misgivings about our political order.
The fetishization of political evangelism via esoteric and fringe communities like Hexbear or the larger lemmyverse is a confusion of social activism and creating an informed and mobilized working class with still alienated liberals, seeking new identity on their journey for self-actualization and agency of understanding their own misery, and context of what they sense is social malaise. The fetishization about converting liberals to socialists - through the internet and this site, mind you - appears to me about a journey of self-actualization and catharsis through shared revelation rather than educating and encouraging new social activists.
__
To be a socialist is to be a social activist. To provide aid, assistance, support, and be in solidarity with the oppressed. Having good takes on reddit, hexbear, twitter, or just in casual conversation with real people is not socialism; it is intellectual amusement. It's the equivalent of listening to Chapo or even Blowback.
Consider Brace Belden's response to being accused of being financed by the US gov't: What would be the point?.
The point of catharsis as its own end is to pacify you with believing knowing the truth or living in disillusionment gives you a certain degree of freedom and emancipation since you can navigate that world easier. Ultimately its true form is to inform your politics with a moralist view, with the believing in the righteous dogma will echo through society.
The problem with having the right views in this age is there's little idea what to do with them besides spontaneous outbursts of protest and riots. What is the 21st century version of "what is to be done"? There is no mainstream or popular vision of what a post-revolutionary society will be like, which is likely why the US spends a lot of its time demonizing China and why a lot of westerners buy into that demonization.
It seems to me like you and I more or less agree. I don't think posting is praxis because someone on the internet begins agreeing with me. Two socialists sitting at home posting all day have about the same real-world impact as two libs posting all day. Believing that posting is in itself praxis is sort of like believing voting is praxis to me.
I think posting is praxis in the sense that posting can be understood as a shorthand for agitprop, which helps radicalise others. I think the west is generally under the hegemony of capitalists, which means the general culture is capitalist as well, which means that a lot of people in the west aren't leftists, which means that the leftists in the west needs to work against this cultural hegemony. I think this work is in fact important in that it can radicalise new people, which can then go out and affect real world change.
In other words posting is kind of praxis if your posting makes people go outside and do leftist activism.
I don't think that should ever be the focus of any one persons organising though - Or if it is, they shouldn't write posts on a niche forum, but instead produce actual mass-distributed agitprop.
I think the point about the site functioning as an organising space is very good, and one I read and agreed with before as well. My experience was that that function was more present earlier, and I think a site more focused on agitating and educating will also be one more focused on organising. My general experience of the site before was not one with fertile grounds for organising.In fairness, Hexbear's party line has always been that Hexbear is not a substitute for real organising and activism. It's a place to shitpost, at most a place for agitprop.
Looking back it's remarkable how much site culture has changed over the years. In the first year we had a bunch of AMAs and effortposts seem to have been much more common than now. The discussion was lively as well. The site culture changed around the time one of the many lifeboat communities got onboarded, and again when there was that whole accusation of the admin, and again with the whole drama about name changes and whatever. Why should we say that that change was good and this change is bad? Back then some users were against the change as well, and others were for it.
I wasn't aware about the early history of the website. I mostly thought it was even more struggle sessions (I peeped at the actual outdoor cats struggle session, and it was absolutely deranged. People were issuing death threats on each other lol).
And I still think it's funny how the news megathread is completely unaffected by federation. As long as the best part of the site is still trucking along, I guess I'm happy enough no matter what happens to the rest of the site.
And I still think it's funny how the news megathread is completely unaffected by federation. As long as the best part of the site is still trucking along, I guess I'm happy enough no matter what happens to the rest of the site.
Libs don't read, so of course the news mega wouldn't be touched by them. Even other hexbear users have tried to raise shit about the mega being pro-russian or whatever, but they quickly learned to do that outside of the mega.
There was one specific user whose reaction to being dunked on for western lib geopolitics takes was to start a crusade to get the news mega discontinued. They hop user accounts and are probably using a new one now, but fortunately if they are they have dropped their obsession with the newsmega being patsocs or whatever other fever dream they'd cooked up.
There was a cadre of dedicated users that disliked the mega for both "taking activity away" from the other thread, and also for being a patsoc hub. It was weird
Yeah I was kinda surprised too. I looked for some effortposts and it's kinda wild how many of them are from the early days.
I just got done reading the Romanov thread, and you somehow got flack from both the "killing little Alexei is good aktually" and "killing little Alexei is bad aktually" crowd lol. If anything, it was the non-Hexbear user who was reasonable since they didn't know the context of the picture and changed their mind when they understood what the context was. Meanwhile, a bunch of 2020ers were just going at it against you. It makes me feel they already have beef with each other from some feud 2 years ago because they could just be arguing with each other instead of both arguing their perspective sides with you.
See, it's that bullshit ex-couple awkward energy once again. You're like the mutual friend of an ex-couple, and instead of talking/arguing with each other, you're the punching bag. I'm not saying that they legitimately have beef with each other, but just that the awkward energy is there.
Yeah exactly, those are the vibes I think of when I think of hexbear pre-federation. The romanov thread isn't even that bad, and there's not really anyone being wrong in it. Just a lot of people misrepresenting/misinterpreting each others standpoints.
A lot of users on this site are very well read and have a solid foundation of their ideology, and they are used to reconsidering their stance and looking inwards. A lot of other users aren't.
There's a large subset of the userbase that, but for the grace of god, would have been libs. They are so convinced that they are on the right side, that any disagreement with them must mean the other user is a wrecker, a chud, a lib or something the like. When they experience disagreement they assume the worst and then dig their heels in, so they can get that sweet dunk dopamine. I think that's a result of our community having been insular for quite a while. We all know [ideology/current event/science], so theres no real reason to know it personally, because we can trust our comrades to do the work for us. With that base attitude self-crit doesn't occur, it's just something other people have to do.
vagueposting
I've been dogpiled a few times and every time was incredibly infuriating, because it was done by long-time users that chose the worst possible interpretation of what was communicated and refused to consider wether they themselves might just have been a tiny bit wrong or misunderstood something. It was dogpiling not for being wrong, but because they misunderstood something. :::
That culture leads to a lot of people carrying grudges, and then you stumble into it like an outsider and it's just weird and pointless.
The desire to dunk is definitely a defining characteristic of this community. I avoid struggle sessions but I still get into weird arguments, usually when I see someone saying they don't understand x conservative idea, so I try to explain it with the intention that we should understand our opponents. Then the person I'm trying to explain it to puffs up thinking they've got a chud and just keep trying to make me justify the belief I keep telling them I don't agree with.
been there, it's frustrating and then others join in to dunk on the chud that you aren'timaginary blood in the water, us hexbear shorks can't resist
one of the largest issues with the site as I see it is that our "dunking" culture and moderation policies just inherently makes this space less inclusive.
Post from three years ago from the ND modteam about this before they got burnt out: https://hexbear.net/post/77324?scrollToComments=false
they tried to make moderation changes, were sided against constantly when ND users got banned for tiny social mistakes, and that part of the site history is largely ignored, and swept under the rug.
there was a post a few weeks ago titled something like "ableism is not as bad as other forms of discrimination".
While I took a year or so long break from the site, it's clear to me that actively wanting to make the site more inclusive and a safe space mostly died with that modteam, because not much seems to have changed.
If the site wants to be inclusive, more posts and comments should be taken in good faith, and site policy should change to make it clear that constant aggressive arguing or assumptions of bad faith is not how we should engage here.
From the post:
My thought is that, if any of y'all are like me and could accidentally write an essay when I got going about what I'm passionate about.
I miss quillquote.they tried to make moderation changes, were sided against constantly when ND users got banned for tiny social mistakes, and that part of the site history is largely ignored, and swept under the rug.
Yeah it's kinda frustrating how any talk of that period just gets your post removed for misinformation. It's something they've never reckoned with, and there's a lot of people here that are very proud to be inclusive, until an ND user doesn't use perfect verbage to communicate an idea or a frustration and then it's like it's back in the schoolyard with a dogpile on the kid that said something wrong.
If the site wants to be inclusive, more posts and comments should be taken in good faith, and site policy should change to make it clear that constant aggressive arguing or assumptions of bad faith is not how we should engage here.
It used to be that you got banned for pedantry and debatebroism. I really wish that would come back. Digging into a specific phrasing said by a user instead of their communicated idea is such a fucking school bully thing to do. It's bullshit and it makes this place so less inclusive. I feel like I have to tie myself into a knot in order to avoid being misinterpreted - I'll still be misinterpreted, but that way I might at least not get dogpiled, when I point out that maybe the fact that my post wasn't communicated perfectly doesn't mean they have to assume the absolute worst. Maybe it's actually bad faith to call someone a bigot because if you isolate one sentence and interpret it a specific way, what they're really saying is actually something that a bigot would also say, or whatever. Or you're dumb or something because of those communications.
It fucking sucks, wish that shit would get you banned.There's some users here that do it to a frustrating extent and they're celebrated for it. I hate it, it makes the site feel so unwelcoming. I'm always nervous when I interact with them or see they're in a thread or whatever.
And I know someone will say "just block them". Ok, then let's not ban any of the other people that make this site uninclusive either, just block them.I named this account "badtakeshaver" bc i thought i would be constantly be dogpiled on ngl
Hahaha that's very proactive of you! It's a smart way of deflecting ire as well.
The Nd inclusion on this site is abysmal, the fact that we mock tone signifiers (/s) for being "reddity" says a lot.
I remember a post on a meme about ADHD which made some users here consider wether they might have it, and while it's good they had that experience, it highlights to me how abysmal ND inclusion is here. When the discussion of such issues is so rare that a single meme can awaken a slewth of long-time users, then that shows to me how such issues just aren't really being discussed. If you've been on the site for a year, and you're so close to considering wether you're ND that a meme can push you over the edge, doesn't that then show how little ND issues are discussed?
I'm new and it's a bummer to hear about this; I'd love for there to be a super active ND community here
Yeah, me too. There used to be a very active ND megathread as well as a sharing of resources. These days it's pretty dead and it's mainly for stale memes. The site has grown a bit though, so maybe its time to try to revitalize it. Any ND community would also need more support from site admins in implementing rules that make this place inclusive to them. It's not just about policing ableist language, that's the bare minimum.
That's unfortunate that it seems like there wasn't a whole lot of support outside of the old mods (at least from what I gather). Maybe it's high time to start posting, and I guess at the moment it could just be moderated through reporting/education? I'm really struggling with my stuff rn and it would be great to vent with people who get it 😭
You can always post there. Some time ago I tried to revive the comm with a daily meme about a diagnosis and then having a good discussion in the comments. I didn't keep it going for too long, because I wanted to be less online, but the concept seemed to work - more and more people got aware of ND stuff.
You could always do that, and then tag someone else in after a few weeks or whatever. You can also apply to be a moderator of the comm.
Things ain't what they used to be, but they also are
Why should I live in history, huh? Fuck, I don't wanna know anything anymore. This is a forum where nothing is solved.
Someone once told me hexbear is a flat circle, and everything we've ever posted - or will post - we're gonna post over and over and over again. And that little mod and that poster they gonna be in that thread, again and again and again, forever.
Such a good show, wish they'd done more with the subtle cosmic horror in those that came after
I think federation has in a lot of ways brought the best of us forward. We aren't just repeating talking points, we're sourcing them and checking them.
I agree with this 100%. I've learned a lot and just form people posting stuff when trying to educate the libs that come in here. It's even given me even more motivation to read theory and even branch out and read more types.
Your writing is also really good it was a nice read :)
I agree with this 100%. I've learned a lot and just form people posting stuff when trying to educate the libs that come in here. It's even given me even more motivation to read theory and even branch out and read more types.
Exactly! I think all of us, in one subject or another, got comfortable in knowing that we were "right" because we believed whatever the norm here was, so we never felt the need to actually educate ourselves on said subject. Self crit was something that happened to other people.
Your writing is also really good it was a nice read :)
Thank you! That means a lot to me. I used to write a lot of creative fiction, but I've been in a slump recently and I'd started to doubt myself, so that's really nice to hear
Yeah being your own worst critic can be really hard I get it. I hope you do start again though!
Give me a few minutes I gotta find a way to make your post into a struggle sesh
Haha shouldn't be too difficult tbh, some of the things I've written could easily be interpreted in a way to make me out to be a wrecker or a dickhead or something if you just assume the worst possible meaning. My edits especially probably.
I do find it interesting how quick people are to romanticise how nice and chill 'old' Hexbear was. To be honest I found it much less chill, every day you'd see fighting over minor shit, even excluding struggle sessions. People argued, felt excluded, and left the site for the over many things, minor or major; I left the site for six months because of an argument I got into with multiple users (and I was also at fault) about an obscure TV show. I'm not saying oldbear was awful, it was very cool in many ways, but I would argue federation gives us a better sense of proportionality.
Thank you.
or are you doing a bit? I'm sorry I had a lot of thoughts on the subject.No, no! I'm impressed, but it's true that I'm being a bit cheeky.
Thanks for your patience and clarifying :)
I think it's just the power of adhd. Takes more effort not to write that much
It's fundamentally made the site a worse place
There's been comments here and there about pipelines and what are we doing if we're not spreading the word? I have some thoughts on that:
It's okay to take breaks
- There are absolutely ways to utilize our knowledge to help libs along the pipeline from wherever they're at to where we want them to be, but we don't always have to be on. We spent three years here working through struggle sessions in our own space, but unintentionally creating a great space for leftists to talk together and engage without always needing to be on the defensive all the time. Things get hostile and shitty sometimes, yeah, but I see long comment threads where people are having a healthy back and forth, walking away from it actually getting something out of it. On this site there's an understanding that the users here are mostly good faith and as trustworthy as internet strangers can be. We can recharge here, shitpost, and talk a bit about our irl work here too (vaguely, at least). It's important to have spaces where we can do this. We can fight it out everywhere else online - hell, we can fight it out on the fediverse in general when we're up for it. The feeling of always needing to be productive or doing shit is capitalist productivity brainworms. It's okay to take breaks.
This was a space where marginalized comrades felt safe
- There were wreckers here, but they were dealt with quickly. They really weren't overwhelming. We've introduced so many new bigots to our userbase and it's showed. Trans comrades have been harassed in DMs. We've been constantly told we're not truly queer for what we believe. Looking at the comments in the bigger posts recently about the Biden admin's bullshit and other trans related posts, the uptick in bigotry we've had to deal with is noticeable and queer users have said as much. This of course will carry over to vulnerable spaces like !mentalhealth@hexbear.net and !mutual_aid@hexbear.net as well when so many new eyes are now watching our site and can easily interact. There was the ability to be vulnerable about things like gender identity and personal struggles, that now have to be reconsidered when we see people from the fediverse coming in and talking shit. I guess we could all get over it and toughen up, but this was a space where marginalized comrades felt safe. Why are we abandoning that for dunks?
To answer question 2:
It doesn't have to be complete defederation. We have real comrades at lemmygrad. There may be small instances that can have real solidarity with us as well. There's a path here that, imo, would give us the benefits of federation and connecting with more people, while also upholding what we worked hard to establish on this site.I hope this gets some thought and consideration.
and the easy response is it's just the internet, go touch grass
if that were a viable option, I'd do that. but I come to hexbear to get a break from the bullshit outside - I encounter plenty of people who threaten my right to exist when I walk out the door.
Exactly this. This is a community I feel safe in and even living in a liberal enclave in the U.S. It’s scary out there. Hope you’re doing well, comrade.
Working a food not bombs table (or whatever organization of your choice) for ONE WEEKEND will change the world more than all the posting in the history of r/chapotraphouse, in the history of hexbear, in the history of lemmy... Forever, in perpetuity.
C'mon. It would take at least 2-3 weekends
It is tbh I wouldn’t be a communist if not for posting so it’s just another tool in the tool kit
I mean spreading agitprop is to some extent. We don't just become leftists by some sort of immaculate conception. We turn leftist due to the tools we have and the world we live in. What tools we have are in part determined by what knowledge we have been given.
Working a food not bombs table (or whatever organization of your choice) for ONE WEEKEND will change the world more than all the posting in the history of r/chapotraphouse, in the history of hexbear, in the history of lemmy... Forever, in perpetuity.
Unironically it was hanging out in chapo.chat after the subreddit ban that got me motivated to do more organizing in my free time and I've been doing some sort of tabling or support of that almost weekly for years since. I value hexbear as place for comradely discussion it was actually not good for my mental health (but very good for my "engagement") to be having transphobic shit showing up in place where it's normally been a respite from that.
I respect the work done to get us to this point, and I look forward to whatever solutions that we decide on.
I mean I would say that spreading agitprop is to some extent praxis. We don't just become leftists by some sort of immaculate conception. We turn leftist due to the tools we have and the world we live in. What tools we have are in part determined by what knowledge we have been given. Most people who volunteer do so due to having been radicalised to some extent, or at least that's been my experience.
This is kind of the issue. The site can't be both a safe space and a place to 'spread the word', and users are split between wanting either. The points you make are fair, but I think the two goals are mutually exclusive.
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The fediverse is mostly an insufferable reddit clone that I barely interact with outside of .ml. However, I think r/chapotraphouse was at its best when a reddit liberal/reactionary inadvertently wandered in and became the glizzy in the middle of a raccoon pack. The real core of the forum's subculture, which I think the success of c/The_Dunk_Tank shows, is the dada feeding frenzy when we attack a glizzy and we need a steady supply of them which the occasional wrecker doesn't provide. I think federation is a good thing in this regard. We're destined for that same antagonistic relationship r/chapotraphouse had because you can't put the raccoons in a business meeting and expect us to act professional, but there's a productive role in being the glizzy hunters of the wider emerging movement away from legacy social media. Our dumpster is empty and most other instances are full of treats.
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Maintain our standards, maybe reconsider user participation in external meta threads. It's throwing fuel on the fire but those people are usually prime glizzies. There should be some kind of rebuttal. Also let me make c/DPRSashatown so I don't have to make an account on another instance which allows community creation.
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We kind of need some kind of federation, the last few months before federation and getting onto the upstream Lemmy codebase were dire. So many pointless internal arguments, people nipping at each other for no reason, and activity wasn't great. Every time a long term user hit the
button, it was like a fifth of the website died. Federation has bred some much needed life into hexbear.Federating with shit just works in hindsight was a mistake, I honestly thought it was just one racist nutjob on the "meanwhile on the grad" community, I didn't expect half their instance to defend the racism of photoshopping a Chinese man's skin yellow. Had I known that would happen, I'd never vote for federating with them
As for future federation, we should probably communicate with the other instances admin team first before federating.
We kind of need some kind of federation, the last few months before federation and getting onto the upstream Lemmy codebase were dire. So many pointless internal arguments, people nipping at each other for no reason, and activity wasn't great. Every time a long term user hit the button, it was like a fifth of the website died. Federation has bred some much needed life into hexbear.
This is my opinion as well. Prefederation era Hexbear sucked for various reasons that you've outlined. People were all low-key resentful with one another. It had the same energy as an ex-couple forced to work on a school project or forced to be coworkers. I remember so much cringey vagueposting because mods would delete any comment that mentioned people's usernames as "meta," so you had people vagueposting and letting that resentment stew. It was just awkward in general. Federation injected fresh blood and provided a pressure valve for that pent-up resentment to be blown on some hapless Ledditor.
Yeah in the lead up to federation we had the bidet struggle session, rock stacking discourse, people saying hunger is not real, bringing back years old arguments just for the purpose of stirring the pot (outdoor cats, sex work and veganism are the three I can remember right now), and every second thread just turned into people moaning about how alienated and lonely they are, while yapping and vague posting nasty stuff towards other users.
I love our lemmygrad comrades and those cool posters on lemmy.ml and lemm.ee that I've seen. Otherwise, it's just been shitlibs spiling jice.
Yeah, I haven't noticed much activity from the hobby instances except the TTRPG one, but that's probably my personal blinders and how active we are.
I got here because of the brief federation and subsequent defederation with blahaj. Seeing the good takes here, and the rabid lib anticommunist reaction there, drove me hither. However, I probably would not have bothered making yet another account without the defederation.
I've seen others suggest an airlock instance to allow dunking for those who want to without releasing the radlibs and transphobes on hexbear itself, and that sounds like a good idea to me.
When I unknowingly click on another instance's post and read their comments, I can immediately tell. Hexbear is the cool kids table.
Well, it seems like every time we federate with a sizable instance, there's a roughly week-long period of strife and then usually defederation. It's quite disruptive, led to several complaints about the vibes being off, and has also led to nasty harassment of our users. We should probably not bother trying to federate with other large instances. And we really ought to thoroughly examine the vibes of an instance before federation.
I think lemmy.ml and lemm.ee are manageable now that things have calmed down. We should just add small/hobbyist instances as they pop up from now on.
I was excited for federation mainly because it would mean new content. The slop trough was pretty dry beforehand tbh. Unfortunately in reality the new content kinda sucks and I end up filtering by local, but there are also less posts there now, like activity is being diluted into other instances.
Reading brain dead takes in hb threads is excruciating and also not something I missed, like, at all. Being a communist irl is fucking hard to be honest, it’s really difficult to find spaces where I can just be myself. It’s one of the nicest things about this place, the core set of common beliefs. Folks I think generally have been correct in the assessment that it’s basically like inviting redditors into our space. The bad outweighs the good. And imo just a single instance of a trans comrade being harassed in DM is sufficient justification for defederation.
All of that said I think it’s good that we are on the new code base, and it’s been really cool to hang with lemmygrad and the occasional simpatico users from other instances. So it definitely has potential to be a positive, we just did too much too soon. The idea I’ve seen floated of engaging with admins of other communities up front is a really good one and what I would recommend as the path forward.
interesting to see the different conceptions of what the purpose of hexbear is. i saw a group of people commenting in the sh.itjust.sucks thread that seemed to think that federation was the point of hexbear in the first place, in order to proselytize to libs and connect with lost comrades. before federation, i was under the impression that the main purpose of hexbear was for internal support and providing a safe place for a variety of people who might not have another safe place on the internet.
i am wondering if the mods have an idea about which hexbear is, and if so, what is it? or do the mods see their role as enforcing the general will of the community through voting on federation, etc.?
imo i understand why some people latched onto federation as an opportunity to build socialism but i think maybe the phrase "posting is praxis" seeped a little too deeply into some people's minds. if you ask me the purpose of hexbear, it's a place for us to support each other, not a home base from which to battle others. but that's just my opinion, the other perspective isn't necessarily invalid.
Initially hexbear was called chapo.chat. It was a lifeboat for r/cth, so if we're talking about original purposes, then that was it.
Over time the site has changed. The pronouns being added created a struggle session that scared away all the stupidpollers. Then we had a vegan struggle session, the results of which people disagree on. Some think it scared away a lot of good users for no good reason other than to turn the entirety of hexbear into r/vcj, others think it was like the stupidpol situation were it scared away a bunch of dipshit reactionaries. Either way that led to a bunch of ill will and a bunch of long "I'm leaving posts".
Since then the site has had a slew of incursions of wreckers and minor struggle sessions, which have all in some way shaped the site.Some people seem to think federation brings the site back to its original purpose, some think federation takes the site away from its current state which they consider bad, some think the site was closer to its purpose before, some think federation takes the site away from its latest state which they consider good.
As an adult, I had zero interest in getting into silly internet slapfights with reddit-brained dumdums from the word go.
After 3 years of posting on chapohexbearchat it was interesting to read posts from users from clearly different site cultures intermingling with our own. Not the racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic posts though, those were grating.
I'd like to see federation continue, just with more quality control
i think the fediverse sucks and is full of the exact redditors i use this site to avoid. i would like to stop doing federation because it sucks
agrees
