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.
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.
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.
In the latest year it seems to me like it's just always
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:
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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.
Egads! Egon has another effort-post!
Another? What's the first one?
The one up top.
I'm just being "funny." Don't mind me lol
Oh okay, I don't really get it, but thanks anyway
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.
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.
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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
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I don't even know, it was one of many weird vendettas people had
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.
imaginary 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:
I miss quillquote.
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.
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.
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 agree with this assessment very much
Thanks!
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 :)
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.
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!
Thanks, it means a lot ♥️
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.
Wow. Big effort-post.
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
Yeah, I have trouble with effort-posts, but thanks.