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.
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.