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I think there's a deeper struggle session here than the name change. I'm completely fine with the name change. From what I gathered I assume a goal of the admin is to make this site a poster to activist pipeline, something I also agree with and think is desperately needed. Is that the case?
I think the deeper struggle session is decoupling consumption from politics. That is people assuming that listening to a podcast is what determines people's politics. As in you could have someone that is a good leftist but because they listen to a socdem podcast, it makes them libs. In an act of pedantry someone might say that it's okay to listen, just don't like it or take it seriously, and that's what distinguishes a good leftist listening to chapo from a lib, but that still accepts that consumption is political action. It's implying a lib is a lib because they aren't listening to the correct podcasts or keep listening to the wrong one(s).
It's especially worrying to see this kind of implicit concession from a self-proclaimed Marxist organization like PSL. If they really think that people listening to a podcast prevents radicalization more than the decline in material conditions of us all encourages it, then I don't know what to say. Part of the reason chapo has a stigma is that people on the left buy into this notion that the chapo to fash pipeline is real (although they may back down from such a maximalist take and say it's a chapo to socdem pipeline). If everyone chooses to walk on eggshells around chapo and treat it like this major threat to leftism, then that becomes reality.
If you don't think chapo should be a part of leftism, then you ignore it. And that's why a name change is fine. Treat it like an entertainment podcast, which it is. If the goal of this site is to be about making real political action happen, then it's fine to not name it after a entertainment podcast.
To me, the next big thing we should focus on is deprogramming the internet brain idea that going to the right websites, consuming the right podcasts, etc is what makes you a good leftist. You're not radicalized because you listen to a podcast. You're not radicalized because you go to a website. Those aren't radical political actions nor do they reflect any real political motivations. Everyone listens to podcasts and goes on websites. If our goal is to radicalize people we need to stamp out this idea that it centers on consumption and posting.
Want to push back on this a bit - I think people are fine with the name change, but not the name it’s being changed too. It comes across as weird and cringe as fuck
I'd most prefer the name as-is, but hexbear.net is the lamest possible alternative.
I'd prefer it if it was something even vaguely related to leftism. @invalidusernamelol suggestions are all preferable to hexbear.
I'm not too attached to any of it because it's ultimately aesthetic, but my 2 cents
It’s just an unforced error. I don’t care what the name is, but I have a feeling the name will be a detriment in bringing in outsiders. Just an own goal.
I agree, hexbear sounds like a wicca thing to people not in the loop on our very insular meta.
It should be something more related to what we actually want this site to be.
liberation.chat, commie.net, posterunion.io, etc.
I'm good with hexbear, mostly because I couldn't think of what else would work and I really don't care for lib.rehab, but your suggested names are very good, I like them all a lot.
Well when you put it that way... this is now a witches versus patriarchy site
If the goal of this site is to be about making real political action happen, then it’s fine to not name it after a entertainment podcast.
Yeah, that's entirely the tension of this site. The admins think posting, and this site, can be a force for good and political change, (obviously not like quickly, i'm trying to be generous) and a lot of users here (myself included) don't see that as feasible. If we were gonna uphold rebr0ist thought (which it seems like we're not anymore, lol), more than anything that's the belief that posting is not praxis and inconsequential. I really think that alone was 99% of what made the CTH sub what it was.
Rebr0 thought is ban any dissension and vote Beto, so I think we want to move from that.
I didn't take TC69's post to be quite so literally about using this site to get folks into the PSL, for example, and how the name hampers that. I took it much more as a criticism of the podcast, which is good and I very much agree with. The PSL example was a way to highlight how leftist folks who aren't terminally online like we are view the podcast. Which is that at best, it seems ambivalent about anything that isn't electoralism and at worst is a white-centric group of hipsters that is unconcerned about the plight of the oppressed, liberation, and seems to get awfully close to class reductionism a lot of the time (with Amber all but admitting she is one). We shouldn't want to be associated with that. I don't fault anyone for listening to it - I did myself until a couple months ago. But when we make that the name of the site, it's on some level an endorsement even if we try to sort of weasel out of it by saying no no, it's the name of a former Reddit sub not the podcast.
I just don't see the distinction. This is still, barring some incredible changes, going to be an offshoot of the dead /r/chapotraphouse. That doesn't mean it's not distinct. But in the end, we're substituting chapo.chat, a name directly referencing the /r/cth roots, to hexbear, which is a meme but still from the subreddit. We've got one more derivative and it's even more obscure now. I'm just not sure how that's any more clear, or what the real point of the distinction is. I really, really believe either we need to think long and hard about what this site is even supposed to be, or the admins need to announce their full vision for this site because we're kind of just guessing right now.
This. This is exactly how I feel. The chapo name has value because it identifies what we are and roughly where we came from. Anyone who clicks onto hexbear is going to get a sea of of bizarrely obscure left wing injokes, an insular community of shared reference points that are a mystery to them and a whole lot of confusion. If they're serious about a name change, more than the name needs to change or its just going to create a website like an old buffy forum where 20-30 posters who all know each other reply to each other ad nauseum and drive away any new members with their insular culture. Which is what I suspect will happen tbh.
We prefer the term "Third Pantheon"
-Member of the Second Pantheon
Are you sure??? I really thought he was one of the old ones, and one of the few that didn't get purged. I remember he was the one that did the community update threads when they talked to the admins (like initially getting quarantined)
Nope, he was Third Pantheon; the Second Pantheon members to be purged were Ohmiglob, Lakelly99, and a_blanqui_slate.
Interestingly, blah, mugrimm, joejoeshrunk, and I believe one other mod who was so absentee that I don't even remember their name, were members of the First/Second Pantheons that lasted all the way until the end.
This is the take I've been looking for honestly. I don't particularly care about the name of an internet forum, but I feel to an extent like I'm getting "called out" for still enjoying the pod. If the intent of the community is to curate away the sorts of views associated with liking chapo, then that's ok, maybe it's just not the community for me. But I don't get the sense that people here, by and large, would consider me a bad comrade for listening to chapo, or even necessarily for having the sorts of political viewpoints associated with that, which makes it frustrating to have mods talking about how people are going to think we're reactionaries if we don't purge the chapo association and branding.
[Prefacing by saying this is entirely in good faith, I've been using this site & the sub on a few different alts since 2017]
At the same time, naming ourselves hexbear.net (or some derivative of hexbear) was a very popular second choice when we voted on a URL back before the site opened
- Why not just do another poll instead of vaguely going off what different people said on the discord in July?
- Why did some members of the dev team respond to users trying to give valid criticism with mockery like posting them on r/copypasta, telling them to go log off, and saying "don't care" or "too bad" or things to that effect? I get that there are a lot of trolls/wreckers, but it rubs people the wrong way when it seems like the mods are attacking the users. It also makes me feel kind of condescended to because it implies we are too stupid to make a good decision.
Cheers
There were a couple that deserves mockery, like the god tier bit I wish I would have come up with about not being a communist anymore because a country run like this website would be bad. Lmao.
Also, imagine defending the name hexbear.net lmfao 🤣 so god damn cringe
I will say, as someone who was on the sub with a number of alts from less than 10k, I’m glad we don’t have the same user base as we did when we had the sam Kris struggle sessions
Agreed on all points except I personally don't like making fun of people unless they are libs or chuds beyond repair. Treat others the way you want to be treated, etc etc
i'd like to argue that a poll held over 7 months ago probably doesn't match what people's opinions on the site name are now. i'm personally indifferent on changing the name, but i'd rather not change it to a (somewhat forced imo) meme that happened to be popular when the sub got banned (i also don't really like the hexbear branding)
Yeah I'm pretty sure the discord interim period had like the least number of posters ever, and very little time to think
Why not keep the branding but just let people buy domain names if they want and do a poll again (since the last one was on a different platform and nine months ago)? The name doesn't have to be the same as the logo
The real point I guess I have been dancing around is why not simply ask for input that we are happy to provide if asked? Whenever this has been brought up in the past I gave the same shpiel about what I think the name should be but it feels like no one listened (I get no one would listen to one user personally but you know what I mean)
I feel like people didn't really take it seriously because before like 3 days ago it didn't seem like it was a set-in-stone decision. If you said "We're renaming the site, you have two weeks to give ideas", people could come up with some really creative stuff. There's 14k people here, I bet at least one of us has an idea that a majority likes.
Literally the last OP saying we should rename the sight I saw before today was a person who said that parents should be randomly selected, like if the discourse happens there no ones gonna take it seriously lol
At the end of the day people just like to feel included in the decision making process :)
Just wanted to say, even if I dislike the name change, I appreciate our mods/admins, and I appreciate you having this thread.
You've made some excellent points in this thread and I commend your efforts!
No...thank you! You're the one putting the work in to make this a great place! :lenin-heart:
Thanks for doing this, I wish this is how it was handled from the start & let it be a model for the future. o7
I happen to think we should change the name every theee months or so. Like most early 20th century Marxist orgs
Just cycle the name like we do with the tagline have 15 or 20 urls that all redirect here lmao
This has been my suggestion - change the name every theee months or so. I guess domains are pricey tho
We already pay for domains that redirect here, like hexbear.net and chapochat.com; so it would just be a matter of changing some code or DNS settings.
Just leave the redirects, cycle the text in the top-left portion of the status bar. Also, having multiple redirects could allow us to spam our URLs all over reddit/twitter without being quickly auto banned.
When are we getting downvotes back. Some of y’all got terrible opinions and I want to let you know it without having to take time explaining why you’re bad and wrong
This is a good reason to remove downvotes, and the site is better off without them.
That being said, one of the useful things about downvotes is that they help to hide bad comments/discussions (sometimes to protect viewers before mods can remove them) and discourage feeding trolls. When a comment is sitting at -17, it's clear that the community has expressed its disapproval of the sentiment. But when a terrible comment is at 2 points with no replies, it's ambiguous as to whether the community has rejected its sentiment or just has no opinion on it. I feel like this could lead to lots of unnecessary back-and-forth ("this hasn't been called out yet and somebody needs to tell this person they're wrong") and just increase the portion of space/mental energy dedicated to bad comments.
There might be a way to find the best of both worlds, like a repurposed downvote which does not affect visible score at all but auto-hides the comment if enough people downvote. It would prevent individuals from essentially bullying or harassing people, but would also keep the comment hidden by default (which signals that the comment is not something the community endorses, and also serves as a kind of catch-all trigger warning for comments that haven't been removed yet). Bad actors or colluders would be a lot easier to catch, too.
I was initially annoyed at downvotes being removed, but the site is honestly much more enjoyable without them. It's great.
I do still think an amazing gag would be to have a mod-only toggle that turns on downvotes for a specific post, while simultaneously giving the post a special flair that says "DOWNVOTES ENABLED" lmao. But there are higher dev priorities right now
A hard to describe positive vibe like you’re saying
We love our dopamine, don't we, folks?
I see what you mean, downvoting is a huge hassle to moderate and it's p easy to just make a bot that just downvotes everything with the word trans or something. But from a user standpoint sometimes all you really want is to just drop a dislike when someone's posting some dumb shit rather than spending the time to write replying. Hm, in that case I don't there's a good way to bring back downvotes unless we restrict registration, which isnt want you want to do when you're trying to grow.
Unironically do the youtube thing where the downvote button has no coding beyond its functionality as a button you can click, maybe do a client side -1 to the score.
What if the site can only be reduced to two large buttons and a sweaty super hero wiping his forehead?
im stoned but also holy FUCK I was actually juist able to imagine that a little and it sounds fuken tinght
this mf really wrote tinght
Why go from one cringe name to an even more cringe one, just without a podcast associated with it?
I mean, one is a generics link aggregator, the other is a niche website for leftist content. I probably won’t change any of your minds about the cringe ness either; but that is a consistent datapoint throughout all of this discussion; and over the past few weeks
It is niche now. Let’s be real. And that’s ok. And we want it to grow. And I hope it will I don’t like/dislike the proposed name. I just think it is very limiting
A bit drunk, but will try to answer coherently. It’s a good question and I’m not trying to be hostile either. I love you all mods and admins alike.
I think if we want to build a broader left website, the title of the site should at least have something to do with leftism. If we were comfortable with where we are user wise, then hexbear is a fine name. It has resonance with the user base. For outsiders, it just would be irrelevant or bizarre to see that branding (fuck me I hate that word lol).
Unlike a subreddit, where we may show up in someone’s feed, and if they like the content they can subscribe, people have to proactively choose to come to this website. I think if we want to improve content here we need to have some sort of hybrid of forum and link aggregator type posts - longer conversations that can go on for a few days, and twitter screenshots, memes, and humorous content. So we need to have a mix of serious content and funny shit. I think we have that now, but it’s a bit scattershot. Having a more serious branding than hexbear or chapo would help with that. Interfacing with orgs and movements is easier with a more serious name that maybe has the word “left” in it.
The cringe elements are subjective obviously. Like yeah a few people might think we are furries if they see a watermark, or may be like wtf is this and why is it watermarked on this meme. But that’s not “limiting” per se. the issue comes down to whether if someone sees “hexbear” labeled on content from here will they become curious and proactively type in the url and come here. It’s limiting when I talk to someone IRL or on a forum or Reddit even and have to explain what a chapo or hexbear is. So I think it’s solving one problem by creating another.
Thanks for coming to my Ted-X Hexbear talk
I get it. Tough spot to be in. I still like the idea of changing the name every theee months
Lemmygrad.ml was a community chosen name on lemmy.ml and its association with Leningrad ties it to a lot of evocative leftist history "the left will rise again" vibes while also not taking itself to seriously and points to its educational role (grad -> gradual -> graduate) and ml, Marxist-Leninist. Though a lot of that is probably coincidental, it works really well and sounds cool imo. Though I did vote for Stalingrad.ml
There are >10,000 users, I'm sure the community can come up with a better name and URL than Hexbear.
Because revolutionary politics is a niche of all possible discussion? Reddit is for generic discussion of whatever. Chapo isn't ever going to include a forum about waifu pillows because it is a niche community for vaguely left things.
I agree we shouldn't seek to limit ourselves, but niche doesn't just mean "small or obscure community".
Great points. I guess I never considered that the chapo podcast was that well known on the left. I def don't like being attached to succdem ideology, but I didn't think enough people even really knew about the pod vs. the subreddit.
I just like the name chapo because it's vaguely related to El chapo guzmán and kinda edgy. If it's an actual barrier to growing and influence, I'd be more supportive of the change. But I'm very skeptical of that being true and not just a truism.
How much do you think this will grow the site and what type of users do you think it will attract? Is there any non-anecdotal analysis for this?
Why on earth will someone from PSL take a site called hexbear seriously. I don’t like the chapo name either, full disclosure
Unless we rework a bunch of other stuff, there's a chance they'll see "Hexbear: It's about being (consensually) gay with your dad" followed by a big chungus lola the rabbit with volcel police patrolling the comments.
Also, I don't care about getting orgs on here. Organizing is for real life, not the internet. I'd prefer if this place didn't try to affiliate with specific tendencies and organizations.
I agree that a name change isn't going to instantly make us consumable to normies and irl activists.
Disagree about getting orgs on here. I think a lot of people here are terminally online, so having exposure to real activists would definitely be a real benefit.
For clarity, posting is never praxis, even if some rad PSL people have an AMA here. Organizing should be offline, but I'd love to have more resources here to make that easier to get into.
Disagree about getting orgs on here. I think a lot of people here are terminally online, so having exposure to real activists would definitely be a real benefit.
I am also terminally online, but I don't think there are many people on here who DON'T organize irl. How would someone have revolutionary politics, but not act on them (except as a grift)?
Don't wanna dox myself, but I'll give some background.
I've held revolutionary views for a while now, but I lived in a white suburban town where engaging in any praxis basically required driving a half hour. Until I moved to an urban environment, I hardly did anything besides volunteer at a soup kitchen a handful of times...hardly what I'd call "organizing"
Without proximity to a population center, opportunities are hard to find in an area with exclusively chuds & PMC libs.
That's true, but then people don't really have the option and I don't expect them to do so.
I think that most of the people here who have access to local orgs are engaged in them, so I don't think getting orgs here is a goal we should have.
For me this is a socialist non-sectarian shitposting community that is not exclusively about the politics, nothing more.
You have more faith in people than me. I think this community may provide enough catharsis that they never seek out organizing opportunities. I would wager about 50% of people here do irl organizing. I see too many dumbass posts here that instantly make me believe the poster has never been outside even once.
For me this is a socialist non-sectarian shitposting community that is not exclusively about the politics, nothing more.
That's how I view it too, but I don't think facilitating outreach with people on the ground hurts in any regard.
Oh that would be cool. So this is still a cumtown subreddit then.
Also, PSL has like 12 members across 15 cities, who gives a shit if they come on the site
I don't know how much credence this should be given but at least one person pointed out a few weeks ago that we had a founder/admin accused of pedo shit and that we had a bear as the logo.
it would take me 80 seconds to convince someone that hexbear is a reference to the gay bear subculture
Reposting this comment again:
I really want to reopen the leftist pipeline. I will warn everyone on this site though that it means that to do this the tankie aspect of this site must be more moderated. If we want to reopen the pipeline, we need to become not alienating to libs. As much as I love Parenti I never would have read him if r/chapotraphouse had been more tankie. What I liked on Reddit was that we had Chapo, Moretankiechapo, and Moremoretankiechapo. I would suggest for the future that we open c/ versions of these subs and contain tankie posting to those subs but allow commenting everywhere. That’s how I got bullied into reading Parenti.
lol you're not calling for left unity you're calling for left exclusion and hating on tankies, and the idea that you have to "contain" ML elements is pretty... sectarian.
The idea is to reopen the lib-to-leftist pipeline. If you talk to your coworkers about low wages you will get a much better response than if you start talking about Xinjiang and Stalin. I actually wish I could be even more ML sometimes. One thing I've noticed is that we have c/anarchism but not c/marxism-leninism. This implies that the default here is ML. I am not asking to contain ML elements, I'm asking to contain heavily ML posts (the kulaks deserved it, North Korea is the freest state in the world, etc) in their own subs while allowing commenting everywhere. Get used to seeing liberalism on main if you want this site to grow. That's a good sign, it means the pipeline is reopening.
we have a /c/marxism, you're just not subscribed to it or it'd be on the top section of "communities" for you.
libs can post whatever they want so long as it's not reactionary, the fact that you want to heavily moderate and isolate ML posts more than liberalism is not going to be a good move for 'growing this site.' libs have their own spots they post in, like twitter and reddit. censoring the most active user base here will have the opposite effect on user numbers that you think it will have. there is no real way to grow this site towards libs, because reddit has destroyed the idea of what an internet forum is, but libs sit so close to the peg that they haven't noticed, and there is no incentive to leave if that's where they belong.
edit: there's a bit of parenti in there if you look for it hard enough :putin-wink:
I agree we need more lib or at least SocDem exposure and certain "Tankie" habits may need to be curtailed. I just disagree with having mods repress Tankieposting to achieve it.
Engage with your Tankie comrades. Explain what it takes to draw people in, when to hit them with insults, etc. Really, I think they have a problem with dismissing other tendencies when they have valid arguments they could make. "You don't like China" isn't an argument. "This is a Trotksyist site" isn't an argument. " This is why Stalin and China are good actually" is an argument.
We need some revised interpretation of the code of conduct. Include tendency protections. Maybe allow sectarianism a bit more? Idk. I've had some joking bits get taken down by mods and I feel like that's constraining humour, while not addressing the hostile sectarianism. Kind of attacking that classic Chapo vibe from both ends.
Even though I feel this site leans ML at times, I try my best to stamp out any sectarianism and I feel that most of the community is accepting of anarchist comrades.
There's still a significant population of gleefully sectarian folks who are not bothered if their attacks are removed 3-12 hours later, since they know it's already done it's job.
raddle
What's that? A google search gives me a character from Animal Crossing and some corporate brainstorming app
Oh yeah I had that bookmarked when it was just starting out and completely forgot about it
What if I start a podcast with Charlotte Clymer and some Khive twitter personality and call it Hexbear?
hey I like the name change but I have a funny image I wanna show everyone but I can't so when is that gonna be fixed. Trust me once it is fixed you will laugh when you see this I promise I promise
I might wait because the comedic effect is heightened by the instant gratification of seeing the image right there. Thank you for the answer
On a scale from one to ten, how well do you think the mod team communicated with the userbase about this name change?
While renaming is fine, why pick that name? Even through layer of obfuscation, it doesn’t fit (in my opinion obviously) and is not self-descriptive. Like lemmygrad describes what they are kinda well.
While that’s true, people coming in future wont be liberals, liberals in usa would be sleeping for the next 2-4 years, more likely newcomers will be dissaffected lefty people when reddit bans other subreddits/does something else stupid, so name “edgyness” wouldn’t be a factor.
Zapatatraphouse for example is just as dumb chapotraphouse, but at least it says something to a lefty.
Prole.chat is also not a scary name for example, yet it gives much more indication of the site leaning
Well that’s one layer of obfuscation, but if you know what it is - it fits. hexbear is some meta-meme, which doesn’t open up its meaning the same way, even if you know it’s origin, it’s stays static to the thing, it doesn’t capture essence. like hexbear could be just some animal images hosting and I wouldn’t blink
That's good though. The name is what we make it. It's not associated with a drug lord.
But like I agree the name change is probably good idea. I just think the end name is too abstract/decoupled from anything.
An abstract and decoupled name is good. We have a core user group that will direct the culture (as much as we try to influence it), so over time the name will come to mean something. Curiosity is a powerful driver.
But is it though? :Thor-doubt:
Abstract name which resolves into small inside joke (or alludes to some meaning) for a user is much better (imo), like twitter with twits and birds, or reddit with read-it or lemmygrad as in lemmy/leningrad fusion, vox, verge, engadget, jacobin, current affairs, liberationnews, - they all have some slightly hidden or obvious meaning which tells their purpose alleged or not
:hexbear: :hexbear-agender: :hexbear-aromantic: :hexbear-asexual: :hexbear-bi-2: :hexbear-bi: :hexbear-chapochat: :hexbear-demisexual: :hexbear-direct-action: :hexbear-gay-pride: :hexbear-genderfluid: :hex-crab-chapo: :hex-crab: :hex-moon: :hexbear-majora: :hexpeng: :hexshork: :hexbear-static: :angry-hex:
EDIT: people love animal hosting. Hopefully it will attract libs to convert.
Why would we ever want to associate ourselves with those revisionist splitters?
Obviously, judean-peoples-front.org is the better name.
