Hi all,

Throughout the last few days there has been an uptick in arguments and turbulence throughout our site. This comes right at a time where we are onboarding new communities that are in danger of being banned by Reddit.

During this, we've seen that it would be beneficial to provide more clear communication around our decisions and stances on current issues. This post will be divided into two topics that have both come up: 1. BIPOC Comrades and Intersectionality and 2. Veganism

BIPOC Comrades and Intersectionality

We have an ongoing commitment to intersectionality. This will always be a continual process as we identify new opportunities for learning and process improvement.

Based on community feedback around BIPOC representation on the sitemod team, we have added two new sitemods who will bring additional BIPOC perspectives to the sitemod team.

While we had BIPOC comrades on the sitemod team previously, they made the understandable choice to not state this identifying information publicly and we support them in their decision. We will continue to increase BIPOC representation on the sitemod team over the coming weeks.

There have been concerns of implicit support of racism amongst the mod team. We hope that looking through the modlog will prove otherwise. Although we can't get to rule breaking comments or posts immediately, we will never tolerate racism on our site, we're sorry about this and wish we could do more. We encourage everyone to continue reporting rule-breaking comments and posts so that they are more visible to moderators.

To reiterate, any posts or comments that are exclusionary to our BIPOC comrades are against our Code Of Conduct and will be removed. Individuals should especially not appropriate comparisons that aren't from their culture. Do not use appropriative comparisons like:

  1. Do not use appropriative comparisons like chattel slavery or the holocaust if they are not from your culture.

  2. Implying indigenous people are barbaric/mentions of "assimilation" or "evolving" their culture. These phrases are outright xenophobic and have a long history as a dog-whistle for settler-colonialism. They are not allowed.

Our moderator team is made up of volunteers and works to remove reported content that violates our CoC as quickly as possible, but we are unfortunately not able to remove objectionable content instantaneously. Objectionable content remaining up following a report does not mean the moderation team endorses that content. We are continually working to build up the moderation team and number of volunteers.

Veganism

Hexbear is a platform for all leftist communities. As a part of this, we're partnering with a number of vegan communities on reddit who are migrating over to the site. The mods of these communities are intersectional and have a number of BIPOC comrades on their teams including indigenous comrades and we're excited to work with them.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to eliminate as far as is possible and practicable all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals. Veganism is about absolute liberation of our exploited and commodified animal comrades. Veganism is not a diet, although not eating meat and animal products is a common extension of this philosophy.

We encourage vegans to post throughout the site. Our sitemod team is a mixture of vegans and non-vegans, as are the mods of the !food comm. The mods of that comm made the policy change of requiring pictures of meat to be marked nsfw following feedback from multiple comrades who were uncomfortable seeing meat pics. After examining feedback on this issue, the sitemod team has made the decision to support the !food mods agency as moderators.

The "NSFW" tag is very much a "catch all" at this point, although more specific content tags are planned for the future. We encourage all comrades passionate about helping us develop this feature to check out !hexbear@hexbear.net for how to get started with contributing.

Vegans are allowed to advocate for veganism, especially in their own comm. This doesn't constitute sectarianism, classism, racism, etc. and will not be actioned against as long as it does not break the site's code of conduct or a comm's rules.

As with any comm, individual posts and comments will need to be moderated. The diverse team of vegan mods already has experience navigating this from running large subreddits and will respond as these issues are reported. Bad faith generalizations of all vegans will not be tolerated, nor the delegitimization of trauma expressed by our vegan comrades.

In Conclusion

We appreciate the passion our community has for empowerment and intersectionality. As a team, we hope to consistently embody the communal standards we outline in our code of conduct. We feel these changes uphold our goals of intersectionality and left unity and will drive the site forward as a general, inclusive leftist space.

Thank you and viva la hexbear.

  • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    So claiming that non-vegans are not leftists/reactionaries/liberals is somehow not secretarianism?

    Can I say, "All anarchists are liberals?" Is that cool now?

    These people literally do not believe that they are my comrade, yet I am expected to believe that they are?

      • drugs [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        wtf that happened? If that's not reactionary I guess I don't know what reactionary means

    • Grownbravy [they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      It's clear wrecker shit, and the we should treat it like any other sectarianism we had to deal with.

    • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
      ·
      4 years ago

      veganism isnt a sect in the same way anarchism is so no pls dont say anarchists are liberals lol

      • asaharyev [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Claiming that non-vegans aren't leftists is decidedly un-dialectical, detached from material reality, and reactionary.

        Users who do this should be warned once then banned if they continue.

        • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
          ·
          4 years ago

          its not reactionary its just wrong. we dont ban people for being wrong (unless they are /u/adamsandler) or being annoying

              • asaharyev [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                It's wrecker shit, people have been banned for less, and just because "lol vegans are annoying" doesn't mean the users who do this should be allowed to be hostile on this site.

                Also, "vegans are stereotypically annoying" is a pretty BS generalization when the majority vegans on this site since launch have been great comrades.

                • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  nobody is allowed to be hostile lol. report them or DM me a link and ill ban them if they are hostile

                  • Civility [none/use name]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    4 years ago

                    I'd be grateful if you did. That's not the direction moderation has gone in the past.

                    I responded to this comment on c/vegan

                    Nonvegans fuck off. Yes, you are reactionary if you’re not vegan.

                    with

                    Lenin

                    Reactionary!

                    Stalin

                    Reactionary!

                    Marx

                    Reactionary!

                    Mao

                    Reactionary!

                    Sankara

                    Reactionary!

                    Ho Chi Minh

                    Reactionary!

                    Fidel Castro

                    Reactionary!

                    Che Guevara

                    Reactionary!

                    lmao okay

                    My comment was removed and the comment I responded to is still up.

                        • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
                          ·
                          4 years ago

                          theyre not entirely anti-solidarity theyre just assholes about one thing and its not even all of them its just a few shitheads

                          • Civility [none/use name]
                            ·
                            4 years ago

                            100%.

                            Is there a reason we can't ban the people who do post and upbear explicitly anti-solidarity things like "If you're not a vegan you're a reactionary"?

                              • Civility [none/use name]
                                ·
                                edit-2
                                4 years ago

                                I feel like stuff like "everyone who's not a vegan is a reactionary" and, "the best way to convert nonvegans is to be horrible to them"

                                Violates the code of conduct pretty clearly namely the bits about sectarianism

                                Respect that people have differences of opinion and that every leftist has a place in our community. Discussing differences in theory is fine and encouraged, just don't make it personal. Remember: Sectarianism is liberalism.

                                and

                                Please be kind and courteous to your fellow leftists. There’s no need to be mean or rude unless it's a chud.

                                • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
                                  ·
                                  4 years ago

                                  ill take a look more indepth tomorrow im spent for 2nite. no more vegan arguing outside of the comm anyways so just dont go there and who cares tbh

                                  • Civility [none/use name]
                                    ·
                                    4 years ago

                                    Big thank.

                                    It's incredibly generous of you to donate your time and labour like this btw.

                                    It can't be fun and I want you to know it's very much appreciated.

                                    Hope you sleep well ❤️

                      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
                        ·
                        4 years ago

                        Why are they on main then, being allowed to bait and antagonize as much as possible and then cite the online version of castle doctrine at people for getting upset?

        • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
          ·
          4 years ago

          i mean its not a political ideology

          i agree that saying nonvegans are liberals is really really annoying tho

          • ChairmanFemboi [any]
            ·
            4 years ago

            are you kidding me? You're using a technicality to call it non-sectarian? In this very post you call it a philosophy. Anybody subscribed to any particular philosophy calling others on the site "non-leftists" because they don't subscribe to the same ideology is the very definition of sectarianism.

            • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
              ·
              4 years ago

              yeah a technicality as if we have a rule book for us to have loopholes. I didnt call it a philosophy anywhere either

              • ChairmanFemboi [any]
                ·
                4 years ago

                For those unfamiliar with the concept, veganism is a philosophy from the official "statement" above. I'm assuming this means it's the official mod team stance.

                • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  sure im not the one that typed the post but ill go with that definition whatever

                  still does not make it sectarianism. at least not the sectarianism we give a shit about. it is not a political sect.

                  • ChairmanFemboi [any]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    4 years ago

                    If the result is still the same, why should it matter? Both cases do nothing but further divide the community and cause constant conflict, and makes it difficult to have productive discussions between users.

                    If the results are practically exactly the same, but you only ban one and not the other you're essentially admitting that there is no real reason behind the one that's actually enforced.

                    • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
                      ·
                      4 years ago

                      there is real reason behind one and not the other because we want to foster a community for all political sects. It doesnt matter if you eat meat or not. If you wanna argue about other dumb bullshit then feel free. For this topic in particular you dont even have to see it because its restricted to /c/strugglesession and c/vegan anyways! just dont join those stinky ass comms full of stinklords

                      • ChairmanFemboi [any]
                        ·
                        4 years ago

                        You completely missed the point. Yes, we want to foster a community of all political sects, but surely we want to foster a community of both vegans and non-vegans as well? Surely allowing sectarian language between vegans and non-vegans would be detrimental to that

                        • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
                          ·
                          4 years ago

                          sure thats why there wont be any more vegan posting outside of c/vegan and strugglesesh going forward so those annoying vegnerds can be annoying in their own space

                          • ChairmanFemboi [any]
                            ·
                            edit-2
                            4 years ago

                            Is sectarianism still banned in strugglesesh, as well as the various communities for different tendencies? If so, why is this treated differently? I do appreciate enforcing the rule to keep them arguments out of other communities, but as a matter of principle I want to know why they're being handled differently

                            • itsPina [he/him, she/her]M
                              ·
                              4 years ago

                              struggle sesh is a little more lenient cuz if you go there you are a nerd who deserves to be bullied