CARCOSA [they/them]
Posting on hexbear.net this is the twelfth kind of liberalism.
- 163 Posts
- 929 Comments
Are you open to submitting a mod application either via hexbear direct message or matrix
Application
What is your Hexbear username?
Do you have any preferred pronouns?
What are your thoughts on capitalism?
What are your thoughts on imperialism?
What are your thoughts on trans rights?
What are your thoughts on racial justice?
What do think about current and previous protests around the world?
What are your thoughts on Veganism and Animal Liberation?
Do you have any experience with other leftist online communities?
What did those experiences teach you?
What is your approach to moderation, and how do you work with teams?
How do you deal with online drama and people who try to start things for the sake of it?
What current comms would you be interested in moderating?
Do you have any ideas for community engagement?
What is your general time availability? (Time zone, amounts, common browsing times, etc)
Element information
Element is a messaging app that lets you talk to people over the Matrix protocol.
To get started, check out this link, where you can choose to either download Element for your platform or, if on a computer, open it in a browser.
The instructions that follow are for the desktop application and the web application, but the process is similar on all apps:
Press "Create Account"
We host our own Matrix server, so if you want you can change matrix.org to chapo.chat.
This is completely optional; users who sign up with a matrix.org username can still talk to people with chapo.chat username.
(Note: It is chapo.chat, not hexbear.net. Also, registrations aren't always open on chapo.chat; if they're not, just create an account on matrix.org)
Fill in a username and password
Hit register, and you're done!
Are you open to submitting a mod application either via hexbear direct message or matrix
Application
What is your Hexbear username?
Do you have any preferred pronouns?
What are your thoughts on capitalism?
What are your thoughts on imperialism?
What are your thoughts on trans rights?
What are your thoughts on racial justice?
What do think about current and previous protests around the world?
What are your thoughts on Veganism and Animal Liberation?
Do you have any experience with other leftist online communities?
What did those experiences teach you?
What is your approach to moderation, and how do you work with teams?
How do you deal with online drama and people who try to start things for the sake of it?
What current comms would you be interested in moderating?
Do you have any ideas for community engagement?
What is your general time availability? (Time zone, amounts, common browsing times, etc)
Element information
Element is a messaging app that lets you talk to people over the Matrix protocol.
To get started, check out this link, where you can choose to either download Element for your platform or, if on a computer, open it in a browser.
The instructions that follow are for the desktop application and the web application, but the process is similar on all apps:
Press "Create Account"
We host our own Matrix server, so if you want you can change matrix.org to chapo.chat.
This is completely optional; users who sign up with a matrix.org username can still talk to people with chapo.chat username.
(Note: It is chapo.chat, not hexbear.net. Also, registrations aren't always open on chapo.chat; if they're not, just create an account on matrix.org)
Fill in a username and password
Hit register, and you're done!
Different mods had different reasoning for desiring the name. Both things can be true at once
Slop for what the old tanks were like
Gossip for an informal discussion regarding people with power / notable / tools of power
Counterprop for a formalized discussion regarding reactionary people no matter how powerful/notable
The margins between the three communities are evolving and will be a conversation between the users and the mods.
It really does provide the ability to curate what kinds of "tank posts" you'll see.
Slop for what the old tanks were like
Gossip for an informal discussion regarding people with power / notable / tools of power
Counterprop for a formalized discussion regarding reactionary people no matter how powerful/notable
It isn't either one reason or the other, there were multiple people desiring gossip for different reasons, and the full reasoning was not adequately communicated. We are currently working to overhaul both the decision-making and communication process to prevent this from occurring in the future
We heard you loud and clear as in making Slop for those that aren't happy with Counterprop
Counterprop, Gossip, and Slop can all be spaces for posts that would have been at home in the dunk tank. Users have the choice which space is right for them:
those that don't want to use !gossip@hexbear.net can use !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net and !slop@hexbear.net
those that dont want to use !slop@hexbear.net can use !gossip@hexbear.net and !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net
those that dont want to use !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net can use !slop@hexbear.net and !gossip@hexbear.net
Can you please help me understand how having a gossip community is oppressive when people can choose to post in other similar communities, or choose to block the gossip community?
Writing a few words to critically analyze the content of the post would make it eligible for !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net or a person could just choose to put it in !slop@hexbear.net could even throw a "main" in there and post it in main.
Having Gossip in addition to the previous two allows people choosing to reclaim Gossip can do so.
Why Gossip instead of the dunk tank?
Because there was ample evidence of the dunk tank, as a term, being an abhorrently racist term that killed people, whereas gossip is a tool that has been vital to marginalized communities demonized by the patriarchy over time. The site has recently committed to addressing the issue of misogyny on the site and lemmy at large. The moderators of the gossip community are dedicated to reclaiming Gossip as a means by which a group of marginalized people can commiserate over those that wield the power which oppresses them or are willing tools of it.
The scholar Silvia Federici, in her Feminist and Marxist interpretation of the Witch Hunts of the early modern period in Europe, analyses how the term gossip was used as a misogynist, oppressive tool against women. Federici recounts that by the sixteenth century in modern England, gossip, a term that had been commonly used during the Middle Ages to indicate a close female friend, turned into a denigrating term signifying idle talk.
During the Middle Ages, sociality among women prevailed, most activities were performed collectively, and a tight-knit community emerged. In the sixteenth century, with the destruction of the guilds, industrialisation, the emergence of capitalism, and, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) the violent Witch Hunts, women started to be excluded from society leading to a feminisation of poverty.
The Witch Hunts demonised most interactions amongst women. Women were surveilled, marginalised and feared. Friendships amongst women became an object of suspicion, denounced, and understood as subversive. Women were portrayed as scolds, too domineering of their husbands, witches, and worse… Gossipers! And thus, the harmless stereotype of women as innate gossipers emerged.
I use the word harmless sarcastically for many reasons. An obvious one is that a torture instrument was designed with the sole intention of punishing those women involved in gossiping.
description of torture
This instrument called the scold’s/witch’s/gossip bridle was an iron muzzle that locked onto the women’s head and mouth, pressing their tongue down to prevent them from speaking.
Furthermore, the term gossip has been used to not only destroy traditional female practices, collective relations and systems of knowledge but also erode women’s rights and devalue women’s labour. Today, it continues to be used to reinforce the gender binary, infantilise certain actors, and construct certain conversations as worthless.
Gossip is a tool used by women and other marginalised people to share information that other systems often won’t consider. Gossip keeps our communities together, it keeps us safe, it equips us with important knowledge. The personal is political. Our intimacies are political. To gossip is a subversive act, an anti-capitalist act, and a feminist act. Let’s reclaim this act, get together and gossip! After all, what do we have to lose? We are all witches in their eyes anyway.
Because there was ample evidence of the dunk tank being an abhorrently racist term that killed people where as gossip is a tool that has been vital to marginilized communities demonized by the patrirarchy over time. The site has recently commited to addressing the issue of misogyny on the site and lemmy at large.
The scholar Silvia Federici, in her Feminist and Marxist interpretation of the Witch Hunts of the early modern period in Europe, analyses how the term gossip was used as a misogynist, oppressive tool against women. Federici recounts that by the sixteenth century in modern England, gossip, a term that had been commonly used during the Middle Ages to indicate a close female friend, turned into a denigrating term signifying idle talk.
During the Middle Ages, sociality among women prevailed, most activities were performed collectively, and a tight-knit community emerged. In the sixteenth century, with the destruction of the guilds, industrialisation, the emergence of capitalism, and, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) the violent Witch Hunts, women started to be excluded from society leading to a feminisation of poverty.
The Witch Hunts demonised most interactions amongst women. Women were surveilled, marginalised and feared. Friendships amongst women became an object of suspicion, denounced, and understood as subversive. Women were portrayed as scolds, too domineering of their husbands, witches, and worse… Gossipers! And thus, the harmless stereotype of women as innate gossipers emerged.
I use the word harmless sarcastically for many reasons. An obvious one is that a torture instrument was designed with the sole intention of punishing those women involved in gossiping.
description of torture
This instrument called the scold’s/witch’s/gossip bridle was an iron muzzle that locked onto the women’s head and mouth, pressing their tongue down to prevent them from speaking.
Furthermore, the term gossip has been used to not only destroy traditional female practices, collective relations and systems of knowledge but also erode women’s rights and devalue women’s labour. Today, it continues to be used to reinforce the gender binary, infantilise certain actors, and construct certain conversations as worthless.
Gossip is a tool used by women and other marginalised people to share information that other systems often won’t consider. Gossip keeps our communities together, it keeps us safe, it equips us with important knowledge. The personal is political. Our intimacies are political. To gossip is a subversive act, an anti-capitalist act, and a feminist act. Let’s reclaim this act, get together and gossip! After all, what do we have to lose? We are all witches in their eyes anyway.
Me too, thank you for your comments. I do appreciate your perspective, and thoughts on how to improve. I apologize for the stress of the past days, and it is our current priority to figure out a better system and implement it.
100% we are looking at finding a way to have every user be able to meaningfully participate in the site going forward in a way that is a bit more hardened to wrecking and reduces the drama inherent to them.
We recognize that what has been done is not working and are actively seeking to change the way future decisions are made.
If you have specific ideas for how things could be made better with regard to how site changes are made I would love to hear them.
I cannot but if you care to explain I am happy to listen
Many users posted articles explaining the horrible history of racism. I am open to being shown how gossip as a term has harmed women more than it has helped.
A post in that exact community was what determined the name of slop.
Anyone is welcome to submit a mod application.
For the first two years admins and sitemods made the decisions with occasional temp checks from the userbase.
I added mods to the decision making process and due to what happened we are working a way for users to also be involved with the process.
You are correct though that the people interested in creating, cultivating and moderating a community get the choice of what it is called. It has been that way the entire time the site has existed.
That being said we are trying to open up this process for transparency as well as user engagement.
How is gossip steeped in bigotry? I would posit that a social concept that protected women was demonized by the patriarchy to reduce its effectiveness.
The comparison between dunk tanks and gossip is incorrect. Women have been hurt for gossiping in defense of their community. The dunk tank is literally a violent racist thing.
I'm sorry but a racist game that killed and maimed people for years has no redeemable qualities.
Gossip has been used to protect communities and has a recent misogynistic association.
There were people concerned about !disabled@hexbear.net name yet the disabled mods that wanted the community specifically chose the name.
Thank you for the post, we are working on establishing a new decision-making mechanism that is much more transparent and allows opportunities for the userbase to be more involved in every step from discussion to implementation.