Hello users of Hexbear, there have been many changes and some drama the past few months.
The recent changes we’ve been making have been an attempt to create a more safe and welcoming environment for many demographics that have been overlooked in the past.
For any of our comrades that have been unintentionally hurt in this process, we apologise and hope to find a solution that accommodates as many people as possible while still meeting the needs of the marginalised groups who need a space like this the most.
The intent of this post is to provide a space for all users to air grievances with regard to the site. As well as provide suggestions for specific things that could be changed to address your grievance. Comments insulting the mod team or those without a specific means to address your problem may be removed. No commenter will be sitebanned, unless it clearly breaks the code of conduct.
I think you’re imagining I’m want you to say something like ‘excuse me, but you’ve done a transphobia’, but this is incorrect. What I want is forcefully pointing what is wrong and not inviting a response. As marginalized people of our own communities, we should, in theory, have the final say on these things. It should just be ‘dont do this’ and the behavior ends. Ranting and attacking the other user just hurts feelings, which invites responses then two people are shouting past one another, and now it’s Reddit. Even if you make amends afterwards it’s just so toxic and messy.
Obviously we do not live in a perfect world, and things will happen. I’m not going to pretend every interaction can be handled perfectly. But when I am seeing some drama meltdown once a week because two people didn’t remember that that other side other the argument was someone they would have otherwise called a comrade, it’s annoying and embarrassing. Especially when it’s mods doing it.
And while I am talking on this side of the argument, the other side, who committed the aggression, should also shut the fuck up and correct their behavior. And if they don’t, well, do whatever you want, they brought it on themselves.
I already regret posting this but fuck it
Overall I think you’re really underestimating how many ways there are to dismiss marginalised peoples forcefull corrections, as well as the intensity of peoples’ self-righteousness. For marginalised people to be “forcefully pointing what is wrong and not inviting a response” isn’t any less tiring for them, not to mention that they have been doing that already, this whole time. It doesn’t stop responses of denial (“well I was just saying for me personally”, “I’m just talking about my own experience”), it doesn’t stop minimising and it doesn’t stop the lurkers who also don’t want to examine their shit from upvoting the responses that barely make sense, but ostensibly disprove the marginalised person’s point, since it’s easier to maintain the dissonance than it is to do any self reflection. After all “it’s just a shitposting site, what did you expect”
Some of the most irony poisoned users are also the same ones that don’t believe anyone’s word on anything because they could be an imagined wrecker or cop lying about their marginalisation just to stir shit up and disrupt their based posting with “identity politics that are just meant to divide us!”
Others are just too privileged and comfortable to truly give a shit and unpack the harm they might be unintentionally perpetuating, because “I didn’t mean it! Therefore I’m still a Good Person™, therefore how dare anyone be mean to such a Good Person™ like me!?! Clearly they’re engaging in bad faith and I shouldn’t listen to them.”
The way I see it, a marginalised person can rightly only go through that so many times before coming to conclusions about whose feelings matter more on this site and fucking off, as many have.
I’m literally only asking for the first engagement to not be a rant or attack. Per the end of my comment.
Please feel free to respond to any push back however you wish
Ok so then you’re in a full on disagreement about your existence. Shit is tiring (like we keep saying) and many people choose to bounce instead of waiting for the settler leftists to find it in themselves to be better on racism or fatphobia.
That’s a moderation issue. You’ll notice I am also talking about mod behavior.
I don’t know what this means. If you are suggesting that I, as person with a serious disability, am in the wrong for not immediately attacking people who use ableist language or say ableist things on this site, I strongly disagree.
No, I’m not critiquing your behaviour! Just struggling to make the connection of how your suggestion about mod behaviour improves the situation for marginalised comrades I guess? Since like you say, most of the time we will already begin the engagement respectfully if we do at all
This is a low-key indictment of mods who like to argue more than they like to actually clean up. Generally, when a regular user gets into an argument, it just keeps to the thread and (hopefully) a mod comes in and deletes comments and bans users as necessary, so that doesn’t bother me. When mods argue with users or each other, either on alts or on main, it spills over into the rest of the website. Now everyone is arguing in every thread and the wreckers come out in force. The site turns into Reddit and I leave for a few days.
When this happens, mods in the fight or not, a lot of the time it’s because there was an attack on someone’s pride. This is usually caused not by the call out itself but by the way its handled. There is a fine line, admittedly, between asking for effective communication and tone policing, but I think the key is to treat everyone like a friend, a comrade, and telling them they fucked up like you would a friend. I had to lay it down for some drama a week or two ago because no one was getting through to the OP that said person was being an jackass. It spilled into the megathread which is where I saw it. I even got sassy with my response too, but that didn’t matter, what mattered was explaining bad behavior in an effective manner.
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Thanks for clarification. I think we’re headed in a good direction in that regard, i think that our use of the disengage rule is something a lot of other communities could benefit from, knowing that mods are on your side when somebody acts transphobic etc. also does a lot to make things easier and i’d say and that we’ve largely done good progress in moving away from flamewar and debate pervertry culture since the days when we were all fresh off reddit. But yeah, we aren’t perfect in that regard.