"Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and uproot from our land but from our minds as well." - Frantz Fanon
Hello users of Hexbear, the intent of this announcement is two-fold the first is that we would like to do another community moderator drive, if you have a community idea or want to help an existing one then please send an application either through hexbear or matrix direct message.
The call for new mods is crucial to our efforts to reduce racism and misogyny on the site, we need users to report and enough mods to be able to quickly act on the reports throughout the day and night. Also, CW or content warnings are essential to the safe browsing of Hexbear.
In addition, comments or posts removed for racist or misogyny will also be accompanied by escalating temporary bans. Upvotes will not be the single reason for a ban, however they may be used in conjunction with other posts/comments/upvotes. Consider this post the warning, however, mods are encouraged to reach out to hexbear users before a long duration ban.
The second is to increase transparency with regard to the site while not repeating the mistakes of previous attempts that were ultimately counterproductive, in part due to wreckers.
Previous attempts to increase site transparency and user participation were targeted by wreckers through increasing the intensity and frequency of struggle session drama.
Using matrix's increased level of user permissions as an anti-wrecking measure while having an increased barrier to sending messages with a clear process to gaining the ability to send messages, we hope to mitigate wrecking attempts.
Leading to the creation of the Hexbear Proposals chapo.chat matrix room.
This will be a place for site proposals and discussion before implementation on the site.
Every proposal will also be mirrored into a pinned post on the hexbear community. Any other ideas for helping to integrate the two spaces are welcome to be commented here or messaged to me directly.
Within Hexbear Proposals you can see the history of all site proposals and react to them, indicating a vote for or against a proposal.
Sending messages will be restricted to verified and active hexbear accounts older than 1 month with their matrix id in their hexbear user profile.
All top level messages within the channel must be a Proposals (idea for changing the site), Feedback (regarding non-technical aspects of the site, for technical please use https://hexbear.net/c/feedback), or Appeals (regarding admin/moderator actions).
Discussion regarding these will be within nested threads under the post.
To gain matrix verification, all you need to do is navigate to my hexbear userprofile and click the send a secure private message including your hexbear username.
In closing, I want to state that this site would not exist without the volunteer labor of the moderators, who I am deeply grateful for.
I would also like to take this moment to remind people that lemmy direct messages are not encrypted, and finally please use this post to discuss these changes, share community ideas, or express interest in moderation.
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!
I just hope the current leadership (who have done a great job over the last few years) put a lot of effort into vetting new mods and admins to retain the proper class-character of the website which safeguards it from reactionary wrecking.
If they find auditing upvotes to be a useful tool towards that end, so be it. At the end of the day mods and admins will have certain powers. Making those powers transparent is an acceptable compromise which I hope can build more trust between the users and mods.
It would be better to let inactive comms close/lock rather than insert mods that aren't properly vetted out of desperation.
Vetting upvotes is a thing because back during the struggle session that led to downvotes being removed it was because a bunch of reactionary shitheads would downvote anything that related to trans issues. Also making the mod log "transparent" would only open the mods up to people getting harassed and we have already had this happen many times so people demanding transparency in the mod log either don't know why it is anonymized or have malicious intent.
...I am 90 percent sure most of our mods started out petite bourgeoisie lol.
Possibly true, but so did Lenin and look where his life took him. Also Engels was absolutely bourgeoisie, he was just a class traitor to them. Where someone started is perhaps not the strongest argument to be made for or against them.
Sure and am not saying we should dismiss people. I was just saying let's not go overboard about the class make up of internet mods. The response by that mod feeling insulted and cursing at me which uh is kind of my point about overreactions.
Pls explain why you think they have this class nature and the effects of the class nature of the moderation team on their actions
The reason people are getting upset with you is cuz while Marxism has no moral judgement about social classes, communism and anarchism (depending on how a given anarchist conceives of the Marxist definition of social classes) definitely do lol, and most people here consider themselves to be communists or anarchists. I maybe sound weird saying all this or whatever but it's kinda how I think and I'm putting here so you can disagree with it directly if you want lol
In the absence of this justification, which I am assuming exists, people are reading what you said as some vague Marxist phraseology being deployed as a derogatory term because you dislike the mod team and their actions and I am not gonna tone-police people, and I think you shouldn't either especially when you have said you think this needs no explanation, for being upset about that especially when they/we have spent our whole lives struggling against this class system lol (which also implies that we, at least not ALL of us, are not petty bourgeois in class nature lol)
In response you said earlier ("saying that maintaining the class nature of the mod team by doing stuff like this feels like an exaggeration since this is a spinoff of a podcast subreddit"): do you think proletarians are not capable of listening to or moderating the internet communities of what was once a leftist podcast subreddit and why, if so? Isn't that desirable if the point of our space is to be a safe place for working class and marginalized people? There are few spaces on the internet where I can say shit like "landlord death now" or something without being banned instantly (btw I didn't even know Chapo was associated with this website when I first started using it lol)
Personally, it just strikes me as a similar kind of vibes-based class analysis as the kind that leads people to harmful and directly-contradictory-to-class-struggle-on-the-side-of-the-working-class rhetoric that asserts that Starbucks workers are bourgeois lol
I am a mod and I'm definitely working class lol. I could go into it but you said you don't wanna hear it
And yet you throw 4 paragraphs at me lol. The point was we should all just lighten up.
I'm a mod and I grew up in a tiny cabin where my sister and I shared bunk beds and my mom slept in the living room. I have done more fucking praxis than 99% of people on this site.
Go fuck yourself.
All my life has been spent doing retail, food service, masonry, carpentry and other manual labor. You sound like you are doing hardcore projection rn.
Currently I live in what used to be a slum motel and is now a slummy apartment building. I don't even have a fucking kitchen.
I shouldn't have to explain this and it is ironic that a mod responds so antagonistically about this, but I am talking as a whole. Don't want to do anyone so please don't share your life story.
lmao not my life story just a refutation of your claim that the majority of the mod team are petit bourgeousie. Also funny coming from a one month old account (Yes I know many people make new accounts frequently but come the fuck on).
Also yeah you should have to explain when you are making baseless accusations. Fuck you.
Also what the fuck you do for work? What do you do for a living motherfucker.
Gross.
I mean I feel like if I say fuck you too I'll be banned, then again I don't mean it and am just matching your needless anger. You're just talking about you and making a big deal out of something minor (saying that maintaining the class nature of the mod team by doing stuff like this feels like an exaggeration since this is a spinoff of a podcast subreddit) which is why people think some mods are becoming part of the problem
Again these are baseless claims