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.
EDIT/UPDATE: It's clear that this is a lost cause, so I'm out.
Oh boy, so much to say
There's still an unresolved contradiction between "this is just a shitposting site" and "this is a place where comrades are serious and feel safe, etc." The worst part is that both these statements are used almost arbitrarily in a weaponized way. What I mean is, if someone raises a concern (but that concern doesn't really strike the mods/power posters as important), then they'll be dismissed with the "tHiS iS jUsT a ShItPoStInG obscure internet forum, dID YoU rEaLlY eXPecT a SeRIOuS DiSCUssION hurrrr durrrr." But on the other hand, if it's a topic that the mods/power posters are personally interested in dealing with, then all of a sudden it becomes "all hands on deck! this is Defcon 9000! We need to make sure we have a huge struggle session!" It's a weird Motte and Bailey that's used to basically gaslight people to only care about certain concerns over others. Very harmful.
Which is sort of tied with the next thing:
There are soooo many low-effort posts that it is ACTUALLY HARMFUL TO COMRADES. What do I mean by this? I mean that there are so many posts that it drowns out actual mutual aid posts for comrades either in the West and sadly, those who ask for help in Gaza. It also drowns out good discussions and insteads puts another "BIT IDEA: what if I stick a pineapple up my ass and then shit it out? Would I get a chocolate bloody mary pina colada?!? BEANIS BEANIS BEANIS" at the top of the feed. I'd be willing to bet that most people aren't logged in when they browse the site. I'm certainly not gonna log in from my phone if I'm away from a computer (for obvious op-sec reasons) so no, I can't just "disable those communities."
Which is connected to my next point:
You know who I'm talking about, the KochHandLieutenants, DustVultures, etc. The power posters that sometimes post MULTIPLE THREADS PER DAY. And honestly, most of them are the low effort types of topics I posted about above in #2. I can't help but think that they are suffering from some kind of social media "like" dopamine hit addiction and every time they post and get responses the cycle continues. And often these posts are super low effort beanis posts or posts about literal shit/farts. Or sometimes they are weird nostalgia-bait posts that are super specific: elder-millenials that are in a mid-life crisis and are looking for somebody to commiserate with. E.g. "Hey remember 2D Sonic from the 90s? GEX GEX GEX! (member berries, member berries, member berries) I'm living in the past as a way to cope and I'm using the hexbear community as my own personal therapy session!!" I get it, therapy is expensive, but this is not a place to get your dopamine hits and drown out mutual aid posts (which I have noticed an uptick of recently, indicating that people are really suffering out there). Also think about how this looks and reflects on us. There was a recent influx of BlueSky people and others. Do we really want to tell them "hey this is a great community, just ignore all those posts about farting in a car and how hot-boxing it is a great bit idea!" I think I've said enough about this particular topic.
For now that's what I got off the top of my head. Others have already hit on things like arbitrary moderation so I won't repeat it. If there's anything else that comes to mind I'll post it below.
On #1 the problem that I see is that the userbase does not agree on what the site should be, and admins, from what I've seen mostly don't feel comfortable making that decision for us except where there's an additional clear overriding purpose behind the decision (ie getting rid of the dunk tank). I don't see a ton of users pulling either of these cards, though it has happened more in the past. And "when users care about something it is treated as a bigger deal on the site than when they don't" isn't the own you think it is. There isn't a cabal of mods and powerposters that determines what gets talked about here, besides literally just enforcing a relatively minimal set of rules, its just organic interaction. Is there a specific actionable policy change (or several) the admins could make to fix this issue?
On #2, again, they aren't "drowning out" other posts just because there's sometimes a lot of them, they also have to get upvotes and comments to be featured, and they all decay in the rankings in the same way, it's all going through the same simplistic sort algorithm. This case could be made about any of our posts not just the most frivolous ones. Don't post or upvote or comment on anything even remotely unserious, because other things are more important? Is that the kind of site we want to be, or what brought people here? I agree mutual aid is important, as are a lot of other serious topics, but banning silliness won't work and won't make the site better. Maybe you could do a rate limit on new posts to prevent outright spam, but beyond that I don't see this as being helpful. I don't know what "obvious op-sec reasons" you have for not signing in, especially as you can trivially use a throwaway account just for mobile if you like (and other opsec concerns are almost all shared whether you log in or just browse), but overall this ask just seems like a personal preference thing, and we've moved away from hidden comms because it just ends up making them wastelands and ostracizing the people who wanted them in the first place (ie c/furry used to be hidden). If we want mutual aid posts to be boosted or pinned by default, we could do that, but those aren't the core aim of the site, despite being very important. In fact the Gaza fundraisers have been pinned lately sitewide, which is far more effective than "hide posts I don't like".
On #3, don't you think it's cruel to call out specific people for having an "addiction" in your words, and using the site to cope? I guess you're just built different, but a lot of people here are struggling or have been, and while there is a standard of behavior that we should all be held to, having hobbies and interests and senses of humor that you don't share isn't against the rules and shouldn't be, no matter what bluesky people think of it, and neither is commiserating or nostalgiaposting, which you needlessly pathologize. Again, if we can set a standard of how many posts is too many in a given time period, fine, but banning content that does no harm and in fact gets engagement from other users, goes too far for no benefit.
Yes I already suggested it in my original comment: make those low effort comms invisible by default (i.e. opt-in) so that people who are just lurking/logged out/newcomers don't get bombarded by them.
They are, they absolutely are. This didn't happen a year ago, or two years ago. The number of super low effort "shit" posts has absolutely increased. And making it a "personal responsibility" thing by saying "just don't upvote" is very patronizing. We don't tolerate that when it comes to racist/misogynist/etc. stuff by saying "just ignore that stuff don't upvote it." That's some reddit shit.
I'm just calling it as I see it. I've seen users describe other users as XYZ/whatever based on their comments so why am I not allowed that same right?
Because those things are actually harmful. The point isn't "its your responsibility not to upvote them" it's "the upvotes show that other users actually do enjoy them". It's the opposite, it's nobody's responsibility to cater their posting or upvoting to you.
This is some actual reddit shit. I'm not saying you don't have the right, I'm not a mod, whatever, it's just a shitty thing to do.
Edit: also your suggested change does not resolve the contradicition between trying to be Serious Leftists and a shitposting site. it just hides some of the shitpost genres that you don't like, it's almost unrelated