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 actually have had no issues with the administration of this site at any point, only problems I've had are a couple comment removals where my tone, intended to be playful, has been a bit too vague and came across harshly. I think that's fair and as much on me as anything else.
My biggest issues remains with a small section of users, those who are obsessed with 'dunking' on users who say anything they perceive to be bad. Both libs who wander in here, and Hexbear users who are just trying to speak honestly. I speak of users who are more interested in getting upbears by calling someone an injoke word in pursuit of "winning" the argument, rather than actually having a genuine conversation. These people really, intensely detract from the 'community' feel and are happy to destroy any good vibes of the site in pursuit of a moment of a fleeting "haha".
Some years ago, we used to far more closely observe the "assume good faith" rule, and I think we should massively return to enforcing that and pushing it as a good attitude - Like 80% of arguments I see on this site were totally unnecessary and stem from people immediately taking negative interpretation and trying to one-up it.
That is what has stopped me wanting to interact on Hexbear much at all in the past months, I've done it a bit but honestly most times I comment feels like lapsing back into a bad addiction, I wish I didn't. I would happily forever
, but for me personally, this site is unusable when Slop and Badposting aren't blocked from one's feed.