how could they not? how is that an excuse and not just, entirely justified? its literally doxxing materials. It's doxxing the matrix accounts of every mod in addition to anything private that was said in the chat. leaving that account around just draws attention to the dox

Yeah... Reading the comment: https://hexbear.net/comment/6448883, the first two lines without context do set off alarm bells, and even in context I'm not sure I can agree:

• Jews are not structurally oppressed anywhere on earth on the basis of their religion.
• There is no such thing as a "Jewish ethnicity", "a Jewish people" and especially a "Jewish nation". Such a narrative is fundamentally Zionist.

#1 certainly isn't true historically, and I don't really know that it is in the present either, but don't have as many examples come to mind. #2 sets off alarm bells but I might actually agree on further consideration. In the same way I wouldn't say there is a coherent christian or muslim ethnicity, nation, or people.

But the main issue was, the admin (lack of) communication around the post being a free speech zone.

keeping a list of admin announcement/discussion posts would be nice. Not sure how to implement it but it wouldn't be a huuuuuge burden for someone (wouldn't even have to be an admin) to maintain it manually either.

The double edged sword of the pinned post, is that if the posts are left up longer, the arguments tend to just continue indefinitely and get more and more bitter. But otoh, if they stay up for only 24 hours, probably half of the userbase never sees them. Idk how to resolve this besides having some semblance of rules of decorum and enforcing them. But that has to be squared somehow with both people's mistrust of the mods and the general anti-civility stance here (personally I don't think this should apply to comrades, but clearly its not settled)

this removes context, and essentializes what is a relatively minor issue (but still worth discussing) into a larger more fundamental disagreement than it actually is.

Without going back to years-old posts which people have since self-critted on, the "mods making zionist arguments" were specifically 2 mods arguing with Zposter, who was a known entity, and had a history of going far above and beyond comradely behavior to insist this emoji be added. Saying "anyone who wants to depict the zionist rag burning just wants do holocaust stuff and burn the star of david" would be liberal zionist shit for sure. But that wasn't what was said. What was said was "you [zposter] specifically have such a bone to pick about this issue [by bringing it up with such vitriol multiple times over the course of years] that you must just have an ulterior motive for wanting this particular pictogram to be hosted and endorsed by this website". It still is a wrong argument, and a bad look, but it isn't the same liberal zionist argument it's presented as, and shouldn't be generalized as such, because it wasn't phrased in a general sense, nor was it directed at a user who "could have been anyone", it was a particularized response to the stand-out behavior of 1 user.

To then take this argument, and generalize that the mods and admins are zionists and people covering for their zionist friends, is an extra step beyond the pale. If we can't work out disagreements without this type of hostility and lasting schism each time, then what chance do we have of doing anything productive with our politics in the real world? This type of criticism is not constructive (some people stayed constructive, but the majority either were unproductive and hostile themselves or got in on the side of "unban zposter RIGHT NOW" without seeing the broader context of that ban or any acknowledgement that there was a problem with zposter's behavior.

Edit: regardless I'm glad to see some productive conversations are happening now in this post, and I hope more structure and intentionality helps us work through these issues better in the future. Thank you for putting in the effort to explain and suggest improvements, not just relitigate, it's genuinely appreciated

right, its the slander that gets me. Not every disagreement needs to lead to outright condemnation and calling for the admins heads. If we can't remain even remotely comradely in what is a relatively tight-knit highly moderated space made up of people who share basic values and principles, then what are we even doing online, what is the point of any of this? The same thing happens IRL, it's just easier to shut down because screaming at each other is recognized as unproductive and not normalized to the extent it is online.

I'm once again going to recommend people read Constructive Criticism: A Handbook for a useful intro to Criticism/Self-Criticism and guide on how to productively struggle because this ain't fucking it.

Any robust system for banning alts will either be 1) privacy invading (storing IP addresses, browser fingerprints, etc) or 2) easily circumvented by publicizing it. We aren't dealing with one off trolls, we're dealing with people who are aggrieved users of the site or committed wreckers who are more than capable of reading things like "hmm if I upvote my own alts X number of times I'll get banned, let me not do that". Even if upvotes isn't the method, the point stands that for this site to have opsec, there can't be a 100% (or 99% or whatever) reliable or auditable method to ID alts that wouldn't be easily circumvented by the exact kinds of users we have the most issues with here, it's a fundamental problem. We either accept some secrecy, or we make effective moderation of these types of users impossible, IMO.

Even if we want to say that caffeine is an important staple for many people, there's other sources of caffeine besides coffee, specifically saying "my specific preferred kind of coffee or tea is a staple and therefore immune from criticism" is vaguely behavior

honestly though I'm not particularly interested in passing judgement on the subject (maybe because I too am a coffee addict/self medicating with caffeine). Its kind of a dumb debate with no stakes. I'll buy my zapatista coffee or whatever and just focus on more pressing stuff

his educational videos were pretty top notch, I assume that's the main reason, but his takes and personality are sometimes pretty noxious. When he's going off on someone who deserves it or meticulously disassembling a bad argument or whatever it's fun to watch I guess, but often enough to be a problem, his targets don't deserve it. This behavior is rewarded by online platforms to varying degrees and is how he's cultivated an audience and makes a living, so he has every incentive to keep being nasty and controversial to keep growing the numbers.

State and Revolution is SHOCKINGLY clear and accessible, and yes, not a million pages long.

ironically I feel like it is less likely they will shoot someone compared the goddamned LAPD

straight up this is why they don't give riot cops live ammo. No fucking discipline

the crayon eaters are probably only a marginal improvement on that front though

Sweden’s government has long advised against travel to Gaza

they didn't fucking GO to Gaza. They were the subject of piracy in international waters