Comradeship // Freechat

I am once again asking a bunch of fringe online leftists to stop being so delulu as to think themselves as the new international vanguard ffs

To prevent Hexbear's internal struggle from spilling over to here and detailing this thread as a whole, we will be locking it. A lot has been said already in the comments and we feel like we are involved in Hexbear too little to a) contribute positively and b) moderate reports that require knowledge on Hexbear lore.

I think I can safely say that we hope Hexbear manages to overcome their internal issues again.

It seems they're just trying to memory hole it now.

The newest statement claims everyone was unbanned, which isn't true. The sockpuppet being used for the new post claims that it was all drama over the AlaskaBall misgendering and banning, which isn't true. So here's my extremely biased version of events(They banned me for opposing their bullshit, thus creating this bias.)

The mods wanted to rename the dunk tank, due to the racist origins, but due to federation reasons renaming communities doesn't work properly, so they locked it and the dredge tank entirely and replaced them with poorly defined pseudo-replacements.

People question this choice and are given a mod statement that misgenders most of the website at the same time, and contains a self-harm reference without a CW.

People question this post and the admin that acted as the mouthpiece steps down. The thread is locked and a new one is made.

Basically no one wanted that and most people want the admin back. The admin comes back.

AlaskaBall bans themself from a new alt, and then when questioned on it, misgenders themself. This was the misunderstanding element of this.

Stuff blows up massively now, since an admin seems to have done something very transphobic and uncool.

Another thread is made, where dissenting voices are banned for three days. One of these bans is reversed and no longer shows in the mod log.

TC69 does a "joke" and posts offering random bans to replies, she then bans people who don't reply to that post with the same message.

This is around when this thread is made.

Then another thread, using a brand new admin alt, claims that the bans have been reversed (they haven't)

https://hexbear.net/u/DengistDonnieDarko

https://hexbear.net/u/morte

https://hexbear.net/u/chair

https://hexbear.net/u/TerribleHands

https://hexbear.net/u/REgon

And the rest (me) remain banned. Only four of the banned users are actually unbanned.

People have already pointed out that the bans haven't actually been removed.

Overall, the Hexbear admin team shoved a stick into their own bike wheel and are blaming he/hims, despite the obvious fact that can be seen by checking the pronouns of those linked users (and me).

edit: I'm unbanned now

Late-stage irony poisoning

In addition to the first ban wave which was partially a bit or something cuz people requested to be banned so TC69 used a random number generator but also entries in the modlog that have the RNG stuff weren't people who requested it??, some of our admins are now banning their alts as a bit to start drama, other obvious alts are coming out to call it out and continue more drama, there's more but...... you get the idea :/

Idk, this all started in an attempt to make our site more serious by replacing the_{dunk,dredge}_tank with higher effort alternatives and now that that didn't go through it's all a joke now

Honestly I may log off for a while too, is not rly that funny to me :/ People on this site have literally fed me and my friend, kept us out of overdraft status on bank accts, I learned so much from reading stuff here or books I learned about from here, people have been housed cuz of this site, someone nearby legit offered to take care of one of my irl friend's pets when he was homeless for a bit, I met new friends here that I talk to every day. It's not a political party but it's not just a giant shitpost either, so idk where this is going :/

I'm sure this looks even worse from the outside , but it's okay, site has survived worse

Like FuckyWucky mentioned, there is a lot of talking going on behind the scenes and no one outside rly knows what is going on sooooo..... we see what happens I guess

My take?

It's all dumb. Admins didn't communicate effectively, made changes without making most of the community aware of it on a timescale that should have been days; as most of these discussions should be. A good chunk of the community is irate. Random bans are a method of obfuscation, all though I am doubting that's actually what is happening here.

Regardless, it is a website and we have this space here.

TC69 immediately sets off red flags for me. It's one thing to return and welcome yourself back; but the passive language they're using suggests that they view themselves as some sort of cult of personality figure already, reinforcing the thoughts some have about that concern. The "random number ban" thing is literally just a flex of power, joking or not. I've seen that happen so, so many times in communities. It's the same thing as "Who wants to get a bop on the head from my baton?". Sure, it's a joke.

There are already quite a few complaining about moderation style from times past and upon immediate return they make a comment on how the "website has improved" yet still needs an entire overhaul/COC. REgon, usa_suxxx is banned, all though unsure if that is changed now. Also, the thread was locked on that discussion.

It's all just red flags. Maybe it'll be a good thing, maybe not. To me, Hexbear did a really good job already on cracking down on shitlibs and misogynistic fucks. Where the hell is this rampant offenses occurring? I don't doubt we have some idiots wander in and that things were worse before, but this is being treated like we have an active crisis in Hexbear. Which, I don't really get.

If I'm wrong, I'll be happy to be wrong and I'll be more understanding of TC69's more heavy-handed approach to moderation. But is there like some mass DM-harassment campaign I'm unaware of?

I feel the same. Ironically the mod's attempts to make the site more "serious" is probably just going to do the opposite. I've spoken at length about this before, but you don't get people to learn and discuss leftist theory by insisting it is always serious business and you aren't allowed to joke around or acknowledge how fucked up our capitalist society is.

It'll just chase people away, which is a shame, though that might be a "win" as far as the mods are concerned. There's plenty of "serious" leftist groups out there with half a dozen members with their own very specific interpretation of theory with 0 fun allowed, but I can't really think of anywhere else quite like Hexbear. I don't want to see them become yet another insular "leftist" space that is actively hostile to people who don't take themselves as seriously as the world's most dedicated Internet Leftists.

I'm probably overreacting though, as others have said, this isn't the first time mods on Hexbear have gone full reddit mod and won't be the last.

Same thing that destroyed leftypol years ago: immature mods, cliques and egos.

I know I'm an admin myself and I do try to take it somewhat seriously but if I ever find myself in a situation like that and talking like that I will probably log off for good lol

I don't have a hexbear account and never visit the place so I can't add a meaningful comment about the situation but it seems like constructive talk was never an option

As someone with a 2 year old account, I have no fucking clue. What started out as misgivings over two comms being replaced has metastasized into whatever the fuck this is. It seems like there are contradictions that had existed since /r/chapotraphouse that were never fully resolved. I don't know exactly what because I only occasionally lurked /r/chapotraphouse way back in the day. Mix in all these 2 month alts of people who claim to have been around since /r/chapotraphouse and it comes off as a bizarre mess. It really does feel like people with 5+ year old grudges beefing at this point.

Anyways, this is yet another case of the news mega being the best part of Hexbear.

I'm honestly impressed they thought the changes would be well received. Aren't those communities the nost active in the site?

Based only on reading this thread I find this all very confusing and unnecessary, but this is the sort of strange niche drama that only small independent message boards can offer, just not the same on corporate social media, sorta gotta love it.

Feels like the admin/mod team is trying to tank the site ffs. Just making completely out of touch incoherent decisions behind closed doors, getting mad that people push back on popular communities being closed and just calling us all cis white chauvinists for wanting these comms, and then mass banning people for criticizing them and making jokes of the bans to obfuscate what they’re doing. It’s exhausting, I just want my cozy leftist social space but instead I’m at the whimsy of power tripping internet mods who think they’re reforming our shitposts into the vanguard one top down decision at a time

Edit: it seems like things are settling but good lord some of the admins were on some fuck shit. Such a small disagreement turned into such a huge blow up with weird cross instance admin intrigue and transphobic adjacent shit. I thought I was terminally online…

Everything under heaven is in chaos; the situation is excellent.

I'm not familiar with what goes on there, so as an outsider, the fact that in skimming, some of the replies make more sense to me than the admin/mod posts doesn't seem like a great sign for their leadership. Comes across like they're acting based on vibes and don't want to provide substantive examples to back up what they're doing.

I don't get much of it either. My guess is there is a lot of talk going on behind the scenes.

I don't think a purge right now is necessary especially given that the user count is pretty stagnant.

It was all working fine. Splitting dunk tank into dredge tank was a good idea but idk why they removed and renamed it all together.

Concerning

Me? I'm not really sure what to think. I didn't even notice it was happening at first because it was regulated to a single megathread.

I do however think it a little over the top to completely condemn Hexbear over this. This is a problem that can be addressed pretty easily and it seems like the admins are trying to. It looks like there were some shitty mods that started shit, and the admins are trying to unban people and fix it? I think I saw that TC69 is deleting her account?

I'm not trying to say it isn't shitty what happened, but like, I don't think it's unfixable and an indication that the site is some kind of evil rotten mess like some people are making out. Our users as a whole are good people and it kind of sucks seeing them tarred and feathered because of a few assholes.

No mods no masters