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Hexbear Discussion Round 2

I figured since their admin has asked them to stop participating over here it may be worthwhile to get a new discussion going that is primarily blahaj. I'm almost certain they'll still be upvoting so keep that in mind as that may skew things. Worthwhile to check in from instances that have already defederated them. The previous thread definitely left a bad taste in my mouth but what do y'all think?

Old thread can be found here

EDIT: With regards to the post on new federation guidelines here: https://hexbear.net/post/352119

The current top comment is:

Every instance that has talked shit and got dogpiled should be thanking us for breathing some life into their dead and boring ass websites.

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  • I will summarize my views that I left on the first thread:

    • While I do not agree with mandatory pronoun marking, or with needing to have one's neopronouns approved, the number of Hexbear users with neopronouns in their names indicates that the instance is extremely pro-trans and inclusive of all non-binary identities.
    • Ada has very poorly handled the response to her "people of NATO" statement in a way that leaves a very bad taste in my mouth regarding the administration of Blåhaj Lemmy. I have noticed that a comment left by a Hexbear user saying "death to Nazis and transphobes" is gone now as well, which if this was an act of a Blåhaj Lemmy administrator, further reflects poorly on Blåhaj Lemmy's administration.
    • For as much as I've enjoyed some of Hexbear's communities, such as [email protected], Hexbear users have often been weird, annoying, or wrong as well. However, I do not think that being weird, annoying, and wrong is cause for defederation, and would prefer that defederation be reserved for illegal content and neo-Nazis, lest we create a culture that is hegemonic in its beliefs and values.
    • The ideal solution is for individual users to be able to block Hexbear, but this appears to only be possible using uBlock Origin and half-possible with one of the mobile clients for Lemmy. Until this becomes a feature of Lemmy itself, I believe that Hexbear should be defederated if this is the will of a majority of Blåhaj Lemmy users.

    I will also state that I am biased in my views due to the fact that I am an anarchist who doesn't use the word "tankie", I am very strongly opposed to respectability/civility politics, and I am very careful about SIFTing every bit of news that appears on my feed. For these reasons, my experiences with Hexbear and its users will be markedly different from those with differing views or social media practices, a number of whom report experiencing "harassment, brigading, disinformation, and bad faith arguments". I am sure that these people are being honest, but I can only speak from my own experience.

    Lastly, I would like to note that I read that a number of Hexbear users were opposed to federation to begin with, due to the potential disruption this could be for the site's culture, and as Hexbear's culture (e.g. emojis, which improperly scale on other instances) are taken to other sites. It is therefore my conjecture that some fraction of Hexbear users may be intentionally going against their admins' words and being annoying on other instances specifically in order to get Hexbear defederated. I do not fully understand Hexbear's culture or site politics, so I would prefer to hear from Hexbear users on this matter: since this thread is local-only, Hexbear users may wish to send me a DM explaining the controversy on their site regarding federation, and if my conjecture has any merit.

    I may edit this comment with other thoughts as they come to me.

    Edit: I received this DM from a Hexbear user regarding federation politics on the site. I am sharing this with his permission. I will create an audio version upon request.

    Relevant links in the DM:

    @[email protected] also sent me a message reading, "[...] Also, it looks like our admins have posted new rules concerning federated conduct. Some people are being grouchy about it, but I do think moderation is going to improve: https://hexbear.net/post/352119?scrollToComments=false"

    • I can't think of anything less trans-friendly than mandatory pronoun marking.

      I quite liked this quote from Isabel Fall (more about identity than pronouns specifically, but still related!)

      “We make boxes that seem to enclose a satisfying number of human experiences, and then we put labels on those and argue about them instead,” she says. “The boxes change over time, according to a process which is governed by, as far as I can tell, cycles of human suffering: We realize that forcing people into the last set of boxes was painful and wrong, we wring our hands, we fold up some new boxes and assure ourselves that this time we got it right, or at least right enough for now. Because we need the boxes to argue over. I do not want to be in a box. I want to sift through your fingers, to vanish, to be unseen.”

    • https://hexbear.net/post/352119

      Top comment on this post is

      Every instance that has talked shit and got dogpiled should be thanking us for breathing some life into their dead and boring ass websites.

      https://hexbear.net/comment/3744380

      • The top comment is that, and the rest of the comments are saying what...?

        • Primarily deflection and shitposting. I see exactly ONE comment in praise of the new rules.

          • The top-level comments I see in order are,

            • The aforementioned comment
            • Asking for an update to the UI to clarify when a post is federated and what that means for user behavior
            • Shitpost
            • A post in favor
            • Saying that Lemmy needs to allow local-only communities
            • "[...] I still think that federating with so many communities at all the same time was a bad idea [...] I hope we take a more measured approach moving forward."
            • Shitpost
            • Shitpost
            • Disappointment at one aspect of the rule change but understanding its necessity
            • "okie"
            • "[...] wasn't dunking 99% of the reason we federated in the first place? [...]"
            • Asking about if users should censor names when "dunking"
            • Shitpost
            • Asking for clarification about one of the new rules

            A lot of shitposting, sure, but I don't see how you can really call any of that "deflection".

            • The comments I consider deflection:

              • Asking for an update to the UI to clarify when a post is federated and what that means for user behavior (Full text is: Okay, can we get like, posts from other sites to have red backgrounds with caution tape all over so we don't forget? [mischevious emoji])
              • Saying that Lemmy needs to allow local-only communities (true but not really the problem)
              • “[…] I still think that federating with so many communities at all the same time was a bad idea […] I hope we take a more measured approach moving forward.” (most instances do not have these sorts of problems)

              Ultimately the tone of the instance and its infectious nature on the fediverse are the issue. Particularly as it does not seem that the admins/mods truly have the ability to reign in their users.

              • Also, their admin telling them not to participate in this thread seems to have worked, so maybe they have more of an ability to reign in their users than it seems? It might be best to wait a while to see the impact of their rule change before defederating.

              • I figured it was those comments you were referring to, and I can sort of see where you're coming from now that I think about it, since it should be on the users to behave even without changing Lemmy's features. Still, I don't think it's particularly malicious to discuss how to improve the site, and how they could've approached federation differently. I think that functionality shapes behavior, so these are the types of things that should be discussed.

                Edit: And regarding "most instances do not have these sorts of problems" — I don't think it's good to treat the majority experience as the universal experience.

                • And regarding “most instances do not have these sorts of problems” — I don’t think it’s good to treat the majority experience as the universal experience.

                  Don't get me wrong hexbear is absolutely anomalous. I do not think that is an argument in favor of federating with them.

                  • I don't think them being anomalous is an argument in favor of not federating with them, either.

                    • Them not jiving with the broader threadiverse is absolutely reason to defederate. They should probably be in their own network of leftist shitposting and trolling instances. Places with similar tone and customs around dogpiling.

    • Ada has very poorly handled the response to her "people of NATO" statement in a way that leaves a very bad taste in my mouth regarding the administration of Blåhaj Lemmy

      What I was trying to say is that wishing death on people is not acceptable, but wishing for the downfall of organisations is perfectly acceptable.

      If that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, I don't know what to tell you.

      And if the bad taste in your mouth was because you thought I was saying something else, or that I was trying to make some sort of implicit comparison to terms like "people of colour", then hopefully this clarifies things, because it wasn't any of that.

      • or that I was trying to make some sort of implicit comparison to terms like “people of colour”, [...]

        Honestly that just seems like people reading too much into things, even though "people of NATO" is still a really unusual and imprecise phrasing. If English is your second language and it was sort of a heat-of-the-moment edit, then phrasing things oddly is understandable, and it's really bad that people were assuming ill intent just because of unusual phrasing.

        Anyways, sorry if I've been too impolite and added too much to your stress, you do good work overall (and if this seems like groveling, sorry about that, too) — I'm not going to change my views, but it's also probably best not to keep prodding at such differences, in your den. I wasn't aware of this unwritten rule when I signed up and I'll make sure to respect it regardless of how I feel about it.

        • Honestly that just seems like people reading too much into things

          That's what this whole thing has been, beginning to end. Sometimes deliberately so.

          It's not ok to wish death on people. It is ok to wish for the downfall of oppressive organisations. Some people believe the latter is only achievable through the former, and use "motte and bailey" ambiguity to say the latter but mean the former.

          That line is the point of disagreement, and because I do disagree, people used the often deliberate ambiguity to paint me as ignorant.

          The truth is, it doesn't matter what I said, because that ambiguity (by design) makes it impossible to navigate without meaning getting lost. And because of the nature of hexbear, as soon as I was seen as even implicitly "defending NATO", it was open season

          • It’s not ok to wish death on people.

            Would you like me to try to explain again why I disagree, or should I just tuck my arms and pout about it?

            • I get why you and others disagree. What I don't understand is why so many people insist that I have to be ok with wishing death on really bad people too, or otherwise I deserve the shit that happened in that other thread.

              It seems like a really strange point to turn on someone over...

              • I guess people are just growing more and more tense nowadays, "There's something in the air", I always say. I'm really sorry that all that happened.

    • Ada has very poorly handled the response to her “people of NATO” statement in a way that leaves a very bad taste in my mouth regarding the administration of Blåhaj Lemmy. I have noticed that a comment left by a Hexbear user saying “death to Nazis and transphobes” is gone now as well, which if this was an act of a Blåhaj Lemmy administrator, further reflects poorly on Blåhaj Lemmy’s administration.

      I really do not think it's fair to go after Ada about this. I think this is such a weird hill to die on.

      • If you say so, but I just feel like this reflects on a broader issue I've noticed of the admins here being overly concerned with civility or respectability, and it just felt very avoidable.

        Edit: And besides, my life is nothing if not a series of weird hills to die on. I think I've always had a problem with refusing to let things go, which can be both a strength and a weakness.

        • overly concerned with civility or respectability

          I for one do not mind admins that are concerned with civility or respectability. Forums should be about talking to people and I will always prefer to talk to people with civility and respect.

          • This comment has been bothering me for the past two hours. I just don't know how to respond to this perspective which clearly comes from a very different lived experience. Assuming you were a Redditor before, which types of subreddits did you spend time on? I spent most of my time in the past few years on TGCJ, which could be described as the most "anomalous" of the major trans subreddits. I see a lot of the TGCJ spirit in Hexbear, in how anti-respectability-politics and anti-tone-policing it is, and this is probably why I'm so invested in defending Hexbear even as a non-member.

            • Because I have moderated communities that live and die by the quality of their discussion and I understand that once you slip too far, you will not come back. Rabid circlejerky instances that promote dogpiling do not facilitate discussion and as a whole are bad for the health of the threadiverse. If people can't have a reasonable discussion here they will simply leave. That does not mean that I think hexbear should not exist, but they should probably be contained to their own corner of the broader threadiverse.

              • If only there was a way to be a user of both and browse them as one feed, this whole discussion wouldn't be nearly as consequential.

            • TGCJ is fine, but TGCJ culture stays in TGCJ spaces because outside of TGCJ, it's just transphobia. I get that that place is great for people, and I respect its right to exist and have no problem with the people in it, but I don't want to be confronted with TGCJ memes every time I log into my safe space.

              That's kinda how I feel about Hexbear's behavior so far. My understanding is that Hexbear has a very supportive culture, and that their "dunking" happens in the context of being supportive of their own? But that's not what we see out here. Out here it just seems like they're toxic and hostile, and even as someone who ostensibly should feel left unity with them I just feel alienated.

              Maybe it's my fault for not being familiar enough with their meme culture. But at the same time, they should be making more of an effort to be aware of what space they're in and the fact that they're in community now, and not everywhere has the same norms.

              That said, I still am glad we're not defederating. The admin team over there seems to be making headway, and I think we should let them try to improve before we cut them off preemptively. My hope is that the culture shock will pass with time.

              • Couldn't have said it better myself. That's why I added rules for CW's, post titles, and the /j tone indicator to Blåhaj Lemmy's TGCJ, after seeing someone post something absolutely vile that ended up showing up in non-members' feeds.

        • not from blahaj, but considering your concerns about federating with illegal content i feel like its important to note that calling for violence against or deaths of people or groups of people is illegal in large parts of the world, especially those that federation users will be from

    • I agree with almost everything you said here, even though I don’t participate in any of the communities on that instance I would probably start looking for another instance to use if we go through with defederation. I’d like to be able to participate in discussion with queer folk and other leftists (including those that I have differing opinions from) across all of lemmy because to me that’s the value of using a federated platform in the first place.

      I’d also like to note that I’m not a “tankie” or a ML for the sake of clarity, but I do value left unity because none of these reductive arguments over international politics actually matter when you’re doing real work and helping others, which is what this is all about in the first place.

138 comments