That's it. Our instance requires us to stop responding if you explicitly ask us to. It's right here buried in our Code of Conduct
Any discussions may be opted out of by disengaging.
In the past, this rule has only applied to the specific user you say it to. I'd like to suggest going forward that if someone on another instance uses it, we treat it as applying to all of us.
Unfortunately this rule wasn't communicated clearly before, so I'm making this post for visibility.
Edit: As the comments clarify, this has to be done in good faith, typically just a one word "disengage" comment. If you add more stuff to the discussion and then say "disengage" at the end, you're not disengaging, it's a way to put a stop to a toxic argument not to get the last word in.
You seem to be the only person who cares about this, Zuzak. This is a rule that to my knowledge has never been mentioned or enforced. I didn't even know we had rules until last week and I've been here the whole three years. Pulling this out as a "gotcha" that everyone has to abide by because it's in a document no one knew existed, that is never or nearly never referenced, and that in no way guides or informs site culture is not helpful or productive.
If anything, we should be discussing revising the site rules to reflect current practice, now that some people know they exist.
comments get removed & people have been banned for pursuing an argument after one user has 'disengaged'. you've really never seen this? it is in the rules, and i think there was even a clarification at a later date regarding people who'd say 'disengage' but continue the argument for the last word.
i guess it's fortunate you've never been in a shit-flinging hostile enough it's been needed but this is by no means a new rule or one that's gone unused/appreciated
I've seen it, I just thought they were being removed for being jerks. I didn't realize it was a formal rule. I honestly thought the mods were mostly just going on a general "Don't be an asshole" standard.
you'd think, but the sort of people you'd need to enforce this rule on are exactly the kind to go digging in the rules and insist they didn't break one
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It's the rule, and it always has been if you want it to changed, talk to the mods, I don't have the power to change it even if I wanted to (I don't).
I saw a blahaj user post a link to this in defense of staying federated in their thread, so I beg to differ.
Not to mention, you just said you hadn't heard of it, now you have. Sounds like the post was necessary then.
I've used that rule in the past and it worked. There's points where discussion becomes a toxic and pointless contest of oneupmanship and i think a large part of hexbear culture is that we offer an alternative to that particular way places like reddit handle debates.
This isn't used explicitly a ton, but I remember at the start of hexbear, then chapochat, that an important idea was you should not continually harass someone into an argument. Like purposefully trying to pull someone into an argument for the sake of being an ass was frowned on and you should not continually harass them. The ability to say "aight i'm done, this is bad for both of us" via the disengage is pretty valuable and we should honestly bring light to it more.
I think mods removing comments from people who are only trying to be hostile isn't a bad idea. We remove bad faith chud/lib comments. We should strive to act in good faith, even if we're incredibly annoying.
It has. I've seen people's comments removed because they failed to disengage.
I genuinely don't understand how this is possible; we've had multiple struggle sessions over this.
I remember when the rule was created and I’ve seen it enforced plenty, also I think it’s a pretty good rule despite the fact that when it was new, somebody did the “write a huge wall of text comment and then put disengage at the end” to me and the mods actually warned me for not letting that person get the last word lol.
I've used it and it was enforced. I used it once a couple of years ago when a heated arguement suddenly swerved into very personal territory. Not just because I didn't have time for that, but also because the other poster was a comrade who was obviously having a bad time, stuck in a rage, and couldn't stop themselves (multiple replies without my response etc).
I don't have a problem with looking at it again if the influx of new users (from here or other instances) creates a lot of misuse or has a detrimental effect though. I have even more mixed feelings about doing it voluntarily on other instances however and I agree that occassionally looking at rules and revising them especially as we transition further into (or excluded from) federation makes sence.
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