Hello users of Hexbear, we wanted to inform you that we are going to be locking the_dunk_tank and dredge_tank communities. We have created two new communities /c/gossip and /c/counterpropaganda to serve a similar but clearly distinct purpose than the dunk/dredge tanks.
Not only is the dunk tank a term that has racist origins, but also many posts there were almost no effort and often times requiring later edits to show how they weren't reactionary, not useful with regard to developing rhetoric and furthering dialectical analysis of that which we dunk upon.
To that end, we wish posts of reactionaries to be placed in !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net along with an accompanying explanation (as simple or complex as desired) with the intent of countering the reactionary propaganda in the post body, as of now comments are not subject to the same rhetorical rigor rule.
For the posts that are not "low-hanging fruit' of notable people we ask that you use !gossip@hexbear.net .
These changes are mainly part of a continued effort to remove the racist and misogynistic elements from our community and grow.
Any moderators of the dunk tank or dredge tank that want to be a mod in the new communities let me know.
Any users with questions or comments please use this post, this change was made at the behest of the entire Hexbear mod and admin team. We will be looking for more moderators in an organized volunteer drive shortly, if you wish to submit an application you may send it to me via hexbear or matrix direct messages.
Use this post as a place for discussion to these changes. We will keep things as they are for 2 weeks and then reflect on the feedback, including this post: https://hexbear.net/post/3858346
As a personal addendum I am sorry if the closing of the tanks these changes removes a beloved space on the site and if you want to suggest a community to replace them you may do so at !commrequest@hexbear.net or submit a mod application to take a more active role in shaping the site.
Sitewide or community changes come from proposals put forth from the mod team, discussed, and voted on by the mod team.
Any users wanting to suggest a community to replace the tanks, may do so at !commrequest@hexbear.net current discussion is here https://hexbear.net/post/3858346 or submit a mod application to take a more active role in shaping the site.
You may also consider using !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml as a substitute for dunk/dredge tank posts as well
The mod statement can be found here: https://hexbear.net/comment/5613033
Application
What is your Hexbear username? Do you have any preferred pronouns? What are your thoughts on capitalism? What are your thoughts on imperialism? What are your thoughts on trans rights? What are your thoughts on racial justice? What do think about current and previous protests around the world? What are your thoughts on Veganism and Animal Liberation? Do you have any experience with other leftist online communities? What did those experiences teach you? What is your approach to moderation, and how do you work with teams? How do you deal with online drama and people who try to start things for the sake of it? What current comms would you be interested in moderating? Do you have any ideas for community engagement? What is your general time availability? (Time zone, amounts, common browsing times, etc)
Its a bit contradictory to hold this site to a high standard of high effort leftist rhetoric when in reality this event revealed very fundemental superstructure of the site does not follow in the vein of leftist organisation and is more akin to neoliberal management structures.
I care keep seething lol
Anyways. This is not to say that the site should be a place of high effort posts if the superstructure was more leftist, its just to raise a point of contradiction.
A more transparent, democratic approach would have been to explain reasons for why a change has to be made and hold a vote amongst the userbase with some engineering control to prevent brigading. This would be more in line with leftist theory and principles.
That is all for that point.
Regarding the supposed discussions with other admins from other lemmy sites, as one of our users said, the majority of "people" who use those sites are insane hyper neoliberal crazy people who basically don't matter.
Therefore, I'd say that there is no need to appease them and we were doing fine before federation so why care about the opinions of their admins who are more often than not the enemy in the most visceral sense.
They support a system that considers each and every one of us burnable waste and would happily have all of us die in agony so that their profits remain in the green (see whats happening in Gaza atm)
So really, why pander to them?
If its about supposed death threats there would need to be valid receipts for such outrageous claims so the offending users can be dealt with appropriately (its not a problem if the recipient is a fascist/neolib)
Again, we will be absolutely fine if we just defederate from everyone and continue with business as usual.
Like the admins have been doing a fine job otherwise so theres no problem with us going at it alone is there?