Original post here: https://hexbear.net/post/3856299?scrollToComments=false
I think we have a general path forward based on community feedback. "We see you, we hear you!"
I went ahead and unpinned the old post. I'm pinning this one for now and will edit this post when I wake up from eepy time. I had a very mid week and have no particular alarm set so be on look out. Love y'all and I'm amped for my first announcement post since coming back. :)
People are asking for some transparency on how this decision was made, so here's my perspective.
Due to the racist origin of the term "The Dunk Tank," the decision was made that the community absolutely needs to be replaced by something which doesn't trace back to a carnival game titled "Hit the Coon."
Since we were re-naming / replacing the community, It was also considered a good time to reconsider the purpose of it. It served as an outlet for catharsis, but also has a misanthropic element to it, which, unchecked, leads to a smug self-satisfied "everyone is stupid but me" mindset.
The arguments seemed reasonable to me. I didn't make much input. I didn't find much to object to. I was under the understanding that c/gossip would be more-or-less the replacement, but that would focus more on significant public figures instead of the absolute bottom feeders of Twitter and Reddit. This was more or less the consensus among people in the discussion, so I don't think it is fair to lay everything at the feet of CARCOSA
So this was basically me:
I still think the changes were reasonably justified. I think they probably could have been communicated better. I also think we would be in a better place if the discussion thread remained constructive, rather than spiraling into a tornado of accusations and innuendo. That discussion was a fiasco. Decisions at the administration / moderation level could have been more transparent, but instead of discussing that we went straight to assuming everyone had an ulterior motive.
I wonder if jacketing people as toxic cishet white debate bros for posting on the tank comms helped or hindered the ability have a productive conversation and assume good faith
Honestly it seems like they already made the decision based on personal tastes and issues with other instances prior and all the other reasons they gave us were just justifications after the fact. Transparency would have definitely helped tho for sure
I was of a similar mindset, until someone decided to create 20 alt accounts and abuse everyone that disagreed with them. Only after that did I begin commenting on the issue, before that I had one comment total.
The problem I have is that we already did this struggle sesh back when rule 8 went in and ultimately reached a compromise and the dredge tank was created. I don't think there's an ulterior motive, but we saw then that a lot of people really wanted this content, why go to ban it again without like, really detailed and transparent reasons to win people over? (though some % ofc will hate any change) That's why people are assigning some amount of ulterior motive, I feel.
I think there is a certain amount of smug self-satisfiedness on the comm, and better guardrails against that would probably be appreciated (by me at the very least), but frankly to me, dunking on elon musk and other known quantities gets stale and pointless in a way the more dredgey content usually isn't, since it can come from anywhere. Randos with no PR department say the quiet part out loud more, about what liberalism really is (and other topics).
IMO, the line that should have been drawn based on your rationale is more "how people are engaging with the comm/content" and not "what type of people we're allowed to make fun of on the comm", I just don't feel like the latter rule solves the stated problem... We can be unnecessarily smug and shitty towards public figures too!
The actual problem is a very sticky one and ultimately a judgement call on the part of mods... but so is deciding what is notable enough for c/gossip now or c/the_dunk_tank before, that process is almost completely arbitrary and it doesn't even prevent people from being unthinking smuglords, so what's the point? At that point just let mods delete things for "everyone is stupid but me" smugness, it'd be equally arbitrary and more effective
No we didn't? We went straight to being confused and asking clarifying questions. This thing unraveled slowly over time. We ended up at the place where we assume ulterior motives because of how things unfolded and because it became clear the reasons given for closing the comms were not the actual reasons.
I think it's pretty bad of you to misrepresent the situation like that. It's pretty important we make sure to keep the story straight and avoid confusion, so we don't end up with more situations like what happened with carcosa, which was one leaked screenshot that suddenly spiraled out of control.