Hey everyone, I've removed bans for everyone that did not request one in the previous admin thread. (I think. If you got banned and I didn't restore your account yet, let me know and I'll fix it.) Don't worry! We're not gonna just ban people for no reason.

In case anyone hasn't seen it yet, Alaskaball confirmed that Sangria was their admin alt. They were messing around with their admin tools on their own account and figured it would be seen as a funny bit, but without being informed of the bit many of the mods and admins were just as shocked, confused, and appalled as you were. I've talked to the other admins and mods, and we're all gonna take it easy on bits for a bit. (Pun intended. This is the last one, I promise.)

If you're afraid that there's been an infiltration of transphobic, egomaniacal wrecker mods who hate the users, I want to assure you that's absolutely not the case. The overwhelming majority of mods and admins on this site are trans. Our admins are all trusted, long-time users in good standing. We regularly browse, comment, and post on our main accounts. You post and chat with us daily as comrades, and we value all of you. You may not recognize the usernames on our admin accounts because we regularly swap the alts used for admin privileges. This is why you'll see really old or unused alt accounts as well as really new accounts on the admin team.

I've seen a lot of speculation down below, some entertaining, some upsetting. We absolutely do not accept transphobia or any form of bigotry on this site. Some of the statements provided by mods and admins have been seen as transphobic and bioessentialist. I want to offer some transparency, but also clarify that I can't get much more specific on this for personal security reasons.

During the earlier discussions on how we felt things could be improved with these communities, multiple trans mods and admins described their reasoning in favour of the change by expressing with a variety of wording that it's the [he/him] demographic in particular that has been the source of toxic and troubling behavior in the tanks. That the he/hims haven't been beating the accusations, so to speak. With that group being largely cishet white guys on this site, these two terms were assumed to roughly correlate. We weren't making prepared statements for release, the comments that got posted here were paraphrased and combined from more casual comments made by trans people, in the mod chat to mostly other trans people about some of the chauvinistic and ironically bigoted posting habits that they saw as alienating and unhealthy for the site, and what we could do to improve the situation. We genuinely didn't foresee the potential for a miscommunication of those statements as being bioessentialist, and want to extend our sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding.

Edit: Please feel welcome to post in c/gossip as you would have posted in the_dunk_tank, and in c/counterpropaganda as you would have posted in the_dredge_tank.

  • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
    ·
    16 days ago

    I still can't get past the fact that the admins lied to all of us about why they were doing the thing (which IMO was a BAD reason), then when they got caught there was zero contrition. Y'all are quick to apologize for the ban rampage and the chauvinistic brainworms, but this seems to be just slipping to the back of the conversation.

    The admins/mods demonstrated that they think this is their site, not the users. That was only reinforced by the gleeful cruelty and ambivalence of the ban waves. I for one spent yesterday afternoon reliving the intensity of anxiety I felt when I was in an abusive living situation, because I felt compelled to speak out despite people catching bans literally just for being upset left and right.

    None of the apologies coming from the people who did this are speaking to this, that I've seen. To me that means the status quo still stands. Decisions about the site are for making behind closed doors, a week before any of the users know about it, and can be lied about when the rollout happens. And by my measuring of the timeline, that's the point where the userbase went from sad to angry, so letting this fade into the background is just setting us up for another huge drama like this in the future.

    • SixSidedUrsine [comrade/them]
      ·
      16 days ago

      this

      Thank you for saying this and I hope all of it isn't forgotten, because it seems like a narrative is forming that "it was all just a big overreaction" when no, actually it wasn't. I keep seeing people around the site say "really, this is all just over some comms getting renamed?" but NO, that's not what this was ever about.

      There have been a couple mod/admin resignations that were not called for and not helpful (one seems to have been walked back and I hope the other is too) and there has been an admin resignation along with account deletion that very much was the right move that I hope is not walked back. But the ultimate problem of mod and admin unaccountability to the much larger base of people who use this site and make it what it is, and the seeming disdain those mods and admins have for us, those more important problems still have yet to be addressed in any meaningful, lasting way. I'm losing hope that hexbear will emerge from this a better place and I'm fearing that the userbase will forget why everyone was so mad in the first place while the problems that led to this remain and the the toxic, negative peace status quo slides back into place. Wow does that ever sound familiar.

    • glimmer_twin [he/him]
      ·
      16 days ago

      The person who went on the ban rampage deleted their account rather than apologise shrug-outta-hecks

      • REgon [they/them]
        ·
        16 days ago

        Lmao classic tc69
        "Embrace TC69 thought" started as a bit that meant "ban people I don't like." and then people thought it was real and that we should do it.
        Live long enough to become the villain lol

        • glimmer_twin [he/him]
          ·
          16 days ago

          Like it’s fine to have internet acquaintances but can we not do cults of personality around users on our forum with like 100 active members lol.

          Maybe all accounts should be deleted at the end of every month and everyone has to start a new one centrist