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)
It just occurred to me that it's also super disingenuous to tell people to request a new comm to replace the dredge tank, when you've already made a commitment to people who aren't users of this site not to allow a dredge tank like comm to exist.
Unless the picture that's floating around is doctored?
The only response I've seen to that image from an admin, is locking the only thread outside of this 1100 comment post where it was being discussed.
If it's real then that picture implies that no such comm would be allowed to be created.
Also TC69 called this a conspiracy theory while locking the thread that screenshot showed up in. If the image isn't fake then that really needs elaboration
I think it was more "the things being posted in that thread are conspiracy theories", not the post itself, but idk. Even so, most of the comments were pretty reasonable guesses IMO
i apologize for how dumb what I said came across, im not trying to make anything seem nefarious, the whole swathe of admins being removed and what not was just supposed to be an example of the admins not really explaining what goes on behind the scenes at all, my point was I had 0 clue if it was for new admins or for opsec like you said.
as far as the timeline, quite frankly I was kind of trying to come up with something to defend the admins actually, there are people accusing yall of wanting to impose culture from the top down (especially in the context of doing it to please lib admins in other instances because you were upset over the election) and I was trying to explain that i thought it might have come from yall thinking there was a chunk of people who wanted it because of the misogyny thread. i'll delete it if you want
it should literally be illegal for a forum mod to call anyone else a 'nerd'
we should just ban the word on hexbear, we're all nerds here, c/sports gets less than 20 posts in a month
there's like 2 of them. and you can pry them from my cold dead hands,
team winning news gives me life
I don't think this tone is helpful right now.
At this point I feel like the admins are actively hostile toward the users here and you're coming off as arrogant and condescending.
Unironically you should not be an admin.
I think there was a misunderstanding earlier when you said you were new. You meant newly an admin, but others thought you were saying you were literally new to this site as a whole
They wouldn't lock that thread without just saying that it's fake if it weren't real.
I suspect that you're right but I think I'm holding out hope that they aren't gaslighting everyone that badly.
It's a public chatroom, anyone can verify for themselves
https://matrix.to/#/!zGgslqYWlbTgVmRMEh:discuss.online (preview in element and scroll back to November 3rd)
"The purpose of a system is what it does" applies to admins and moderators imo
Its not a final decision, in the body of the post it says we will collect feedback and revisit the decision in 1 - 2 weeks. When we do and if we decide to revert the commrequest thread will be used