It's poorly worded but the dunk culture that we inherited from Reddit is a close relative to the "SJW compilation" shit. If you think the only problem with that is the people and ideas it targets, then Hexbear's dunk culture isn't a problem.

I personally think the underlying mechanism of dunk culture, though, is fostering a superiority complex out of in-group out-group dynamics, which is directly harmful to us as leftists. The whole "bullying works" nonsense is reddit shit that does not translate to the real social groups we all have to interact with. The kind of people we see posted in the dunk tank are often gonna be similar to the kind of people we have to agitate and educate in real life. And walking into those interactions with an internalized in-group justifying our superiority just serves to isolate us more than anything.

There's always been a split between whether hexbear is primarily an organizing tool or merely a water cooler for leftish people to hang out. It has potential to work as both. But it's clear that a lot of the unpaid volunteers putting labor into the site would like to imagine their efforts are going somewhere, especially as contradictions heighten in the real world. So when they perceive that a part of the escapist aspect of hexbear is undermining its utility for organizing, it makes perfect sense that they would want to try and change that.

I'm not gonna read through 1500 comments to get an accurate vibe of the response, but I can't imagine it was entirely pleasant. And when it comes down to it I value the opinions of the unpaid workers significantly more than the opinions of the consumers.