Closing the dredge tank for a joke wasn't OK.

jk I'm sure this will work out

FUCK YEAH LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ban the treats ban the treats ban the treats

Were people dunking too hard on people after some of the reactions to Harris losing?

I rarely, if ever, comment on these kind of editorial or mod decisions. In part because I really appreciate the vast majority of what mods here volunteer to do and recognise the hard graft they put in just to keep this place going without it going off the rails. Partly because, as much as I'm very fond of this community and some of the things we've achieved - as well as it being an oasis in a sea of constant turned-up-to-11 reactionary shit both online and off - it is still just a website I enjoy contributing to or just reading. It's not my life or social space or vessel for my activism.

So while no one has to, I hope you'll indulge me in this rare instance I weigh in...

I think replacing the comm, if simply renaming it is tricky, is a good idea. That particular racist connotation isn't worth the (admittedly fitting) name, and plenty of users have suggested others. If for reasons of technical ease or federation gremlins it's better to delete or lock the old comm and replace it, sure, sounds good.

That being said, this odd split and potential intent change of the comms, complicated by vague and ill-defined rules (what is a public person online, who is notable, what is the threshold for influence etc?) seems like a pretty ill-conceived idea being messaged in an even more cack-handed way. Having read the entirety of this thread, that seems pretty clear by the general reaction that this is the common sentiment (even if I don't agree with all of the reasons posted).

Plenty of other people have made similar points rather well, but I think there's merit and value in having a simple space where people can post terrible takes, examples of disingenuous or reactionary narratives, or brainworms on full display. Ridicule can be a tool that's effective in talking with people and dismantling especially knee-jerk unthinking reactionary narratives. But I'd also argue that the ability to throw down an absurdly reactionary or unhinged take for ridicule and have comrades instinctively understand why it's worthy of such, is a kind of bonding and being seen that most people don't get in their every day lives. And that had value too.

The proposed names are also dreadful. Aside from the negative and potentially sexist connotations of 'gossip' as pointed out by others, that also sounds to me like a comm that's for inside baseball about Hexbear, not ridicule of 'notable figures'. Counterpropaganda is slightly better, but still seems to be pitched as essentially deciding to debate into the void. I feel like strong, simple counters to reactionary clichés often get posted in the comments of dunk tank posts, regardless of whether it's presented with an explanation or not. I also think that the creator of a post laying out exactly why it's bullshit predetermines why it is bullshit, and potentially discourages (explicitly or not) other takes on why these reactionary thoughts are nonsense. Many of the best, most succinct counterpoints I've seen and used from the dunk tank were because a user was looking at why the posted content was worthless or reactionary in a totally different way than me.

Mostly I'm just perplexed by what the motivation is behind these changes, even after reading the comments mods have taken the time to write in active response.Rather than continue to ramble, although I'm likely to have more to say, I suppose it might be more useful for me to ask some questions of the mods, devs, and anyone else who wants to weigh in...

• Is there an issue with the amount of moderation required and generated by these comms? Is the rule change or differently pitched comms because mods are spending too much time removing potentially reactionary posts that are too vague about what is the intended target of 'dunking' etc?

• Does the mod / dev team percieve an issue with the tone of the majority of posts in these comms? If so, what is it?

• Does any of this stem from concerns about ther 'seriousness' of the site or the amount of jokey / outwardly hostile that appear within the top posts, either locally or for visitors? If so, to what degree?

• What other reasons or concerns do the mods/devs/other users have about these comms beyond the need for a name change? There's been some passing mention of 'low effort' posts, but can you clarify what you mean or why such posts are a negative thing for the community?

I'll leave it there for now as I've already probably typed too much.

I suggest to change whatever the new main Dredge tank replacement is to

• /c/pit

or

• /c/Barbara_Pit

Gonna add my thoughts here on this here.

Yes, it’s true that an online forum isn’t really suitable for organizing a revolutionary vanguard, but this site does serve some very important purposes, two of which in particular relate to this change:

1. Mental health. Nobody here is a qualified mental health councilor either, but the discussions here can impact mental health in both positive and negative ways. I feel like mental health is a pretty critical roadblock for a lot of people on the left, myself included, so making this a priority is a good thing imo.

2. Education. I’ve learned a ton reading comments, watching or reading recommendations, and interacting with people here. I’m sure you all have as well, and I don’t think it should take much to convince most of you how important this is.

So with this in mind, I feel like this change aims to help with both of those points outlined. I totally get that a lot of the low-effort dunk posts are an attempt to blow off steam, but is it really the best way to do that? It seems to just lead to people getting more and more angry with no aim or resolution. Also, are these posts informative? Typically they are not. I don’t see steering the comms away from the present state towards something more useful as an attempt to stop people from blowing off steam, but rather an attempt to just make it a little more productive and healthy.

Hopefully that all isn’t just rambling and makes at least some sense. I’m slipping into eepy princess mode and not sure if my brain is functioning at normal capacity.

gonna wait a week or so to comment on this decision so my opinions are formed by the actual impact it has, personally tepid but open to trying it out and seeing how it goes

Closing the dunk/dredge tanks is a futile change. I understand that often times it didn't exactly produce valuable discourse and I'm sure there were instances of reactionary posts, but "get a load of this lib/chud" is like 50% of hexbear. The dunk tank exists to contain those posts, closing that community will not make those posts go away, it will just make them clutter the other communities or the megathreads. So what if the posts on there are low effort? Who cares? If I want to read actual theory, I'll pick up a book.

To put it another way: Many of us go on hexbear because getting mad at the same thing together feels cathartic, especially when nobody in our physical surroundings shares our political opinions. We see a dumb tweet by some liberal and we wanna have like-minded folks agree with us that it's dumb, so we go on hexbear to post it here. That's what the dunk tank is for and while it's not very productive and it's not gonna bring about the revolution, trying to stop these kinds of posts is a losing battle.

I mean, just look at how the dredge tank came to be: Mods didn't want screenshots of tweets by random nobodies and so they implemented a rule about it, but people wouldn't stop posting them so the dredge tank was eventually created as a compromise. Because although it might be low-effort and unproductive, dunking on dumb tweets is what the userbase wants and it's what they'll keep doing. !gossip@hexbear.net is just gonna become the new dunk tank.