Obviously this isn't directed at you, TC

So, I don't give a shit about the controversy itself, but the way that the mods in a closed chat just hyped themselves up on saying "This is what white bros do" to each other and then handing down the pronouncement that some of the most popular communities are only for chauvinists and then masking their real motives with an excuse about the names is just awful. The disingenuousness, the insular snobbishness, the immaturity, the cynicality. It's just disgusting.

I have no further thoughts.

The antagonism shown by the admins and mods every time they decide something behind the scenes then spring it on everyone unilaterally is so exhausting. If you hate interacting with users so much that you're making alts to harass people or just deciding to ban people who politely disagree with you then this really isn't the right gig for you

There's something really funny about a bunch of commie admins who want a serious leftist community, but rather than actually committing to anything like democratic centralism by gauging their communities' thoughts on things they instead unironically do the whole undemocratic shadow cabal 1984 meme by dropping half-baked ideas on everyone with zero prior warning or discussion.

And by "really funny," I of course mean that the admins should take their own advice and go touch grass for a bit, because this is by far the dumbest struggle session this site has had and that's saying something.

"To cool everyone’s jets, you will be getting your slop back,"

The slop was only the catalyst. The issue quickly became that mod statement misgendering much of the site(and having an un-CWed self harm reference), harassment against people who were against it, and the fact that other lemmy mods got told before we did. Is there any plan to address those issues?

Edit:

Or just ban people for opposing it I guess

a plea to the admins generally: please address the flagrant transphobia/bizarre gender essentialism that was the thrust of a couple of the (anonymous!) mod takes from the big thread. if this gets swept under the rug my faith in admins/mods to consistently oppose bigotry will be severely damaged. the silence is already deafening on the issue.

this is being handled so childishly by what seems like a good handful of the mods and admins lol. complete shit show. why not just lock the thread and perma everyone criticizing you all at this point, or do you enjoy arguing with us that much? i acknowledge that some users have acted overly hostile and crossed lines which sucks for you all to have to deal with but you all have created this situation (problem was fake to begin with) and gone on to drop the ball on resolving it several times in comical fashion.

This has devolved to one of the original contradictions of the website: a mod team that wants to make a more serious site without holding themselves to any standard worthy of serious interaction

Why is someone who just returned after 3 years in charge of fixing this? Nothing personal but you're in the worst position to address culture.

I said it 3 years ago, I'll say it again today. I'm not going to sit here and post every little example of things we're describing as an issue when the modlog is publicly available.

If mods/admins want us to take the modlog seriously they have to take it seriously first. What is a user supposed to think when they look at the modlog and see this or this?

which one of you did this please

feeling very foolish for ever thinking the internet moderators on here don't have that much in common with all internet moderators ever

This wasn't really adressed, so I'm just gonna include my comment from the last thread, so maybe it will get adressed, as it was way out of pocket and deserves a response.

I think there should probably be some accountability for whoever was/were behind "the white cishet man vibes" part of the post, editing it out of the original post doesn't change that is was there, saying that shit was kinda fucked, as many people in the original post noted

You know, honestly I had been hoping that a couple days of nothing being done would be in order. Where the old comms remained locked, and everyone just sat in their corners for a bit and maybe we just all let things pause for a while.

I am incredibly disappointed to see some users that I saw make excellent points like REgon, usa_suxxx, among many others get temp bans.

I also see that many bans are being handed out with the same comment copied and pasted, multiple times to many different people.

I understand that moderating can be a slog and there's so MUCH SHIT that has to be shoveled, but I can't shake the feeling that it is being done with a little bit of glee. That each ban with the same pithy one liner just gives you a little burst of dopamine, each time that you do it.

Which is sad. Truly.

I never really appreciated your moderating style TC69, because you seemed to just take it as a given that everything had to be your way or the highway, and I'm disappointed to see you return.

Considering the dunk zone was referred to as a cishet white thing

there is still work to be done in the chauvinism, misogyny, and overall toxicity departments

Doesn't feel to great. Would it be possible to get an effort post explaining the current problems and what content needs to be eliminated?

Also to add.

Can mods/admin stop making big changes to the site without posing the question to the community? Can this be written in big bold font somewhere? Was nothing learned during the vcj incident?

This post has mentioned chauvinistic, misogynistic, and toxic tendencies three times but provided literally no examples of such - nor did Carcosa's original post. I am not trying to say that these things have never existed or never will exist in posts/comments on my beloved Hexbear nor am I saying that you (or any other admin/mod) should have to provide examples of literally any/everything TC69 - but I am begging you to actually provide some legitimate examples because otherwise this just sounds like the same "we don't want the dunk tank because white cishet male behavior" justification that everyone was like to

I'm honestly baffled that people are surprised by the mods' reactions to this. This has always been how they handle things. The only difference is that the target has become a critical mass of regular Hexbear users.

When we first started, we were under threat of wreckers and other reactionary elements. Our mod tools and policies were forged in that environment. But with defederation and increasing isolation, these elements grew to be less and less. Our policies have remained the same. The tools of external subjugation have been turned inward. The techniques we used to hunt down literal nazis are now being turned against the regular userbase.

This has always been how the mod/admin team operated. Hexbear is viewed simultaneously as serious political project that necessitates a party line but also a pet website so they can arbitrarily push changes from above. The only difference is that most users agreed with the decisions at the time, or at least didn't care enough to raise a fuss.

I've been here since the very beginning, all four and a half years plus a few on the subreddit. This is literally the organizational structure the users built and supported. I don't see it changing anytime soon.

then run a slop channel naming competition for a new contained community

this will be the most important election of our lives

I gotta say banning everyone for everything all the time was quite a funny bit back in the CTH days when we were still getting lots of recruits from reddit and various other places, but banning everyone for everything now when we're not really growing and not really recruiting is probably a less good idea. Every time someone leaves for good it's unlikely they're being replaced by someone new and that's going to eventually lead to us falling below some critical mass of users required to maintain an active community.

I mean definitely ban people for good reasons but banning people for jokes or because some feathers got slightly ruffled is a lot less worthwhile these days. To be clear I'm not saying give hate a pass... absolutely do not give hate a pass. But the mod log is public, as you say, and I find myself poking around in there a lot to see what's going on and seeing folks banned for dumb reasons is not a nice time.

Other than that welcome back. TC69 thought can and should continue to be upheld without perm banning every mildly rude poster.