If so, was it polled somewhere?
Also can’t forget them getting offended over /c/196 because they have a “no tankies” rule, which apparently is a slur for them
196 is by far the main community on blåhaj, and their banner basically says “no hexbears.”
Also, trans hexbear users gave examples where they were bothered by chasers in 196, and felt not enough mod action was taken to control chasers there. I’m sympathetic to Ada, blåhaj’s admin, I think she really means well and I get that she might not want to rock the boat when the community in question is most of her site. But I don’t think hexbear’s reasons for defederating are that absurd.
I’m sympathetic to Ada, blåhaj’s admin, I think she really means well and I get that she might not want to rock the boat when the community in question is most of her site. But I don’t think hexbear’s reasons for defederating are that absurd.
This accusation always confuses me. Blahaj zone was around for half a year before the reddit migration, long before 196 was on lemmy and we did fine without them. They’re here not because they wield crazy power, but because they’re a queer lead community, with a strong queer user base. That means they have a home with us, because creating spaces for communities like that is the reason Blahaj Lemmy exists in the first place
The truth is, the hexbear admins asked me to talk to the 196 mod team and ask them to remove the “no tankies” rule, because hexbear users wanted to be part of 196. I told them to talk to the mods of the community directly, because I’m not going to force political opinions on a queer, trans fem lead community.
The 196 mods rejected the hexbear request, and like that, the hexbear narrative changed, and suddenly their users no longer wanted to join 196, claiming that it is transphobic and unsafe. So either they don’t believe what they are saying about safety, or they do believe it but were fine with that state of affairs before the 196 mods denied their request.
Either way, part of their narrative change involved painting 196 as being both harmful and unassailable, with blahaj admins being unable to act out of fear of loss of the community.
From my perspective, the biggest harm to trans people in all of this isn’t a trans fem lead community with politics that run counter to hexbear, but rather, the ongoing demonising and dogpiling of specific trans folk and trans communities by the hexbear community.
I think she really means well and I get that she might not want to rock the boat
This is also an interesting part of the ongoing narrative. It’s not a co-incidence that I’m being painted as naïve; well meaning but ultimately ill equipped to deal with moderating a large community. It allows people to attack me without attacking me.
The truth is though, I’ve been moderating online spaces and building and developing communities online and offline for nearly 30 years. I’ve managed tiny communities, and communities with hundreds of thousands of users.
You can disagree with my choices, but the narrative that they are naïve and ill informed is simply a tool to trigger an emotional response in people, to develop sympathy for the hexbear claims, to undermine my perceived competence, without them having to outright demonise me.
It’s a cheap tactic, and and a cheap tactic typically used to undermine women in positions of responsibility at that.
The truth is though, I’ve been moderating online spaces and building and developing communities online and offline for nearly 30 years. I’ve managed tiny communities, and communities with hundreds of thousands of users.
It shows. You’ve handled this saga admirably. As someone with none of that experience who has performed significantly worse in navigating this situation, I’m happy to know that there are people to lean on.
Hexbear voted strongly in favor of federating with us and their admins assured us they would be well behaved. They immediately brigaded our main community and disrupted all local discussion for about 48 hours by spamming our communities, and then defederated from us, citing absolutely no evidence of misbehavior by our users in the defederation announcement. They claim ableist slurs, but considering they think the word “crazy” is an ableist slur… it rings somewhat hollow.
It’s not even the politics that bothers me, despite the fact that they often take pointless, inflammatory positions. It honestly feels like they intentionally lose arguments by aligning themselves with horrific human rights abuses and authoritarian regimes, just so they can claim to be misunderstood and preserve their safe space.
When they see a user from another server make a good point against their narrative, they swarm like white blood cells fighting an infection, hurling a combination of invective and irrelevancy to prevent the cold hand of logic from penetrating their bubble. The discrepancy between their treatment of their own users and users from any other server (barring lemmygrad) is remarkable to witness.
The most dangerous idea that exists, from their perspective, is that any Western nation has ever done anything beneficial for the world. As soon as they acknowledge any positive aspect of democracy or capitalism, they surrender their moral high ground in being able to call for the genocide of all westerners and white people, and their noble communist crusade collapses into the shape of most other human enterprises, that tattered and wizened visage of emotionally fuelled tribalism.
I’m still very upset about this whole situation because I know chapos, I listened to the podcast, I frequented the subreddit. Back in 2016/7 I thought wow, the far left is making a bit of a comeback here in America, this could be the start of something.
Then eventually reddit banned the subreddit and it seems that was all it took to dismantle that budding source of leftist activism. I guess I’m partially to blame, because I’m one of the many voices of reason that didn’t bother putting in the effort of joining a different site. Clearly, the extremists were the only ones who cared enough, and the 3 year isolation surely solidified that fact. The only question remaining is whether governmental agencies (whether they be American/Chinese/Russian) have played any role in infiltrating the community and nudging it toward its current level of absurdity.
And now they actively sequester themselves from… pretty much everybody, comforting themselves by making vague assertions of unspecified minor communist victories in their real lives. It’s extremely frustrating to know that thousands of potential comrades have been neutralized, and in fact are potentially being wielded like a bludgeon against real western leftists to blunt our ability to effectively collaborate and find common ground.
blahaj admins being unable to act out of fear of loss of the community
that was me speculating, bridging the gap between my main points of information: 1) that I had seen trans hexbear users discussing chaser messages they had gotten, and complaining that there were too many chasers in 196, 2) that I had seen posts from you where it was obvious to me that you care and consider chasers to be a problem, and 3) that 196 was a lifeboat community and is larger than the rest of blahaj.
If you’re happy with 196 how it is, then the three interpretations I see are 1) that hexbear users who complained of chasers were misjudging or exaggerating the extent of the problem, 2) that they have a lower tolerance for chaser behavior, or 3) that they have a lower threshold for what they deem to be chaser behavior — or some combination of the three.
either they don’t believe what they are saying about safety, or they do believe it but were fine with that state of affairs before the 196 mods denied their request
Or it’s not all the same people, or their opinions changed. But I also think emotions were running high. I remember posts where hexbears were pretty upset that users on blahaj had accused them of pretending to be queer. There are also a lot of comments like that here, but I think it hurts a lot more coming from other queer people. Overall, I don’t think the situation brought the best out of anyone.
