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)
Which is why there was a comm for it so you could choose to interact with it or not. I don’t value everything on hexbear either (fakenews for example), so I block those comms. Other comms I just ignore. Not everything has to be for me.
Yeah I don’t get the sentiment I see from some users, not just in this thread, but in general. “I don’t enjoy the content of that comm” - If the content isn’t bigoted, then just block the comm. I don’t understand why we decide to break up c/main to foster a decentralised comm situation, trying to foster the growth and integration of a bunch of disparate communities, and then complain when we see the development of different comm cultures and userbases. We have a furry comm, which I’ve blocked because I’m not into that. Should I want us to remove the furry comm for site-culture or whatever reason?
It depends. If people are enjoying the furry comm, it should probably be removed because it distracts people from revolutionary agitation
Yea the trend of creating a comm and then when it gets too popular and too many people are enjoying it killing it and trying to replace it with something nobody asked for is a pretty wild strategy.
Slicing comms into finer and finer categories until each user has their own comn
Blocking c/footfaults because I don’t want to have discussions about the imperfections in celeb feet pics
Carefully monitoring each comm to make sure there’s only ever one user.
@replaceable@hexbear.net is one of the moderators of The_Dunk_Tank
Lmao why the fuck would he mod a com full of content he dislikes?
I honestly don’t know. I’m wondering if all of this wouldn’t have been better handled by handing off moderation to different volunteers, but afaik @replaceable@hexbear.net is the only mod who has commented on why this was done. His comment was more insulting than helpful and I don’t know what any of the other mod’s motivations were.