No commentary here. I just think we should find more comrades and bring them into our fold. How do we do it? Post your ideas, no matter how wild. Maybe someone will see it and get inspired and make something happen.
I always assumed Hexbear had no desire for growth, if anything it feels uncouth to invite randos to Hexbear for fear of diluting it or libbing it up.
I guess we gotta trust in our mod team
We need to move further to the right and get a Cheney endorsement.
By continuously purging and fragmenting all the comms until every user has their own
GOOD posts getting reposted on tiktok, Instagram, Reddit - in that order too, maybe?
Very simple.
A struggling theatre near me has refused to spend money on proper internet advertising. They spend most of it on big posters on the London underground. Well, recently one of the cast members made a concerted effort to post about it on tiktok - behind the scenes post, character profiles, mini interviews.
The theatre just had it’s first completely sold out run in years.
Everything the tiktok algorithm touches turns into gold.
Then again, perhaps the content doesn’t translate well since it’s not video. In which case, Reddit and Instagram posts.
Generally the way a thing grows is by getting visibility elsewhere.
This is achieved in companies by sockpuppet sharing (marketing team intentionally targeting other spaces with re-shares of content), watermarks, advertising, collaborations and generally being edgy enough that people talk about you for the fact your existence is novel.
One of the things this community doesn’t do enough of is talk about or share Hexbear outside of Hexbear, like it’s some secret or too embarrassing to mention.
One thing I see on tiktok that Hexbear isn’t doing is slideshows, there’s easy content to produce like “best of hexbear” which is just reposting a slideshow of 4-5 memes, run by an official hexbear account. Reddit does this. It’s relatively easy to do this two ways, targeting leftist stuff and targeting trans stuff, “sharing hexbear memes” (trans) is easy trans bait.
too embarrassing to mention
I always liked the memes that were just shit like “silence, liberal
” with a chapo/hb watermark, that always seemed like it would snag the kind of people that would fit in hereOne thing I see on tiktok that Hexbear isn’t doing is slideshows, there’s easy content to produce like “best of hexbear” which is just reposting a slideshow of 4-5 memes, run by an official hexbear account.
That’s a really good idea
With trans memes too they don’t even necessarily need to be from here lmao, although if you have good ones you should post them here too lol. But generally just reposting shit works and the algo will do the rest eventually.
The main barrier is having someone that wants to do it and keeps it up consistently.
We could do a member interest check similar to the mod interest checks and get 2-3 people on the TikTok account to possibly solve the consistency issue.
a person I know irl was asking “what app is that” when they saw the hexbear on my phone and I said it’s where the most militantly pro-trans tankie communists post, and they said they’d check it out.
I said it’s where the most militantly pro-trans tankie communists post
The smoking reefer scene from Walk Hard, but it’s about Hexbear instead.
Hexbear? It’s not habit forming and it makes sex feel better
Which would make a good meme.
I think the fakenews and badposting sections should be banned. There are a lot of people that browse the site on mobile while not logged in and they get bombarded by badpost after badpost that are the lowest of the low when it comes to effort (e.g. “instead of getting swol why don’t we get swoletariot???”). Even in this thread someone posted “I post my butt and call the website OnlyButts.” Seriously, wtf. If not banned, they should be hidden by default unless explicitly opted into. Just make them NFSW so they don’t show up while browsing while logged out.
Also, the site should try to be more like lemmygrad in terms of being serious about things. There are too many posts that just reek of a weird mix of ironic and non-irony. What I mean is, people will be serious when it’s a topic they personally are invested in, but on other topics, they just resort to childish toilet humor and say that this is nothing more than a shitposting forum. It’s the schrodinger’s hexbear: topic I care about = super serious get all mods on defcom4, topic i don’t care about = dIdN’T yOu KnOw that this isn’t real life, it’s just the internet hurrr durr it’s a shitposting forum. Imagine all the global south comrades looking in on this. It’s just not a good look, and yes what I’m saying is that there should be at least some degree of optics for fuck’s sake.
Another thing, people need to take seriously the other pipelines that draw potential comrades away. One serious one is the joe rogan, lonely male pipeline. They may be alienated by capitalism, but on a personal level they are looking for advice on how to maybe get a date or something. Maybe some actual concrete advice (e.g. start hitting the gym, fix your hair, hygiene, conversational tips, actual dating advice). Like Bell Hooks is all good, but we can’t just tell people “here read this book, even tho most ppl in society don’t really read anymore.” Like some actual decent agitprop that isn’t READING A FUCKING BOOK OVER 100 PAGES FOR FUCKS SAKE. Like a short tiktok, then transition into shorter youtube vids, and then maybe recommending a book. Most ppl here don’t even read communist theory so why such a big ask for potential comrades to do so much investment. I hate to say it, but you gotta use some kind of sales principles like not blasting someone with a huge investment up front without giving anything in return.
Lastly (and there are so many more i’m just tired of typing) the mods shouldn’t poo poo this site as a way to organize. They always respond with “this is just a nondescript hole in the wall lefting shitposting site not a subsitute for real life organizing.” Motherfucker the reason ppl are here is because they are isolated/alienated and maybe lack the social cirlces (or social skills to create one) to do real life organizing work. And patronizing them by saying “join an org” is just that, patronizing. The stupid ass Jan 6 guys met up due to internet shit, so why not have a disciplined “organizing” comm or something?
Also, the site should try to be more like lemmygrad in terms of being serious about things.
Yeah, no. There’s already a thing for that. It’s called, uhh (checks notes) lemmygrad.
Oh. Right.
Yeah, and we’re not exactly popping (though that’s fine, I like what lemmygrad is).
fakenews
I think fakenews com is pretty BAD and pointless if we’re not making our own The Onion style website to put it on.
The problem with getting rid of the badposting comm is that it doesn’t stop people from posting that crap. They just do it on other comms so now everyone has to see it. Sucks that the only solution is to log in but I curate my comms and when I’m logged in the Hexbear experience is much better. I don’t like badposting any more than you but unfortunately having a quarantine comm is the only practical solution.
Are private communities a thing in lemmy? That would make it opt-in. Posts would not be visible non-logged-in
Yeah, as much as I like the shitposting it perhaps would benefit everyone if the lower effort stuff got reined in a bit
Naw, I don’t think so. I like the ethos of “all posting is good posting” thats been essential to building the vibe of the site to this point. It’s how Hexbear gains it’s powerful posters
Badposting is the basketball hoop in the driveway where users hone their posting skills. I want to see people out there at 6 AM doing “3… 2… 1…” lobs buzzer beater, misses “0.5… 0.4…” lobs ball
Here’s my idea: provide resources and help that other spaces aren’t providing. The mutual aid comm is a great example of this, but I’ve also been thinking there’s probably a lot more we could provide especially to trans/queer communities. Some folks on the site are already started doing great work in this regard but I think it would be cool and useful to start having for more discussions on DIY help for example, including making and sourcing, though we also want to be careful about this and not get unwanted attention. I’d love to hear feedback on this if anyone has any.
If the anarchist’s cookbook was so good how come they never made a sequel?
There is a sequel called Recipes for Disaster, but it’s somewhat tamer than the original.
Yeah the cookbook itself is a joke but I just mean the broader concept of “secret repository of DIY stuff the government won’t tell you about”
Ironically, the government is the best source of DIY stuff the government won’t tell you about
https://archive.org/details/usa-tm-31-210-improvised-munitions-handbook
Agree that providing resources other sites don’t or can’t will attract people
I think well worded effort posts could be picked up by search engines or easily spread to other sites but then we’d have to effort post
Memes are good but the basic ones are a dime a dozen, effort posts and resources are way more difficult to compile on other sites
Yandex really likes us but federation devalues us on Google and Bing
I’ve never found any Lemmy post by searching even though I know there are relevant posts to things I search for. I mostly use duck duck go. Is Lemmy even included in search engines?
I use duckduckgo and before when I’ve search niche leftist topics that I’ve seen on here, ive gotten results from this site
That may have been before we federated though?
The DIY care thing would be very timely too.
I got here years ago because someone posted a link on reddit. I think it was on r/trueanon. Are people still doing that?
I feel like posting HB links is most effective during periods of decades happening. People want the posts. But the last thing I’m thinking about when things get wild is “I should post HB links on reddit”.
I do think that while the shit posting part of this site is great, and honestly what drew me in, it’s the effort posts and theory discussion which kept me here. I think this component of this site is lacking promotion. Effort posting gets buried under the nth slop post. It looks like we now have unlimited pinned posts, so maybe pinning a recent effort post for a few days would drive more engagement there and promote that kind of posting more.
I feel like if we did start to market HB or whatever, posting links to effort and theory posts is not a bad idea. While the general vibe here is shitposty (and I think thats generally good because it keeps things casual), there aren’t many places on the internet to have in depth theory discussions. I think part of this is there is a kind of ideological consistency here, even if we don’t always agree, that provides a nice basis on which to have these discussions.
Idk, I like this site. I would be sad to see it die, but I also don’t think it will anytime soon even without much growth.
I came from a link on /r/thedeprogram earlier this year
I would love some way to focus more on the effort posts. both to be able to see them more myself and get them more visibility. Especially over time. Even if something get lots of upvotes it’ll only be on the front page for a day or less. Or worse: lost in hundreds of comments in the megas. But saying this I know it would require some sort of consistent curatorial-type labor. So idk.
I find compared to reddit, Lemmy in general is not as encouraging for effort posts because they get lost. Is there even a good way to search relevant comms? The whole reason I started using reddit was that you could find so much good information. Also the “flare” for posts was really helpful in reddit.
I don’t know if that would be relevant to general recruitment because the bottle neck is likely earlier than this. But if you want to encourage nerdy behavior and nerd retention than it is an issue.
it seems as though this site is a barely tenable balance between shitposting and nerdism. Both required and both facilitate each other but always a pervasive tension .
Others have said similar things, but TikTok/Instagram/YouTube accounts posting short daily “best of” videos or something like that would work well if enough users coordinate to boost the accounts. Could probably even monetize and fund the site or buy drugs.
I don’t even think it would be that hard. Pick a format and stick to it, use AI voiceover and captions, and just do slideshows of memes, funny comments, etc. Slowly include Hexbear jokes, explain the lore, drama…people love this kind of shit. There are literally millions of commies on TikTok. I’ve seen fullblown leftists with over a million followers.
Yeah, the leftypol twitter account does a similar thing and is pretty successful at attracting attention for their site
I think 2-3 years ago people were putting Hexbear watermarks on a lot of stuff.
What if instead of a dunk tank, we had a “so close to getting it” section where we stumble over each other to brigade the space in question to agitate left-leaning people?
those watermarks are not easy to find IMO, I remember looking and finding lots of dead links, or dead links with the chapo.chat version being the only result.
I like this idea. Put in a comm request!
vote
I don’t think that Hexbear is going to grow because smaller communities do not exist. What do I mean by this? Hexbear is basically one community and a few smaller communities which are the megathreads, but still basically the same community. Nobody actually takes the time to browse each board individually. If a post doesn’t show up on the front page of “all”, then it is basically invisible and dies quickly. This limitation means around 15 posts are worthy of engagement at any given moment and half them are engagement bait spam posts.
Communities aren’t given the opportunity to form. You have to jump through hoops to create a board and then repeating my previous point, people don’t browse individual boards.
Because Hexbear is basically one big comm, many people seem to have the idea that they have to like every post on like a personal preference level. People get mad about the fakenews comm because it doesn’t match their taste of humor. There have been many times where I have posted a video on the video board and someone will comment that they didn’t watch the video but they’re mad about the video or they say they don’t watch videos. People who aren’t interested in the subject of a board should not post on that board. This kind of behavior is reinforced by lacking individual comms, users only browsing one big comm ie all/active, and lacking moderators for niche interests.
The way that reddit was able to grow is that there are so many niche sub boards with users who have niche interests and moderators who curate the boards because they have the shared interest. If someone posts on a history subreddit that they hate learning about history, then they get banned from that history subreddit.
Hexbear has people with many different personal preferences, who can still overall agree on politics. Some people don’t like certain memes or certain videos. If you don’t like a certain thing, you can choose to not engage with it.
There is a “fight for the frontpage”. Every user is either trying to get on to the frontpage or bullying people for making posts they don’t want to see on the frontpage. The solution should be to severely limit the frontpage so that it forces user to find smaller communities that fit their interests. This is already happening with the megathreads, but lemmy is a link aggregator software and is not really designed to work this way. Limit the frontpage to 5-10 “official” comms and hide every other comm from the front page. Hide badposting, fakenews, gossip, slop, etc. People who think fakenews is funny can still browse the comm and nobody gets angry about being tricked. Allow users to make niche comms which do not show up on the front page.
This also would solve the problem of the confusion of which comm posts should be made on. The current way of thinking is that posts should be posted to specific boards based on the assigned topic of the sub board. When people are fighting for the frontpage, they don’t put much thought into which board a post is made on because the audience is all the same. If most boards are hidden from the front page, people will choose which board to post a link on depending on which group of people they think will want to see the post.
This isn’t entirely true. The trans and vegan comms are definitely operating as independent communities, anime fluctuates back and forth a bit, it’s sort of almost on the edge of being useful as its own thing but isn’t quite.
So there’s certainly potential for independent communities within the space.
There is a “fight for the frontpage”. Every user is either trying to get on to the frontpage or bullying people for making posts they don’t want to see on the frontpage.
Genuinely haven’t seen this at all.
Limit the frontpage to 5-10 “official” comms and hide every other comm from the front page. Hide badposting, fakenews, gossip, slop, etc. People who think fakenews is funny can still browse the comm and nobody gets angry about being tricked.
This will be completely counterproductive to what you want to achieve. You will completely marginalise the exposure of small comms to larger numbers of people, and in doing so you will eliminate the ability for those small comms to grow. Communities grow by being seen by people that might have an interest in them, this requires their exposure.
Allow users to make niche comms which do not show up on the front page.
I think this is fine. Let the “market” make any manner of comms and let the ones people are interested in rise to the top. Switch from digital central-planning of comms to digital dengism. HEXBEAR REFORM AND OPENING UP.
It won’t be an issue to police anything that is harmful.
This also would solve the problem of the confusion of which comm posts should be made on. The current way of thinking is that posts should be posted to specific boards based on the assigned topic of the sub board. When people are fighting for the frontpage, they don’t put much thought into which board a post is made on because the audience is all the same. If most boards are hidden from the front page, people will choose which board to post a link on depending on which group of people they think will want to see the post.
I really want Lemmy to consider more stylisation of comms as a feature. Individual stylisation of subreddits enables more unique and individual communities. It also makes it MUCH more obvious to a user when they’re in a different space and should abide by different behavioural norms to the wider site rather than just being a belligerent aggressive chapo in any and all spaces(i am guilty of this).
There is a “fight for the frontpage”. Every user is either trying to get on to the frontpage or bullying people for making posts they don’t want to see on the frontpage.
Genuinely haven’t seen this at all.
I gave examples. I post in the videos comm and people comment that they didn’t watch the video and that people shouldn’t watch videos. I post in the games comm and people post that they don’t play games and that people shouldn’t play video games. I post in the music comm and people comment that they don’t listen to music and that people shouldn’t listen to music.
“Fight for the front page” is an observed behavior based on the fact that posts die if they are not visible on the front page. One of the reasons that the megathreads even exist is because people were upset about their posts not having visibility. You can observe the behavior yourself on your posts. In my experience if a post doesn’t get at least 1 comment and 10 upvotes per hour, then it will die within the next hour. If a post gets 40 upvotes in 4 hours and then the next hour does not get any, it will remain at 40 forever.
Look at the front page at any given moment and it’s littered low effort attention seeking posts like badposting. The algorithm shows posts with the most active comment sections on the active page, which is why struggle sessions always show up highest. Engagement bait gets the most comments.
You mentioned that the trans comm is active and I mentioned that the boards with megathreads do have their own confined subcommunity. The trans comm has 40 posts in the last month. The badposting comm has 140 posts in the last week. So the badposting (spam) comm has 15 times the posting rate as the trans comm. This is because the trans comm is confined to a megathread. The trans comm is a good board. The badposting comm is spam and attention seeking. So why is the good board confined but the spam board is unlimited? It should be the other way around. The trans comm should have the higher post rate than the spam comm. Good comms should be encouraged to have more posts.
I gave examples. I post in the videos comm and people comment that they didn’t watch the video and that people shouldn’t watch videos.
These aren’t fighting for the front page though. Especially as this behaviour actively bumps up a thread even higher up.
The trans comm is a good board. The badposting comm is spam and attention seeking. So why is the good board confined but the spam board is unlimited? It should be the other way around. The trans comm should have the higher post rate than the spam comm. Good comms should be encouraged to have more posts.
Is this confinement? I don’t think it is? Mega thread is a cultural thing that people enjoy, they’re not posting in the megathread, they’re commenting in it. Removing a megathread does not mean you get more posts. It means you just remove the space where a group of power commenters enjoy commenting. I saw this first hand when I killed the megathreads in r/gamingcirclejerk.
While hostile comments temporarily bump a thread, it is part of the hostile culture and discourages people from forming smaller communities. That’s the whole reason that users make these comments. Examine the motivations of the poster. Think of the long term effects.
I never said to get rid of any mega thread, nor do I believe that the existence of the mega thread is in itself a confinement. The trans board was created on near the end August 2023. So it has existed for around 15 months. There are ~1090 posts on the trans board. 1090 posts over 15 months is 73 posts on average per month. But for the past 5 months, there are only 40 posts per month. You can actually go back into the hexbear history and see the point where the megathread ballooned and the monthly average posts dropped. In July 2024, the megathread grew from averaging 300 comments per week to thousands of comments per week. Prior to the growth of the megathread, the board had 80-100 posts per month, now 40 per month.
I do not believe that the comm is being intentionally confined, but there is an observable decline in number of posts made at the same time that the megathread grew. I think users are choosing to post in the megathreads of various boards more frequently because of various factors which make posts low visibility.
What I believe is that there are a number of factors in Hexbear’s design which limit or prevent the growth of the website. One possible factor is that hexbear changed the active algorithm in April 2024. When the trans board was created, Hexbear was still using the lemmy algorithm from the federation upgrade. I thought that the lemmy algorithm was better and it may have been better for promoting posts of the trans comm.
For Hexbear to grow, it has to be allowed to branch out into smaller communities. Trees grow branches. Users should be encouraged to make posts in communities specific to their interests.
Or don’t.
I think users are choosing to post in the megathreads of various boards more frequently because of various factors which make posts low visibility.
The site is social rather than gameified. People get nothing out of posts, the primary use of the site for most users is engagement.
The comms that produce engagement produce the highest number of posts because of this.
The problem you have is that the only way to flip that incentive over is to go the gameification route for posting.
It feels like you are being intentionally obtuse because even if the site is 100% socially motivated as you say, then my points are still correct.
Let’s assume that the website is 100% socially motivated. Why then are posts treated as less social than comments? The website is link aggregator software. The social purpose of the website is sharing links and receiving links. The website should treat link posts as more social than comments. A post is a vehicle for socialization. A comment is a single unit of socialization. Prioritizing single units of socialization over vehicles of socialization is antisocial. That’s narcissistic.
Engagement bait is called bait because it is not real engagement. The news comm produces real engagement. I want to post links to news stories and I want people to discuss that link in the comments. I want to be able to comment on other people’s news posts. A post which says “I heckin love beanis” and 10 comments which all say “beanis” is not real engagement. That’s anti social behavior. Imagine the situations in real life. You would talk to a real person about a news story. If you said to a real person “I heckin love beanis”, they might stop talking to you forever.
You can see that the website has people who are interested in talking about news and people who post news articles want their posts to be seen by other people. They put links in the megathread because if they make it as a regular post, then it would not be seen by other people. The trans comm is the same way.
It’s that simple. People want a link to be seen. Posts are not being seen because the front page is limited to 15 posts and people only look at the front page. Posting links is a good social behavior. Make good posts more visible. Make bad posts be less visible. It’s not more complicated than that.
So I have said that my solution is limiting the front page to good social comms like the news comm and the trans comm. Then encourage people to browse individual comms which are not on the front page. If people want to spam beanis, the do that on the front page of the beanis comm. We can already see that people are willing to look at other front pages because the behavior is similar to browsing the megathread.
Why are megathreads not supposed to be the primary vehicle for socialization? It’s not designed to work that way. This is a link aggregator website. The website it designed to create posts which link to images or other websites. Using a megathread to share links and images is like storing books in your refrigerator. It’s like riding a bicycle in a swimming pool. It’s like digging a large hole with a small spoon. These things are possible, but not practical. Situational megathreads are okay, but creating new posts should have priority.
Why is Hexbear not growing? Because Hexbear is using the software incorrectly. We’re digging the large hole with the small spoon and it’s not growing and it’s not going to grow until the proper tools are utilized. Hexbear is trying to grow a tree in a teapot. It’s not going to grow and it keeps getting more cramped in the kettle. At some point, I start to think that Hexbear wants to not grow.
Let’s assume that the website is 100% socially motivated. Why then are posts treated as less social than comments? The website is link aggregator software. The social purpose of the website is sharing links and receiving links. The website should treat link posts as more social than comments. A post is a vehicle for socialization. A comment is a single unit of socialization. Prioritizing single units of socialization over vehicles of socialization is antisocial. That’s narcissistic.
A post is only a vehicle of socialisation when the users are talking to the poster. Otherwise it is a topic where people talk about the topic, not with the poster.
Engagement bait is called bait because it is not real engagement. The news comm produces real engagement. I want to post links to news stories and I want people to discuss that link in the comments. I want to be able to comment on other people’s news posts. A post which says “I heckin love beanis” and 10 comments which all say “beanis” is not real engagement. That’s anti social behavior. Imagine the situations in real life. You would talk to a real person about a news story. If you said to a real person “I heckin love beanis”, they might stop talking to you forever.
Not to you it’s not. To the participants it absolutely is.
This is like saying a football chant isn’t real socialisation. It fundamentally misunderstands the group’s behaviour and how they’re bonding over the stupid thing they’re doing together as a group.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way as I agree with your goal of increasing posts. But I’m not going to shy away from pointing out where your site theory is incorrect.
Why are megathreads not supposed to be the primary vehicle for socialization? It’s not designed to work that way. This is a link aggregator website. The website it designed to create posts which link to images or other websites. Using a megathread to share links and images is like storing books in your refrigerator. It’s like riding a bicycle in a swimming pool. It’s like digging a large hole with a small spoon. These things are possible, but not practical.
You’re right that it’s not designed to work that way but that Hexbear’s community specifically makes it so. Megathreads as a vehicle are a cultural thing, they house a different group of people to those outside them. Usually people who are interested in faster-paced engagement than they will get from posts.
As I see it there are 3 groups of people in the online space and they’re occupying different places depending on the pace of engagement they prefer:
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Posts are a slower form of engagement, with stuff happening over a 24 hour period. For people that check-in infrequently or only want to check-in a few times over the course of a day.
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Megathread comments last a couple hours at most and have faster paced engagement. For people that like semi real-time engagement.
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Discord/Chat. A message lasts seconds and disappears, for those that want constantly involved real-time engagement.
These are different audiences that like different things.
Why is Hexbear not growing? Because Hexbear is using the software incorrectly.
No. It’s because it is not talked about outside of Hexbear. Changing the way the software is used isn’t going to magically produce content about Hexbear outside of Hexbear. Growth comes from exposure. Making more posts on Hexbear will not make more people see Hexbear, if you want Hexbear to grow then what is needed is posts and content that are NOT on Hexbear.
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I mean just spread the link around. Go into other communities and tell them about here.
It’ll be very incestuous though since there’s no “One Big Leftist Forum” to leech off of all we’d be doing is getting people off other niche communities. Which is fine but it’s not all that significant one way or the other.
all we’d be doing is getting people off
