Hello users of Hexbear, there have been many changes and some drama the past few months.
The recent changes we’ve been making have been an attempt to create a more safe and welcoming environment for many demographics that have been overlooked in the past.
For any of our comrades that have been unintentionally hurt in this process, we apologise and hope to find a solution that accommodates as many people as possible while still meeting the needs of the marginalised groups who need a space like this the most.
The intent of this post is to provide a space for all users to air grievances with regard to the site. As well as provide suggestions for specific things that could be changed to address your grievance. Comments insulting the mod team or those without a specific means to address your problem may be removed. No commenter will be sitebanned, unless it clearly breaks the code of conduct.
perhaps unpopular opinion I’d like to discuss:
if frauddogg
had been moderated like autismdragon instead of celebrated for null’s behavior, void might not have felt the need to delete null’s account when found out to be a former troop
this is not conspiracist, “mod-cabal” bullshit – it is undeniable that some people are moderated differently than the vast majority of users. I would prefer to not call out more examples – I’m not interested in a struggle session or interpersonal drama – but I have been poking around and saving them up since the TC69 incident, because “no investigation, no right to speak,” and I’ve seen how @REgon@hexbear.net et al have been treated for trying to discuss this difference without having a fucking catalog of evidence.
if frauddogg had been required to treat other hexbears with the good faith etc called for in the Code of Conduct, would void have felt compelled to delete null’s account when the troop thing came up? would it have even come up at all in that conversation, if void hadn’t been consistently behaving belligerently towards others, including other em_poc users?
🤷
effects on me personally, cw: self-harm
honestly, seeing void’s behavior get celebrated sent me on a mental health decline. I thought so highly of you all, and this is what counts as “most comradely” etc to you? I don’t get it, which makes me feel like either there is something deeply wrong with me, or that you are not the kind of people you present yourself to be and it would be safer to distance myself from you.
I’ve been working on that for the last couple weeks. 🤷 it is very lonely, but at least I’m not contemplating self-harm because my not understanding something makes me a fragile cracker Becky worthy of the wall. I have tried my best to be a good comrade here; I have tried to treat you all with an open heart, and though I am white and Amerikkkan and housed, I have never in my life been above 200% of the FPL, and I have repeatedly paid my own bills late to help people on /c/mutual_aid eat.
this place is deeply baffling, and if I could figure out somewhere else full of trans leftists where I could get news that isn’t entirely drenched in American propaganda, I would have already deleted my account.
edit1: removed an archive link per admin/mod request
edit2: changed another archive link to screenshots per admin/mod request
Agreed. There is a lack of consistency verging on preferential treatment and it’s had some very shitty consequences. I’ve seen people get modded for shit I get away with a here and there. The way all that went down was deeply dissapointing.
It’s not just “verging” on preferential treatment. About a year ago there was a user who completely lost their shit and started literally telling other users to kill themselves, and the mods refused to act on it for like three weeks because they were one of their special widdle fwiends. Then they gave them a temporary ban, and only after being pressured into it by tons of us pointing out that that shit was not OK.
And before anyone asks; no, I do not have “receipts” for this, because I have better things to do than sit around and make lists of shit that happens on Hexbear, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who remembers this.
Oh. Some of us remember quite. fucking. well.
Theres no sense in going into great detail since I’m not in the business of relitigation or bothering to give a shit about people who clearly don’t give a shit about me. It’s not worth it.
The major beats worth mentioning are:
True colors were shown. Rules were designed to be purposely obtuse in a way that favored aggressors while pretending to be equitable (still are, actually). Users were harassed, and this harassment was ignored and even encouraged by higher ranks.
And all discussions relating to the above have been scrubbed.
So yeah, like… do I like posting here? Sometimes. Do I actually engage? Not really.
I think it’s this one https://hexbear.net/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=15669 but I’m not gonna go thru the post history to figure it out
I must have missed that
Thank you. Incidentally I’ve been looking for that last screenshot everywhere, I wanted to submit it to copypasta as a “leftists navy seal” pasta. Do you have the whole screenshot? Or even better the post in text format?
I’d also like to point out to the people who are arguing over lack of receipts for deaththreats: Frauddogg consistently threatened violence on people. Sure there’s no way void could do anything, but if that’s the standard, shouldn’t we all be allowed to threaten each other as much as we want?
Anyway for further lack of receipts: I don’t take screenshots or archive or save or commit to memory posts that make me sad. I don’t save any posts, but still.
Just because there’s no receipts (even though there is) it’s not like this isn’t a known issue. A year or two ago there was massive drama about some vegan user who regularly told people to kys. It took ages for any mod action then. At the same time I’ve gotten comments removed for telling people to suck my ass. Just like how we all get frustrated with libs who act obtuse so as to avoid engaging in an actual discussion, we have a tendency to do the same, when the discussion is one where we feel uncomfortable. Especially if we might have to cede that we could do better in actual practical ways rather than vague platitudes.
Another example of this is users who are very clearly alts of banned users. I know last big drama thread finally ended up with red-renewal-cosmonaut getting banned, as if it was not an obvious alt.
In general it seems to me that there’s a lot of people who assume the absolute worst of other users. I wish we had more empathy on this site.
Last thread was incredibly hurtful. I’m a wrecker doing some nefarious long con apparently. I’m secretly working to undermine the site culture and I am actually misogynist (this also came up in my recent discussion post) who wants to… turn a site with a userbase of 900 people into a new 4chan? I don’t understand this mentality. I dislike a lot of you, i disagree with a lot of you, but I at least assume (or try to, sometimes it gets too hard with some of the things I get called) that you’re coming from a place of good intentions.
it seems to me like there’s a group of people here who perceive “disagreeing with them” as being inherently reactionairy.
This turned in to a bit of a rant and I went off on a wild tangent. I’m sorry.
Anyway thank you so much dustbunnies.
I dunno. I liked a lot of frauddogs posts and consider confrontation to bad ideas to be very good. However, only dishing heat and not being able to take it is a bad look. Its also pretty wild how its even possible to square US military history as good with all the anti imperialist discussions frauddogg partook in
Users who justify being part of the U$ military should be mocked and banned. We don’t let clean Wehrmacht people in here, and we shouldn’t let them in either. If I had been able to see the comments before deletion I probably would have posted a
at null.
I used to be a shithead. people can change.
edit: all joking aside – genuinely, if you don’t believe people can change, then there is no hope for human society and we should all euthanize ourselves immediately to minimize destruction to the rest of the biosphere.
I would prefer to believe that it is worth trying to help people to change. I grew up deeply indoctrinated in evangelical bullshit and here I am, a mostly-anarchist commie-leaning bi poly lady with a trans son 🤷 change is possible
I want to be completely respectful to you, because I have seen you around and I like you, but I might fail because this is a topic very close to me and I very much disagree with you. It is not the onus of the oppressed to treat anyone with good faith. frauddog had a massive L with the military history brought up when it was that was not held and that is very unfortunate and does indeed color null at least a little bit differently for me, but even with that in mind and in regard to null’s conduct in pretty much every other instance, null had my respect because null never held water for anyone, and that energy is what is actually needed to affect change. I am not going to hold water for fools that want me dead in action or in spirit, and that’s a whole lot of fucking people right now, even well-meaning people. It was the case for frauddog, too. I haven’t gotten anyone to go back to wearing masks by being nice to them, by giving them the grace I am always denied. I tried that for 4 years and it got me chewed up and spat out. They deny my humanity either way; that is the default mode. So why would I be nice about it? If they want to change they have to want to change, and a lot of people, especially in the imperial core, simply are not there. That includes a lot of people here, too. There’s a reason this place is hemorrhaging POC users, and I think we should pay attention to that. I grew up a stupid evangelical Southern Baptist as well, but changing my behavior was never supposed to be on anyone else; I don’t blame anyone who heard me talking about evolution like it was the devil’s thoughts incarnate on the serebii.net forums in 2003 and decided I was some dumbass not worth talking to, and you shouldn’t either. None of them talking to me with kindness changed my mind then, only my own curiosity and dissatisfaction much later in life led to me seeking this out for myself. I think this is a much more complicated issue than simply “we must treat everyone with patience and kindness because people can change”; people are dying. We are at war and the time for kindness to those unwilling to show they deserve it is long past, and frankly vanishingly few people deserve it. Kindness is not a given at all times or by default. I deal with everyone who isn’t already in my good graces with immense distrust and vigilance. Believing people can change does nothing for me, but it sure is a nice idea, isn’t it? I trust in what people do, in what they show me, and when they show me, I don’t believe in anything else. That is all there is.
you are one of the people I respect the most on this site. I was not kidding when I said that I think of you every time somebody looks at me weird for masking in public. I care about you and your opinion very much, and I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me. in advance, I want to say that I have tried hard to make sure there was nothing hurtful or dismissive in this message, but if I failed in that or otherwise made this come across poorly, I would very much like to talk it out because the absolute last thing I want to do is hurt you.
or anyone else, for that matter. I have debated deleting my account a lot over the last few weeks. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I was only here for companionship and news; I don’t need either so badly that anyone needs to suffer for it. I would rather disappear than hurt any of you.
I am not advocating for anyone to be okay with anyone who dismisses their needs and agency. I am only advocating for the idea that it would be good to interrogate further to ensure they’re actually being dismissive and aren’t just an autistic person having a Theory of Mind moment.
I just learned last week that difficulties with “Theory of Mind” don’t necessarily mean that a person is incapable of understanding another’s point of view, but that it is also responsible for autistic naivete.
for example: the possibility that someone would purposely fuck with a /c/mutual_aid user for unknown ends just never even entered my mind until the fact of it was presented to me. how many other things do I just not even know about because the idea that anyone would want to behave that way seems crazy to me? lots. tons. this is why autistic people are so vulnerable to scammers etc. the idea that anyone would do that just doesn’t fucking occur to us until it is hammered in.
I am sure that there are a lot of conflicts generated from this deep misunderstanding, especially considering how many users are white people coming from the thoroughly-propagandized imperial core.
I don’t think anyone should tolerate shitheads. I just think that sometimes we are quick to assume shitheadedness of each other, and I wish that were not the case. and tbqh, considering how often frauddogg called out other em_poc users as settlers or crackers just because they didn’t post regularly in the em_poc megathread (is that required for all em_poc users?), I think it would help reduce the number of friendly-fire incidents.
it’s also part of the CoC, which I know you know better than I do. you’ve been here much longer, and you’re a mod.
That’s very flattering, thank you. I was not hurt by anything, for the record, but I felt compelled to respond anyway. The “be kind because people can change” idea can be a conduit for a lot of unintended damage, I think, but this:
is sensible, and I agree. I recall something happening recently with @Erika3sis@hexbear.net where I got on her case for what I thought was very typical COVID minimization, but she responded very openly and with a mind for actual change, so I changed my approach afterward. I hope my apologies were good enough in that moment, but I’d like to think that’s how it can all be handled… maybe that is my own autistic naivete.
Well, being a mod in any community on this platform doesn’t mean much for site-wide policy unless you’re also an admin, and I don’t even really do much in the first place, hah.
I was saying at the time that interaction happened, I think, that I was still culpable for not having been diligent enough in looking into the situation beforehand, and that I understood why what I wrote would’ve come across as the typical sort of COVID minimization. As I remember it, you’d said something like “none of you listen!”, and I understood this as speaking to a general trend. So the choice was then whether I would choose to adhere to this general pattern, or to break with it, right?
So frankly it would’ve been the same whether you apologized or didn’t, because the words you wrote as you wrote them were what worked in the end.
I think maturity is founded on self-awareness, so that’s what I try to aspire to. And this means knowing when you’ve got something in your mailbox that wasn’t meant for you, so to speak, right? So if someone is very rightfully frustrated about COVID minimization and ends up taking it out on you, then anything hostile that person might say to you should “slide right off”, because that sort of comment isn’t really aimed at you as such, or at least it isn’t aimed at any sort of fundamental trait of your character — it’s really only aimed at you if you choose to make it so.
This isn’t necessarily to defend “friendly fire”, but I guess what I’m getting at is that “remembering the human” goes both ways: that when someone is doing something you find rude and unreasonable, that there is always a context for it, even if you might not be aware of that context.
yes, this very much.
learning that frauddogg had been a troop made void’s behavior make a lot more sense to me. sometimes, when people leave religion, they become militant atheists; it doesn’t seem strange to me that someone would leave the military and be passionately anti-imperialist and ready to attack any inkling of that evil.
I’m with you on everything. Don’t delete your account! Your voice is heard and valued ❤️
I don’t think assuming people mean the worst is a great way to grow a movement, which is what the left needs to do. I don’t want us fumbling these historic radicalization moments because we have a chip on our shoulder from all the shit the world has thrown at us. I totally get why people would have that chip, I feel that rage myself, too, all the time. I love throwing it in the face of people from other instances who are clearly bad faith, or making edgy jokes and stuff.
But applying it to others in hexbear feels bad, because people usually find their way here because they don’t have many other places. They’re trans, communist, anarchist, autistic, etc in a world dominated by a bigoted liberal world order. Not to mention it proves what people say about us in other places, which would be a shame after that random guy who wandered in said we weren’t as bad as they thought we would be. If they ran into the wrong comment before, like one of the example ones posted above, they might have run away saying how we’re all as scary as the legends foretold.
That’s not what I meant, I do believe people can change
! However, people who are still harboring viewpoints that are in favor of imperialism should not be allowed on this site. If users like this do a lot of self crit and acknowledge their mistakes, I would not be apposed to them being here. However, users who actively believe that the U$ military is not a reactionary force, and that its soldiers should be treated with any level of respect should never be able to make it past account creation. This would be pretty easy to screen for with a question about the applicants views on American soldiers.
You and Ivysaur both mentioned that you would not have been welcome here at earlier points in your life, but you are now. Frauddogg is still in that earlier stage, and null have not rejected their indoctrination in favor of capital. If frauddogg was willing to change, I might accept them back in a few years, but I doubt that will happen.
This isn’t representative of frauddog at all though? Like maybe I’m misunderstanding something but it sounds like you are saying this is the kind of person frauddog is and that’s obviously untrue. Frauddog joined the military as a teenager, and now as an adult is very aggressively against imperialism and colonialism. It’s not like null is an active troop secretly infiltrating this place. I think null should have had more humility in void’s last interaction on this site, like obviously having been part of the us military is pretty fucking shameful even if you were ignorant at the time, but it’s really bothering me how people have been acting as though null was like, a secret fed who actually loves the us military or some shit. And it’s frustrating to me that this is how null went out, because null had been talking about wanting to delete for a while due to the frequent racism from white users on this site, but since it went down like this if feels like that racism, that continues to harm users here, is being ignored in favor of pointing out a gotcha about a user they didn’t like. Idk, I know my thoughts are disorganized here but hopefully I’m making sense.
you are making sense and you’re not the only one who’s seeing it. you honestly said it much better than what i can say but yeah i think that some people on the site (except for those who spoke on it in the em_poc thread) are taking this one blunder and characterizing null as wholefully in bad faith as possible, especially those that may have had previous arguments with void.
i liked frauddogg and agreed with void a lot of the time and i think it’s fair to say that nulls time on this site has been void on nonstop defence, not without reason. i remember when null first posted on the site void literally got attacked alongside other poc users for hours for discussing racist white queers as a Black queer and some white queer users got fragile about it and claimed null was homophobic when null was obviously speaking to voids experience with racism in queer communities but some just didn’t like voids tone.
yes, null probably should’ve shown more humility in voids last conversation on the site and I don’t know the extent of it but people of colour don’t have to be perfect all the time!!! and the jumping to disregarding void’s very real issues with the site entirely and making void out to now be one-dimensional is not it!!! there’s a reason people voted for frauddogg in that new years thing, null spoke up when other marginalized users on the site were too tired and burnt out to.
also it wasn’t just frauddog that left and are thinking of leaving. driving away almost every Black hexbear user that i know of on this site is shameful!!! how many more poc need to leave before other white hexbears see that there’s a problem and humble themselves as being a part of it??
i just think it’s shitty and unproductive and inappropriate to keep talking about frauddogg in this way after void left, especially because null didn’t leave entirely because of voids last conversation but also because of enormous issues of white fragility, chauvinism, misogyny, and racism from other hexbears on the site.
anyway i really agree with what you said is what i mean. i’m really really bad at articulating my thoughts but idk whatever i’m just :deeper-sadness:
edit: added ‘also’ to paragraph five for clarity
to you and @amberSuperMario@lemmygrad.ml and any other em_poc user reading this:
I want to apologize for anything I’ve said that has given you the impression that I think frauddogg was a secret troop infiltrating the site or harbored reactionary views.
I absolutely do not believe that. I like to lurk the reading club threads sometimes, and null made some deeply moving and thought-provoking comments that I can’t imagine were anything but genuine. void made good contributions to the site.
on the surface, our personalities couldn’t be more different, but I have been known to get in faces about injustice irl and I’m sure there are people who know irl frauddogg as a sweetie. it takes all kinds, we all contain multitudes, etc. I won’t pretend I was a fan of null’s tendency to jump to insults in interactions with other local users, but I saw void’s popularity and understood that there were social dynamics I was just not comprehending. the popularity of that behavior became a puzzle for me – I wanted to see it the way others were seeing it, especially considering how many people were saying that everyone who didn’t get it was a cracker or fragile or part of the problem etc.
I don’t want to be part of the problem. I don’t want to be one of the white users making the em_poc users uncomfortable, and I worry a lot that my empathy comes off as apologia to you all. I worry in all my interactions, both online and irl, that my confused questions seem obtuse or judgemental because I get that feedback a lot, and idk how to fix it. after 40 years, the best I have come up with is apologizing thoroughly and often and hope it doesn’t start to sound insincere. I’m sorry for anything I’ve said that has hurt you or made you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.
I mentioned the specific users I did because
the Code of Conduct is pretty clear about how we’re supposed to behave, and it reads to me like it’s not just about not hurting others but very much also not hurting ourselves. would frauddogg have expected grace from the community about the troop thing if null had been more willing to offer it to others?
I hope so. I would like to think it would have been given to void. I know I’m not the only person who read those book club posts and saw a beautiful person they were glad to have on the site.
In that case you’d lose most of the userbase. We should not expect perfection or lack of brainworms of each other. Go look thru old/controversial posts if you want to see how much the site vibe has changed and how much current users have grown. Heck even recently there was the post about users cheering on the US if it invaded Greenland.
As long as people aren’t being assholes they should be welcome. (Not arguing for a marketplace of ideas or debate or anything silly like that.)
Yeah that’s the vibe I mean. I guess this comment was pointless, sorry.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I have a lot to say about frauddogg, but I’ll say these:
Frauddogg has done innumerable harm to the POC here because through Frauddogg’s lack of disclosure as a vet, arrogant attitude, and disgraceful exit, nobody is going to take what Frauddogg said seriously. Whatever potential for self-growth that could’ve happened with respect to unexamined white privilege among some users has been lost because they’ll just mentally say, “Lol, fuck you, I don’t have to take this shit from a baby butcher. How about you selfcrit for invading a sovereign country instead of getting on my case for being racist?”
The circumstances of Frauddogg’s exit had also planted a seed in many people’s heads, which is that the anger isn’t actually genuine or coming from having to live as a member of a marginalized community, but due to some personal inadequacies or grievances instead. For Frauddogg’s case, it would be being a former member of one of the most anti-POC organizations in world history.
Frauddogg, despite the baggage of being a US soldier and messaging that rubbed some people the wrong way, was more right than wrong when it came to how weird Hexbear is towards POC. There’s are some things I didn’t agree with, but the broad message is largely true.
There are plenty of POC who are as angry and confrontational as Frauddogg was but unlike Frauddogg, lack the baggage of being a US soldier. They are as angry as Frauddogg was, but they do not have the same baggage as Frauddogg.
However, if those POC somehow make it here, the seed that Frauddogg planted in many people’s heads would’ve bared fruit. And the fruit is “oh, you’re just angry because you’re overcompensating for having skeletons in your closet. You’re angry because you are a vet/grew up with white people and are overcompensating because you are insecure about your racial identity/are biracial who’s raised by the white side of your family/blah blah blah. Your anger is not coming from a genuine place, so we shouldn’t have to respect your anger nor interrogate why you feel so angry because your anger is a personal problem, not a symptom of a systemic issue.”
I think this will have further repercussions that I haven’t foreseen yet. I’ve seen some people claim that Frauddogg was a wrecker and other people insist that Frauddogg actually quit because of how unwelcoming Hexbear is towards POC and not because of the disclosure. This is not good for the site at all.
I don’t know how to properly communicate my anguish over the idea that what I said came across this way. I am very, very, very sorry.
I know frauddogg’s anger came from a genuine place
I respected null’s anger and reacted to it with curiosity (because I knew it meant there were things I didn’t understand!) and caution (because childhood abuse left me afraid of confrontation, and being flamed – rightfully or not – by a popular poster that everyone agrees with, especially for reasons I do not understand and would get flamed even more for asking about, would have devastating mental health consequences).
my personal opinion is that persistent deep anger is both a personal problem and a systemic issue, regardless of its root cause:
frauddogg had mentioned childhood abuse, beatings by racists, and had been tricked as a child to sign up for even more systemic abuse – fucking of course null was angry. who isn’t angry reading about it?!?
I celebrated null’s anger in the lemmygrad masking struggle session that brought void to Hexbear.
I am every bit as scared of getting yelled at by you or kristina or Nakoichi or Awoo or Dirt_Owl or Galaxy_Brain or literally any of you as I was scared of getting yelled at by frauddogg. I hate confrontation and I hate hurting or upsetting people who don’t deserve it. none of you deserve it.
I’m sorry.
I could totally be reading this wrong but I feel I have to point it out.
It feels very weird to me that you are saying that you are afraid of being yelled at by POC on this site and named them specifically “because you hate confrontation”. Ive never seen Awoo or AssortedBiscuits hand anyone’s asses to themselves here even if they deserved it. Again I could totally me misinterpreting this but I might not be the only one and could be good to reread it and see why it might make people feel offput.
Edit to add: I know you’re autistic, me too. This is less a thing to make you feel bad and just an observation, meant to be helpful
idk if you’re referencing my comment but i wasn’t viewing it so black and white. i think i was trying to express that there were multiple factors that lead to frauddogg leaving including nulls disclosure and site issues. and some presumably white users focus on the first was making me feel like they were now disregarding the latter.
i agree with what you wrote, i just get anxious about being misinterpreted sry
I did not care for that poster’s screaming at the computer screen and am glad to read of null departure. I always thought it was a wrecker account and came to this site less after the popularity contest
since your account is relatively new and has <200 comments, I took a look and it seems like you aren’t a reading club poster. I’m not either, but I bring it up because when I realized how much anger I was seeing from frauddogg, I looked at null’s account to get a fuller picture of void’s presence on the site, and null was a book club power poster. void didn’t just write moving responses to the material; null actively engaged with other posters, offering insightful, respectful dialogue.
in the same way that I think it is bonkers to think REgon is on some kind of wrecker long-con, I think it is bonkers to think any wrecker would take the time to make those comments. I understand that you might not have seen them, but if all you base your impressions of other posters on is whatever comments you chance upon, I would like you to please consider that this will necessarily give you a distorted view of that person.
if someone is rubbing you the wrong way, I encourage you to please go look at their account and try to understand where they’re coming from.
You’re right that I did not see that side. I’m only responding to the unbridled hostility and typed SCREAMING I saw towards other users of the site, which was very bad vibes to me.
I agree with this, that user posted two specific comments relatively recently that I felt were excessively vitriolic and should’ve been removed in the very least. This is addition to the baseline sustained hostility, a little thing I noticed a while back that was also inappropriate, and a clear case of one rule not being enforced with this user. When it came out that user was in the military that only made things worse.
I thought fraudogg self-deleted after going on a bender about being a troop?
idk for sure, but I think it was this interaction, in which another em_poc user brought up null’s military service.