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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] .
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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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)
We tried that in the first year. Had organisers come and do AMAs. Went about as well as you'd expect it to go. It's a good place for meeting likeminded people, sharing knowledge and communicating ideas, but that's also just what an internet forum is.
I mean in fairness the site culture is also pretty different from year one. The endless struggle sessions are mostly over, a lot of the most argumentative people just left.
Overall though I'm not super concerned about the direction of Hexbear since there are plenty of other leftist forums of various persuasions. It's actually kinda funny that Hexbear is the site trying to make these changes, in my experience the users here are some of the least well read in terms of theory.
The reputation I have seen among other leftist circles (when they have heard of this place at all) is "people who have not read Marx telling people who have read Marx to read Marx" alongside being overwhelmingly USAmerican
i mean, i love this place to death but i remember one day i pointed out that a post about american suburbs could not be generalized to the whole world and someone replied that my pronouns were wrong because of my post and i remember audibly saying
when i read that.
What? How would your pronouns relate to your post?
basically that dipshit was saying that im not a comrade. how that related in any way to my post, i dont fucking know.
lol that is wack
lmao
What are some other good commie posting places? Always good to have options in case this place gets nuked one day
Copying from my other comment
Is leftypol any good? Didn't they split into a few very different websites?
I like it for what it is, lefty 4chan. It's got a very international userbase and people are pretty well read. You can embed PDFs in posts so it's easy to share literature. Downside is that it has a lot of people with what I could only call meme ideologies, and people are more willing to ban evade as well.
I know getchan.net is a sister site, there might be others. The original site was an 8chan board that died when the whole site got shut down after the Christchurch shooting.
I don't know if it's explicitly communist but someone on the news mega offhandedly mentioned the C-SPAM subforum on somethingawful and I've been browsing them since. I've found that they consistently
-Find the Democrats and Republicans both to be evil -Support Palestine and cheer for the Axis or Resistance without doing any shitty "Now obviously Hamas is bad but..." Nonsense -Support Russia in Ukraine -Supoort the rise of China
So it's close enough for me.
Downside is it periodically goes private and if you don't have an account (which costs 10 bucks) you can't view threads.
Could you share links to some other communities?
These days I only use Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and leftypol.
It is worth saying that Hexbear is definitely less abrasive than those other options, and tends to have less sexism/racism. It's much more chill here.
ah thanks I thought there was some good community of well-read marxists I was missing out on
There might be, tbh I'm content with what I currently browse and haven't tried to look for more. There are probably some older style forums still kicking out there.