Hey, everyone. Hope this post finds you all well! A few days ago, PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS opened a comm request thread to name the community formerly known as The Dredge Tank. Now that it's been about 4 days and the votes seem pretty steady, we're rea-
"STOP THE COUNT!!!"
"Mr. President, she's talking."
As I was saying, we're ready to call the vote. Nobody's been happy with counterpropaganda, and we've heard you loud and clear. I'm excited to announce that Slop. is now open for all the posts you'd have previously posted to The Dredge Tank.
El Chisme continues to remain the new space for posts that would have been at home in The Dunk Tank.
In case anyone's confused about this, I'm gonna give a really quick explanation so everyone's on the same page with what's going on with the Tanks. The names of The Dunk Tank and The Dredge Tank have racist origins. The moderators of those communities agreed that the names of these communities should be changed. Unfortunately, while Lemmy allows the display names of communities to be changed, it does not currently allow the actual comm names to be changed. In order to change the names of these communities, we would have to shut them down and re-open new comms under new names. The mods of the dunk tank and dredge tank requested the name c/gossip. While there are some legitimate arguments being made relating to misogynistic societal perceptions of that word, the mods include women and enbies who disagree and specifically requested this name. I feel that this situation parallels the initial pushback that was experienced with disabled in which users voiced concerns that this name could be ableist, but the moderators of that community are themselves disabled and specifically requested that comm name, verbatim. Along with this name change, the mods felt that slightly expanding the scope of the community and simultaneously lowering the bar for the previous Rule 8 would allow users to post about more minor public figures as well as more major ones. This was seen as an expansion of the community's role, allowing posts to the new Dredge Tank replacement (counterpropaganda) to become a little more focused. We communicated this poorly, but the intention was to have users offer a sentence or two countering the reactionary take shown in the screenshot. Given how things spiraled from there, we've taken a step back from changing any of the rules during the switchover from The Dredge tank to Slop. We're trying to take time to let everyone breathe without changing too many things too quickly, but we also want to actually make sure people can get back to posting. Hopefully you're all okay with this pacing, lemme know below.
EDIT: thanks to @[email protected] for pointing out that this post didn't include the descriptions of the comms.
Where am I supposed to post...?
Slop is for what the old dredge_tank was like. Roast anonymous reactionaries to your heart's content!
Gossip for an informal discussion regarding people with power / notable / tools of power
Counterprop for a formalized discussion regarding reactionary people no matter how powerful/notable.
In upcoming admin updates:
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I'll post some analysis of mistakes and missteps that were made in recent days, including some of the context that led up to those errors.
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I'll offer a clearer and more complete explanation and description of the ongoing site culture issues that have been previously mentioned. These were poorly communicated before, but I'll do my best to explain both the issues at hand as well as the importance of dealing with them.
The last few days have been really confusing and frustrating for a lot of people and a lot has happened. This is not an appropriate place to reopen, re-litigate, or rehash the struggle session. I will not be debating either the struggle session or the subjects of the upcoming admin update posts here. Please refrain from doing so as well.
"Folks, we're feeding the fish their slop, they're tremendously hungry, incredibly famished. And look: I get to feed them. They say: Mr President, please feed the koi fish, its din din time, and it is! I get to do the little shaka-shaka with the can, and they're happy, they're eating -they're eating- out of the palm of my hand, and they're getting so big and so strong. Look at all these koi fish! I bet they won't have any issues finding -finding- a special someone. And it's wonderful, it's great. Greydon Carter could never be a tremendously effective keeper of fish. His party is not so hot, and all of his betta fishes are dying! But Lyudmila's letting me feed them, and I'm doing a tremendously great job, and a looot better than what Sleepy Joe would do!"
am i fuckin reading this correctly??? only because some of the people were women and/or enbies, their decisions are now supposed to be the pinnacle of wisdom and uncontestable?
i know that the mods are meaning no harm, i had nothing but positive experiences with them before this whole debacle started, and OP in particular has genuinely been really great at clearing up the current situation, thank you for that, BUT BEING PART OF A MINORITY GROUP DOESN'T ABSOLVE YOU OF BEING WRONG AND JUST REALLY INSENSITIVE IN THIS PARTICULAR SITUATION! all this is a little bit similar to certain trans people stating that they are okay with the t-slur being used on the internet, and while im sure nobody harbors this kind of sentiment in here, i hope this shows what harmful pitfalls this "im Part of a minority group, therefore im right"-thinking can bring.
so to reiterate from my removed thread:
The term "gossip" has a long history of being weaponized against women, particularly in ways that diminish their voices and portray them as trivial, unimportant, or malicious when engaging in communication or expressing themselves. This cultural baggage doesn’t disappear just because a few people choose to reclaim or adopt the term in a specific context. By using it, the forum risks perpetuating a stereotype that affects gender and sexual minorities who are already marginalized, especially when used as the name of a community meant to serve them.
some folks from marginalized groups, might want to take back words that have been thrown at them, but it’s a pretty complex thing to do. reclaiming those words means being really aware of how it affects others, especially in places that aim to be welcoming. just picking up a term because some people in the community are cool with it doesn’t really consider the real damage that word might still do to others in that same group. like, using the word "gossip" might give off the vibe that this place isn’t really serious about tackling the bigger issues of sexism that are still out there in society.
hexbear communities should be all about making sure everyone feels respected and supported, especially those who have often been overlooked. using a word like "gossip" might accidentally push away folks who think it's disrespectful or plays into negative stereotypes about them. Even if some people who identify as women or genderqueer, might not see the term the same way, their views can really depend on their own experiences and privileges.
one of the key things to building a welcoming space is to watch the words we use, since some can hurt people, even if we don't mean to. just because some folks in the group are cool with certain words doesn’t mean they’re okay for everyone. If we want our community to feel safe and inclusive, we need to think about how our words affect everyone and steer clear of terms that can be harmful.
tldr: it is great that racist terms like
the_x_tankare being purged from the site, but it is absolutely not great that potentially sexist terms are being used as a substitute.In all of this, not once have we gotten an explanation of why it HAS to be gossip, or why gossip doesn't have the connotations that we keep arguing it does. The most we get is 'we don't think it's that bad'. You'd think that if there was such a strong case for it despite all the protest against it, it would be easy to put together a comment explaining the logic, but not once has that happened, and at this point I don't think we're going to be told.
In all honesty, it's starting to feel less like they don't think it has the baggage it does, and instead they're fully aware but just really, really want to call it that anyway, everyone else's feelings be damned. I don't want to be cynical, but absent literally any explanation what am I supposed to think?
Thank you for the comment
Every community that has been made the past couple years has had the name chosen by the people moderating it.
Just because "gossip" can be used in an offensive and condescending way, does not make it so.
Women talking to each other is an important part of how we keep communities safe.
Women mods of the community specifically asked for the community name as they felt it best represented the types of posts welcome there.
You are more than welcome to make a [email protected] post suggesting better names for a community
Thank you for replying.
Again, I'm trying not to be cynical, but that does sound like it just confirms that at the core of it the decision has been made by the mods and that's all there is to it. If so, I genuinely disagree on all levels with how this is being handled, but at least that is finally honest about what's going on - there is no real debate about it, it's just so.
To be honest, I'm not even really all that hung up on the literal thing that started all this anymore, I'm just stuck at the fact that this is just tacit recognition that it really doesn't matter how we feel, the mods will just overrule us. And while I appreciate the suggestion at the end of the comment, in light of that fact I really don't see how my voice is suddenly going to matter if/when I suggest names. There's no guarantee that anything I say, any attempt to hold people accountable, isn't just going to be met with 'well we disagree, so that's that'. It's genuinely disheartening.
This is also not even touching the idea of 'this can be used in an offensive way, but I'm not using it offensively so you should't take it that way'. I'm sure I don't have to point out where else that exact argument pops up - not to draw direct parallels, just to point out this is pretty weak as a justification.
A post in that exact community was what determined the name of slop.
Anyone is welcome to submit a mod application.
For the first two years admins and sitemods made the decisions with occasional temp checks from the userbase.
I added mods to the decision making process and due to what happened we are working a way for users to also be involved with the process.
You are correct though that the people interested in creating, cultivating and moderating a community get the choice of what it is called. It has been that way the entire time the site has existed.
That being said we are trying to open up this process for transparency as well as user engagement.
In the least snappy way possible - I've been here and active for four years, I'm aware of the history of moderation on this site. I am aware anyone is welcome to submit a mod application, but that has nothing to do with what I'm saying. I'm not asking to be a mod, I fully recognise that it takes volunteer work to be done and that not everyone is willing to do it.
I am saying that each of these decisions, and the way that it seems that it doesn't matter how we, or hell how I feel as part of this community. From this comment all I can gleam is that the response is 'well, this community is not for you then'. Which seems counter to the whole renaming exercise to begin with, considering it's an attempt to make the space feel safer.
But again, so be it if this is how things are. Like I've said in another comment, I'm not going anywhere cos I don't have anywhere else like this, I'm stuck having to put my trust in the team, even if I feel shaky about it. This whole thing has just made me sad, I'm not gonna lie.
We recognize that what has been done is not working and are actively seeking to change the way future decisions are made.
If you have specific ideas for how things could be made better with regard to how site changes are made I would love to hear them.
All I'm really asking is for things to be more democratic. I know we joke about voting all the time, but genuinely it feels like the only way to truly avoid things like this happening is to open up the decision making process. I'm sure I'm not the first to suggest that, and I know it's not as simple as just 'make everything a vote', but as it stands right now it does feel very one-way, and it doubtless contributes to the way things spark up like this over and again. Obviously, even under a process like that things like this will still happen, where decisions are made that I don't agree with, but at least it would be transparent and in line with our ethos of good faith and open discussion. Everything so far has felt very closed - it's only now that it feels obvious that we're working from 'the mods want this to happen' backwards in order to find justifications for this particular change and wording.
And while we can repeat that 'mod applications are always open', it doesn't solve the inherent problem here - why should it be only for the mods to have all the say? And is it really good practice to join a mod team just to try and change the culture as a single, new mod? Yes, I agree that moderating is thankless work, and that in a lot of ways it does matter a lot what the people guiding the community feel about the direction of said community - but on the flip side, as someone who works full time and who isn't posting constantly, why should I count for less? I think we really need to put more time into recognising that this is a shared space, and that both sides of things are ultimately needed for a community.
It really does feel like at the centre of this is just a feeling of discontinuity between the mod base and the users, and the end result is feeling like there is no true recourse for someone who is 'only' a user in situations like this. We've opened and closed user union, we've opened and closed feedback - and whether intended or not, it does feel like the power is entirely one directional. I don't know if I can offer anything else, beyond the thanks I have for administrating and even getting this entire community started in the first place - I just want to say again that the reason I do feel so passionate about trying to resolve this is the fact that a space like Hexbear feels important, both to me and in the wider context. I don't want to be telling myself to just accept things here, I want to feel like when I try and contribute and explain my reasoning for or against anything here, that it feels like it's taken on-board by the people involved and considered for what it is.
100% we are looking at finding a way to have every user be able to meaningfully participate in the site going forward in a way that is a bit more hardened to wrecking and reduces the drama inherent to them.
Thank you for listening and replying - I hope the future changes do what we both hope they do.
Me too, thank you for your comments. I do appreciate your perspective, and thoughts on how to improve. I apologize for the stress of the past days, and it is our current priority to figure out a better system and implement it.