Thank you for replying to my comment. I have previously made a post about /c/slop being too broad in the feedback comm, 16 months ago. I think nobody saw it because the feedback comm is local to the hexbear instance and nobody seems to read the feedback comm. I try to write my post in agreement with things you wrote in previous announcement posts. https://hexbear.net/post/4820530

My general feeling now is that slop is trying to be a replacement to chapotraphouse. I'm guessing you are familiar with the format of chapo trap house podcast, being that you are the admin of the site which took the place of the chapo subreddit.

What is the spirit of the Chapo Trap House podcast? It's a podcast which discusses cultural events, US politics and electoralism, US foreign policy, etc. There was even a recurring segment where Will Menaker would read newspaper columns written by like reactionaries and he would provide context about the author and criticize and so on.

Increasingly all of these things are being posted into the slop comm, which was intended to be a comm of screenshots of bad tweets and reddit comments. I believe thedunktank was originally created by a user who wanted a comm similar to r/shitliberalssay. Now, every day I am seeing news articles and celebrity gossip and even actions of politicians being posted into the slop comm.

Today, I saw a post in the slop comm which showed a screenshot of a video where a journalist did an investigation into the decreased in food quality of fast food restaurants. The post title criticized the journalist for expecting fast food restaurants to serve quality food. It's clear that the poster didn't watch the video, probably didn't even take the screenshot themselves, probably just re-uploaded the screenshot from reddit.

Posts like that makes me wonder: Is it slop for a journalist to do an investigation into price gouging at fast food restaurants? Or is it slop for someone to repost a screenshot from reddit of a video thumbnail that they didn't even watch? A characteristic of slop is being low effort. Which thing is low effort? Is the post meant to be pretentious? Am I expected to believe that most people on Hexbear don't ever eat at fast food restaurants?

My non-confrontational solution has been to repost news articles into the proper comm if they are posted into slop. I don't want confrontation. I'm not trying to be a debater, like some people have suggested. I only replied to this commenter to explain why I don't think my post belongs in the slop comm.

One time I remember doing this was when there was the shooting at the White House Correspondence Dinner. I was watching a live feed of the event, when I heard someone mentioning the gunshots. I found a news article around 10 minutes later and posted it into the News comm. Around the same time, someone else posted another article about the shooting into the slop comm. To me, this incident was a meaningful event and was in the news cycle for at least a week afterward. However, somebody else believed that a shooting incident near the White House deserved to be posted in a comm which was intended to be screenshots of reactionaries posting on social media. That does not make sense.

Some people may point out that this post is a screenshot of a tweet. While this is technically true. I was watching the White House press conference live stream on youtube and searched the clip on a news clip twitter account, because it is easier to share than a youtube live stream.

To reference one of your previous announcements, you suggested that there be a comm called "counterpropaganda", which was created but didn't really take off. I don't know if that comm was your idea or the idea of another moderator. I think that the comm was a really good concept. I like the idea of promoting a more meaningful, critical discussion. I like when people read the article and comment a meaningful analysis.

I feel like the slop comm promotes a surface level discussion. Earlier I wrote that I like the chapo podcast because they provide meaningful commentary and also that I like when when hexbear commenters make meaningful analysis. When things are posted into the slop comm that aren't social media posts screenshots, the intention is to assert that the subject is bad and to create a tone of condescension. The posts often have sarcastic title and lack context or analysis.

Over a year ago, I requested the creation of the popularculture comm. I intended for the comm to be a semi-formal discussion of the possible material impacts of cultural trends, celebrities, and entertainment. I made many posts on the comm and I think the comm is relatively active. After I created the popularculture comm, I noticed that users were more frequently posting pop culture articles into the slop comm, a comm which is intended for screenshots of liberal opinions posted on social media. Why would people post celebrity articles into the wrong comm after I made a comm for celebrity-related articles? It feels spiteful, when some of those users had never posted such article before the popularculture comm existed.

My preference is that the slop comm should be limited to screenshots of harmful opinions posted on social media, which was the comm's original purpose. When something is posted into the slop comm which isn't a screenshot of an opinion posted on social media, it should be removed. I'm not sure if there's any other way people will stop posting literally everything into the slop comm. It feels like slop is becoming /c/main.

Individual comms could be made to criticize and analyze different types of reactionary thought. A comm which focuses on criticizes/discusses trends of right-wing-media would have a different analysis than a comm which discusses democrat-electoralism. Maybe there could be a comm which focuses on being anti-NATO/anti-NAFO. I think that having more specific categories would promote a deeper level of discussion.

Sorry for the excessively long comment. I'm not intending to argue or disagree with you. I tried to write this comment in a way that agrees with your previous announcement posts.

You raise a lot of interesting questions, like: why do hexbears have shirtless photos of Hasan but not shirtless photos of Asmongold? Why isn't the slop comm a shirtless photo of Asmongold?

Also you assert that Hexbear doesn't receive new users because hexbears are supportive of Hasan. Why then is Hasan's community so much larger than Hexbear? Hexbear was created at the same time that Hasan started streaming and the communities were the same size. Now Hasan millions of fans, some who say he inspired them to engage in activism, and Hexbear still seems smaller than when it was a subreddit. It must be Hasan that is holding back Hexbear's growth? Could it be that Hasan made his community have focus on optimism while communities like /c/slop are built on pessimism?

You don't have to like Hasan. There are even many people in Hasan's community who criticize him. I said that it hurts the website to say that everything that you don't like should be posted into the slop comm. I think it's totally fine that you don't like Hasan. My point is that comms other than /c/slop are allowed to have posts that you don't like.