At this point, they're just pushing an agenda. All that "Hexbear operates in bad faith." is projection. If they really don't want to see our posts, they can always just create a lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works account. Our mods and admins are already banning the more rabid haters, so the only reason why some Hexbear hater would be malding about us is if they're purposefully searching for us to mald about, and that's entirely their problem.

I appreciate your efforts. I reported the thread in question when I initially saw it, and I'm glad it was eventually locked.

It's a lose-lose situation. People post threads about hexbear, then hexbear users show up to defend themselves, and then they get attacked for "brigading" or otherwise having a sudden presence in the thread. Rinse and repeat.

For me, the biggest annoyance is the constant "they are right wing trolls!" argument, or saying we don't support GSM/LGBTQ+ here because some users post sarcastic memes about the right. Like holy fuck it boils my blood.

I do want you to know, I didn't leave lemm.ee because of you or how you run the instance. I left because I can't stand the idiotic and mindless parroting of bullshit coming from other users. It's not your fault that a slice of users there are morons, especially with the size of the instance. Keep doing what you're doing and you will eventually find the path forward. Just don't lose sight of your own morality and ideals in the process.

if you're not already doing so, I recommend talking to our mod team because we went through similar crises when the site was younger. I think the realization we all came to eventually was that accounts are cheap - people can always remake them and change their behavior to be less corrosive to the site - so being free with the banhammer is ultimately less of a tax than just letting people stir up drama endlessly.

I doubt you'll like the answer, but you should ban those folks. And if people complain about them getting banned, ban them too.

I've come to see that, unlike many liberals, you actually do believe what you say and have an honest commitment to creating an open platform, which is why I say that I don't think you'll like the answer. But it's better in the long term. This site has undergone repeated purges. Quite prominent users, even mods, have been banned. While it's painful, it contributes to making a platform where the users you actually do want come.