hexbear

Someday someone will use Hexbear Proposals to do a marriage proposal

I just hope the current leadership (who have done a great job over the last few years) put a lot of effort into vetting new mods and admins to retain the proper class-character of the website which safeguards it from reactionary wrecking.

If they find auditing upvotes to be a useful tool towards that end, so be it. At the end of the day mods and admins will have certain powers. Making those powers transparent is an acceptable compromise which I hope can build more trust between the users and mods.

It would be better to let inactive comms close/lock rather than insert mods that aren't properly vetted out of desperation.

Something that I believe needs to be taken into consideration but has barely been referenced is how (un)educated someone may be when it comes to leftist theory/thought.

For example, at least one of the people who were banned for upvoting the comment explained how they interpreted it (and one mentioned ADHD too I think) in a way that conflicted with how an admin summarized it (a red-brown alliance).

A lot of other people summarized this site as the "dirty owl pig poop forum" in the other struggle session, so if the standard is going to be raised when it comes to how well versed a person is in leftist theory that's fine but it should be openly stated. Given that there's a disability community, and I believe at least one person with severe CFS, going down this route will probably lead to more conflicts, however.

Regardless, for anyone who genuinely cares about the users on this site or imparting leftist thought, having what's pretty much a community to direct your "vitriol and scorn at" when someone slips up (on top of public ridicule due to the nature of the mod log) seems like an unfathomably bad idea.

Personally, I am in favor of giving people a timeout if they upvote reactionary comments/posts. A one day temp ban and a note saying why seems like a completely reasonable response to me. Also in favor of getting rid of upvotes altogether, though it kinda defeats the purpose of being on a reddit clone to begin with so idk.

:ah-shit-here-we-go-again:

I'll be honest having my upvotes monitored by secret committee has always made me very uncomfortable and I do not like this as an approach to push the site into whatever the mods want to unilaterally create. I genuinely thought that ended after that giant purge in the first year I didn't know mods still did that.

This is not to say I'm against any of the reasons mods want to moderate upbears. I just don't like feeling like I'm under a microscope even if Ihave nothing to hide. I know it's not popular to say, but I know I'm not just talking for myself here.

Traffic has seemed way down since the comm struggle session and I worry mods underestimate the chilling effect that unapologetic, undemocratic, heavy-handed moderation has an an ultimately delicate community.

We should seriously consider implementing special conduct rules for struggle sessions, to make them less toxic.

The reason most of us hate struggle sessions, the reason so many of us lay low until these things die down, is that struggle sessions are too fast and chaotic to be dialogue. Everyone gets too heated and pressed and defensive to actually listen or reach an understanding, so it turns into people talking past each other, sometimes building up personal resentments that last long after the struggle session ends and have little to do with the original disagreement. If you wade into it, you risk making enemies, and you don't chance making friends.

Just as spouses should approach conflict constructively because they care about their marriage, hexbears should approach conflict constructively because they care about the site.

If someone can’t do that, they should be kicked out of the struggle session.

Slow down. Listen patiently to each other. Try to understand where the other person is coming from. Acknowledge them as a person. Respond in good faith without attacking. Maybe spend a few minutes collecting your thoughts and processing your emotions before you start typing. The frantic pace and hostile tone of a struggle session put pressure on you to respond fast and become hostile to defend yourself, but when you do that you make the thread even more frantic and hostile, in a runaway feedback loop. It’s a collective phenomenon where no single person has the off switch—and, consequently, no one feels responsible for their behavior.

Which is why we need rules, and a site culture of conflict resolution, to change our behavior on a collective level.

Ideally we would have an actual dedicated thread mode, “slow mode” or “struggle session mode,” which would limit the pace of comments and encourage thoughtful effortposts over whirlwind bickering, but that would require new code, and we would still need civility rules on top of that anyway, so let’s start with the rules.

How embarrassing is it if no one needs to wreck the site because we fucking wreck it ourselves? How bad does that make leftists look? Conflict resolution is a vital anti-wrecker skill, it should be part of leftist culture online and in person. It’s so fucking terminally online and shameful that we can’t work things out like adults.

Ty for the explanation.