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 !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net 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 !gossip@hexbear.net .
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 !commrequest@hexbear.net 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 !commrequest@hexbear.net 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 !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml 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)
Frankly, most people crying about not enough high effort posts haven’t done shit. People who have actually typed out high effort posts quickly realize why high effort posts aren’t a thing on hexbear dot net, and while I don’t think the vast majority of high effort posters have their head so far up their ass that they think they should get paid for their labor, there’s very little point in spending more than an hour on a high effort post with almost nothing to show for it.
there is no reason to effort post here. I had a talk with an admin at one point, like a year or so ago, about potentially opening back up c/islam and I was gonna try to effort post there. but all effort posting comms are just fucking dead, there’s no desire for the content even when it’s there. people come to hexbear for slop, me included. you can’t ban that drive out of people, you can’t make them dislike one type of content and switch to another, all you can do is meet them where they’re at and try to facilitate wider styles also. problem is, this is a small community, we do not have the large userbase where niche comms would have more than a dozen regular users. it is what it is, but you gotta accept it for that
Yeah, I know. I think some of the moderators have a “build it and they will come” mindset, in that they believe that if they change rules and site structure, high effort posts will be appreciated more and we’ll be able to branch out and reach more people. While that is a noble goal, I don’t see how that is possible for us as an esoteric web forum defederated from pretty much every major Lemmy instance. Where are all the new users who will appreciate high effort posts going to come from? Who are we going to “advertise” hexbear to?
Yeah, if effort posts are what they wanna encourage, I’m thinking why not try to highlight them and make them more accessible instead of stripping everything else away? I’ve only read a little bit of theory, and I think that is hexbear took a turn for the superserious I would feel uncomfortable even posting here at all. I already feel like I’m not knowledgeable enough to post sometimes, BUT everyone here is friendly and SO FUNNY and smart that I feel relatively comfortable here. The humor and shitposting is a big part of that.
I also kinda feel like if the goal is to radicalize more people, then getting rid of the “fun” parts of the site will just alienate anyone who would come for the dunks but stay to learn some theory