Hexbear’s new head of operations just dropped, and their way of dealing with the fallout of their last struggle session is to hand bans out like candy to their concerned and disillusioned users while throwing out “epic” quips like insecure teenagers along the way coupled with their communication (and seemingly contempt) towards their own userbase which isn’t helping their allegations at all and the revelations that were learned about Hexbear’s moderators and admins from their most recent struggle session.
The last few days have honestly shaken my faith in Hexbear and their team and I hope the mods and admins at Lemmygrad are monitoring the situation closely.
To prevent Hexbear’s internal struggle from spilling over to here and detailing this thread as a whole, we will be locking it. A lot has been said already in the comments and we feel like we are involved in Hexbear too little to a) contribute positively and b) moderate reports that require knowledge on Hexbear lore.
I think I can safely say that we hope Hexbear manages to overcome their internal issues again.
I am once again asking a bunch of fringe online leftists to stop being so delulu as to think themselves as the new international vanguard ffs
This too. The serious platform shit is not happening. You scroll down to the bottom of Hexbear, click a link and you get a picture of a pig pooping on it’s own balls.
The entire space is literally synonymous with that. The Pig Poop Balls Vanguard isn’t gonna be a thing.
I know I’m an admin myself and I do try to take it somewhat seriously but if I ever find myself in a situation like that and talking like that I will probably log off for good lol
I don’t have a hexbear account and never visit the place so I can’t add a meaningful comment about the situation but it seems like constructive talk was never an option
My take?
It’s all dumb. Admins didn’t communicate effectively, made changes without making most of the community aware of it on a timescale that should have been days; as most of these discussions should be. A good chunk of the community is irate. Random bans are a method of obfuscation, all though I am doubting that’s actually what is happening here.
Regardless, it is a website and we have this space here.
TC69 immediately sets off red flags for me. It’s one thing to return and welcome yourself back; but the passive language they’re using suggests that they view themselves as some sort of cult of personality figure already, reinforcing the thoughts some have about that concern. The “random number ban” thing is literally just a flex of power, joking or not. I’ve seen that happen so, so many times in communities. It’s the same thing as “Who wants to get a bop on the head from my baton?”. Sure, it’s a joke.
There are already quite a few complaining about moderation style from times past and upon immediate return they make a comment on how the “website has improved” yet still needs an entire overhaul/COC. REgon, usa_suxxx is banned, all though unsure if that is changed now. Also, the thread was locked on that discussion.
It’s all just red flags. Maybe it’ll be a good thing, maybe not. To me, Hexbear did a really good job already on cracking down on shitlibs and misogynistic fucks. Where the hell is this rampant offenses occurring? I don’t doubt we have some idiots wander in and that things were worse before, but this is being treated like we have an active crisis in Hexbear. Which, I don’t really get.
If I’m wrong, I’ll be happy to be wrong and I’ll be more understanding of TC69’s more heavy-handed approach to moderation. But is there like some mass DM-harassment campaign I’m unaware of?
I’m honestly impressed they thought the changes would be well received. Aren’t those communities the nost active in the site?
It seems they’re just trying to memory hole it now.
The newest statement claims everyone was unbanned, which isn’t true. The sockpuppet being used for the new post claims that it was all drama over the AlaskaBall misgendering and banning, which isn’t true. So here’s my extremely biased version of events(They banned me for opposing their bullshit, thus creating this bias.)
The mods wanted to rename the dunk tank, due to the racist origins, but due to federation reasons renaming communities doesn’t work properly, so they locked it and the dredge tank entirely and replaced them with poorly defined pseudo-replacements.
People question this choice and are given a mod statement that misgenders most of the website at the same time, and contains a self-harm reference without a CW.
People question this post and the admin that acted as the mouthpiece steps down. The thread is locked and a new one is made.
Basically no one wanted that and most people want the admin back. The admin comes back.
AlaskaBall bans themself from a new alt, and then when questioned on it, misgenders themself. This was the misunderstanding element of this.
Stuff blows up massively now, since an admin seems to have done something very transphobic and uncool.
Another thread is made, where dissenting voices are banned for three days. One of these bans is reversed and no longer shows in the mod log.
TC69 does a “joke” and posts offering random bans to replies, she then bans people who don’t reply to that post with the same message.
This is around when this thread is made.
Then another thread, using a brand new admin alt, claims that the bans have been reversed (they haven’t)
https://hexbear.net/u/DengistDonnieDarko
https://hexbear.net/u/TerribleHands
And the rest (me) remain banned. Only four of the banned users are actually unbanned.
People have already pointed out that the bans haven’t actually been removed.
Overall, the Hexbear admin team shoved a stick into their own bike wheel and are blaming he/hims, despite the obvious fact that can be seen by checking the pronouns of those linked users (and me).
edit: I’m unbanned now
I feel the same. Ironically the mod’s attempts to make the site more “serious” is probably just going to do the opposite. I’ve spoken at length about this before, but you don’t get people to learn and discuss leftist theory by insisting it is always serious business and you aren’t allowed to joke around or acknowledge how fucked up our capitalist society is.
It’ll just chase people away, which is a shame, though that might be a “win” as far as the mods are concerned. There’s plenty of “serious” leftist groups out there with half a dozen members with their own very specific interpretation of theory with 0 fun allowed, but I can’t really think of anywhere else quite like Hexbear. I don’t want to see them become yet another insular “leftist” space that is actively hostile to people who don’t take themselves as seriously as the world’s most dedicated Internet Leftists.
I’m probably overreacting though, as others have said, this isn’t the first time mods on Hexbear have gone full reddit mod and won’t be the last.
Based only on reading this thread I find this all very confusing and unnecessary, but this is the sort of strange niche drama that only small independent message boards can offer, just not the same on corporate social media, sorta gotta love it.
Same thing that destroyed leftypol years ago: immature mods, cliques and egos.
man why are leftist spaces online like this? feels like they’re too busy shooting themselves on the foot constantly to get their shit together while fascism and reich-wingers are taking over everything.
at least this isn’t a problem in the grad from what i’ve seen (and hopefully never will)
man why are leftist spaces online like this?
They don’t start off this way. People usually start-up communities out of genuine passion, but as time goes on the only people willing to babysit/moderate the community are people who spend a lot of time on the internet already. Eventually, the whole mod team becomes people who do nothing else but chat about the community/forum. As they reinforce each other, in their minds the importance of their community/forum grows. No longer is it a fun internet site, now it’s serious business, and that means that bad actors want to destroy. Then they give themselves carte blanche to “protect” the community. Naturally, with that kind of mindset anyone who disagrees with them is a potential threat, everyone who posts could be a bad actor in disguise, pretending so as to gain the community’s trust.
What do you get? An insular, paranoid community, resistant to change, distrustful of new people, ruled by a mod clique with their own agenda.
I don’t know enough about Hexbear to make a judgment, those are just my general observations, but from little I’ve seen I think it is happening there too. The whole “I wasn’t lying to you users! It was all a sneaky ruse!” bit is actually sus, feels like damage control after being found out. The HB mods have clearly made their decision without the community and now they’re trying to find a way to frame the change so that it doesn’t piss off the userbase and result in them losing power or worse losing the userbase over whom they lord over. I haven’t seen an apology to the effect of “maybe we were wrong to delete the community” or “maybe we should have consulted the userbase”, it’s all “sorry we handled it poorly” and “I’m sorry we’re bad at communicating!” Very disingenuous.
If there’s a silver lining, I don’t think this is limited to leftist spaces, or even to online ones.
Yeah, I don’t know why people frame this as a leftist thing. It might happen more, but it’s not unique.
For the older folks out there; you have seen this sort of thing happen on MMORPGs certainly. In my anecdote, it happened to me in real life with a debate club I was in when I was younger lmao.
Leftypol is still kicking well enough, all the spinoff chans are mostly dead as far as I’m aware
Leftypol is still kicking well enough
Nah, it’s a shit site. Run over by incels and sex/dating threads, plus too much porn/nsfw content. Some users were really adamant to allow porn on the site, even though one can find porn literally anywhere on the internet. Just goes to show the priorities of the people there. All the good posters are gone.
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I’m not familiar with what goes on there, so as an outsider, the fact that in skimming, some of the replies make more sense to me than the admin/mod posts doesn’t seem like a great sign for their leadership. Comes across like they’re acting based on vibes and don’t want to provide substantive examples to back up what they’re doing.
Concerning
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Why are you calling them a nonce?
Edit: I am just gonna remove the comment for the nonce bit. If you would like to edit the comment you can send me a DM and we can work it out.
Would you be able to address the nonce accusations? Calling someone names is one thing but to accuse someone of being a pedophile is pretty serious.
I sure wouldn’t know: I was permabanned two months ago, by an admin who apparently was de-admined about a month ago 🤷
The mass line has relevance especially in a situation like this.
