Hello users of Hexbear, there have been many changes and some drama the past few months.

The recent changes we’ve been making have been an attempt to create a more safe and welcoming environment for many demographics that have been overlooked in the past.

For any of our comrades that have been unintentionally hurt in this process, we apologise and hope to find a solution that accommodates as many people as possible while still meeting the needs of the marginalised groups who need a space like this the most.

The intent of this post is to provide a space for all users to air grievances with regard to the site. As well as provide suggestions for specific things that could be changed to address your grievance. Comments insulting the mod team or those without a specific means to address your problem may be removed. No commenter will be sitebanned, unless it clearly breaks the code of conduct.

  • Ivysaur [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    13 days ago

    you are one of the people I respect the most on this site. I was not kidding when I said that I think of you every time somebody looks at me weird for masking in public. I care about you and your opinion very much, and I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me. in advance, I want to say that I have tried hard to make sure there was nothing hurtful or dismissive in this message, but if I failed in that or otherwise made this come across poorly, I would very much like to talk it out because the absolute last thing I want to do is hurt you.

    That’s very flattering, thank you. I was not hurt by anything, for the record, but I felt compelled to respond anyway. The “be kind because people can change” idea can be a conduit for a lot of unintended damage, I think, but this:

    I just think that sometimes we are quick to assume shitheadedness of each other, and I wish that were not the case. and tbqh, considering how often frauddogg called out other em_poc users as settlers or crackers just because they didn’t post regularly in the em_poc megathread (is that required for all em_poc users?), I think it would help reduce the number of friendly-fire incidents.

    is sensible, and I agree. I recall something happening recently with @[email protected] where I got on her case for what I thought was very typical COVID minimization, but she responded very openly and with a mind for actual change, so I changed my approach afterward. I hope my apologies were good enough in that moment, but I’d like to think that’s how it can all be handled… maybe that is my own autistic naivete.

    it’s also part of the CoC, which I know you know better than I do. you’ve been here much longer, and you’re a mod.

    Well, being a mod in any community on this platform doesn’t mean much for site-wide policy unless you’re also an admin, and I don’t even really do much in the first place, hah.

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      13 days ago

      I was saying at the time that interaction happened, I think, that I was still culpable for not having been diligent enough in looking into the situation beforehand, and that I understood why what I wrote would’ve come across as the typical sort of COVID minimization. As I remember it, you’d said something like “none of you listen!”, and I understood this as speaking to a general trend. So the choice was then whether I would choose to adhere to this general pattern, or to break with it, right?

      So frankly it would’ve been the same whether you apologized or didn’t, because the words you wrote as you wrote them were what worked in the end.

      I think maturity is founded on self-awareness, so that’s what I try to aspire to. And this means knowing when you’ve got something in your mailbox that wasn’t meant for you, so to speak, right? So if someone is very rightfully frustrated about COVID minimization and ends up taking it out on you, then anything hostile that person might say to you should “slide right off”, because that sort of comment isn’t really aimed at you as such, or at least it isn’t aimed at any sort of fundamental trait of your character — it’s really only aimed at you if you choose to make it so.

      This isn’t necessarily to defend “friendly fire”, but I guess what I’m getting at is that “remembering the human” goes both ways: that when someone is doing something you find rude and unreasonable, that there is always a context for it, even if you might not be aware of that context.

      • dustbunnies [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        13 days ago

        “remembering the human” goes both ways: that when someone is doing something you find rude and unreasonable, that there is always a context for it, even if you might not be aware of that context.

        yes, this very much.

        learning that frauddogg had been a troop made void’s behavior make a lot more sense to me. sometimes, when people leave religion, they become militant atheists; it doesn’t seem strange to me that someone would leave the military and be passionately anti-imperialist and ready to attack any inkling of that evil.