tbh idk how people can complain about “off-topic” conversations. Just collapse the thread, fam. It really is that easy 🤷🏽♀️
Comment on Hexbear federation megathread
MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 1 year ago
I feel a little sorry for the Lemm.ee users here that came to make measured, personal posts specific to the annoucement. There’s a fair amount of long off-topic arguements happening in bits of the thread now and that probably makes it harder to read and manage.
This is something that’s often been pointed to as a pure result of Hexbear users or federation with Hexbear and given rise to accusations of ‘brigading here and in the past’. While I don’t think every segue into debate has been useful here, and have also told comrades that I didn’t think this was the place for specific comments (which they removed) I also think there’s some important context to point out - and I hope it helps lemm.ee users wondering about all this traffic not to fall into the trap of assuming the worst based on a couple of comments:
- Hexbear is a very big and very active instance. A very small proportion of users posting in a thread (especially one explicitly about them) can seem like a lot to a lot of instances.
- Hexbear doesn’t have downvotes and Hexbear users do not have the ability to downvote posts or comments on other instances. This creates a culture where if people disagree, they tend to reply, not downvote instead. Another reason we’re very active.
Finally - and I say this fully acknowledging and appriciating the many ordinary, good faith, pleasant lemme.ee commenters that I’ve enjoyed reading and talking too even when I totally disagreed with them - a lot of these off-topic arguements and more heated comments do not come from nowhere. While not at all the majority, I do see a pretty shocking amount of actively hostile, hateful, and insulting behaviour here. Sadly, quite a bit of it would be banned under Hexbear’s moderation policy against things like slurs and hate speech too.
So try to keep in mind if you see salty Hexbear users replying to people that just in reading through this thread myself I’ve the following instances of abuse or smears against my comrades (and they continue popping up), so I absolutely support them defending themselves (as long as they stay within the rules here):
- Dimissal as the pejorative “tankie” - 4 times
- Users stating that Hexbear users are propagandists - 8 times
- Stating that people from Hexbear are specifically paid Russian/Chinese bots/propagandists - 10 times
- Direct equivalences of Hexbear posters to Nazis or just straight up calling us Nazis/fascists - 7 times
- Insults regarding mental health or IQ that would be classed as ablism on Hexbear - 8 times
- Dismissing users as children - 2 times
- Claiming Hexbear users are using vote-manipulation (impossible, as explained above) - 4 times
- Accusations of deliberate brigading rather than just commenting, being active - 11 times
I’ve tried not to count repeated instances from the same users. But sadly that’s not all. Just a handful of the following are comments that have been made against Hexbear users in this thread, without any kind of equal hostility. As far as I can tell they all still remain:
- “You guys are like cancer”
- “Braindead fucking tankies”
- “Get fucked”
- “Asshole” (multiple)
- That our beliefs are "moralistic bullshut"
- That some of our beliefs are "a criminal ideology"
- A comment that simply states "No Russians"
- That we’re “evil” (multiple times)
- An elaborate comparison to us “vandalising a Jewish graveyard” and other Nazi equivalences
- And of course a comment that explictly minimised the Nazi death toll with glee, seeming to imply they should have killed more. On the subject of disagreeing with equating the hammer and sickle to the swastika (hidden with spoiler tag, for those who don’t want to see it repeated)…
spoiler
“you are right, it is nor really fair to nazis, who killed measly 17 million people, compared to impressive 100 million killed by communists.”
There’s also been numerious instances of users misgendering Hexbear users. I’m not going to put all of these down to malice, but at Hexbear we display our pronouns for a reason - we love our trans comrades! You don’t have to, but could you please at least respect them and not misgender them?
Again, this isn’t the majority, but it’s honestly disappointing and worth keeping in mind amongst some of the louder, minority yells of ‘brigading’ etc.
honeynut@lemm.ee 1 year ago
MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 1 year ago
That has been a nice addition recently.
Civility@hexbear.net 1 year ago
😔
Jesus@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You’re living in a fantasy world
Flinch@hexbear.net 1 year ago
Jesus was a socialist jesus-cleanse
mathemachristian@lemm.ee 1 year ago
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
from James 5 (who might have been Jesus’ half-brother though that’s speculation).
Flaps@hexbear.net 1 year ago
This is the kind of good, well thought out response we’ll use as a Gold standard then+
DictatrshipOfTheseus@hexbear.net 1 year ago
I’m curious what aspects of that comment you thought were fantastical. Will you elaborate and be specific?
Jesus@lemm.ee 1 year ago
No you aren’t.
You just want me to say more so you can pick it apart, fight, and troll. That’s what you guys do and that’s the exact behavior at issue in this thread. There is discourse with you and that’s the exact problem. There seems to be n such thing as a good faith discussion with members of your instance. That’s why you’ve already been defederated from multiple instances and you’re about to be again.
carl_marks_1312@hexbear.net 1 year ago
You just want me to say more so you can pick it apart, fight, and troll.
If you know what you’re saying is pulled out of… thin air, then of course the fear of it getting picked apart is understandably there. You know in advance that you will basically have to go into an argument (“fight”) and then, because the fighting aka not writing the check for your claims is making it obvious to everyone else that you indeed pull stuff out of thin air, you get trolled as a consequence.
The very comment I’m replying to is a good example:
You made a vague comment (“You’re living in a fantasy world”) and got asked for clarification. You get defensive without providing clarification, and justify it by accusing the enquirer of bad faith. You dont even use some personal anecdotal evidence, but with another vague accusation. The fact that you’re not amusing yourself to actually give a good faith answer, but make such baseless accustion you end up communicating bad faith on your part.
I find it really hard to not troll you now
Chapo_is_Red@hexbear.net 1 year ago
MolotovHalfEmpty: presents empirical evidence.
You: fake news
gsa4555@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Geez, that’s a lot of words!
TL;DR?
Bongles@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’s literally a discussion thread my guy.
Slacker@marsey.moe 1 year ago
Nobody wants to read an effortpost by basement dwelling commies, STFU
MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 1 year ago
It’s a shame this thread has gotten so off topic in places. It’s been cool reading and talking to lemm.ee users here (mostly). Despite lots of comments about Hexbear ‘brigading’ we’re just a big instance with lots of very active users, plus we don’t have downvotes (on Hexbear or here) so people tend to post instead of just downvoting if they disagree. While there’s been some Hexbear posts that have been overly agressive for my taste I also understand it because there’sbeen a lot of pretty serious abuse (from a minority) aimed at Hexbear users in the thread which has gone almost completely unremarked upon, which is sad, and doesn’t help make the thread an easy place for the majority of lemm.ee users to share their opinions.
420blazeit69@hexbear.net 1 year ago
The thing about civility and good-faith conversations is that that street runs both ways. I’m glad to see a lot of that happening here, but I’m also seeing some folks who seem to think civility means “I can say whatever I want and you a hint of anger on your part is a bannable offense.”
Civility@hexbear.net 1 year ago
😤