We’ve already defederated one tanky instance, and frankly I think I’ve rarely had a positive interaction with Hexbear users. Their defence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or of China’s genocide against the Uighur people, is hard enough to stomach. But what prompted me to post this is their commentary in this thread where even without any of the propaganda-based reasons to justify their beliefs, they seem to delight in being rude arseholes to people.
Personally, I don’t think they provide us any real value, no we’d be better off without them, just as we are better off without lemmygrad and exploding-heads.
Yes, we’re still federated with them. You can check the federation status of instances by going to
[instance-root-domain]/instances.In that thread, you’ve got:
And of course many of their users in that thread have the trademark transphobic sarcastic pronoun indicators.
Not one comment from a Hexbear user that’s actually providing valuable commentary. These are comments that are deliberately setting out to be mean, and do nothing more than that.
Many users from other instances that are critical of Beehaw in that thread (some great examples are azuth and donuts) are at least explaining why. Hexbear users are just arseholes, and seemingly proud of that fact.
There are rude users on other instances too, but not in such a high ratio as in Hexbear.
Didnt know you could check federation status! Cheers!
I thought one of the examples would be the ‘door hitting’ comment. I didn’t think it was that harsh, but its for sure not useful commentary.
I did see this comment, dripping with a snide sense of superiority, which i think is meant humorously to some degree. But there is a valuable point in the middle of the comment. This is just as an example of a hexbear user providing something of value in that thread.
GarbageShoot [he/him] 31 • Good riddance, Beehaw is terrible. It was maybe the single biggest exporter of concern-trolling about lemmy.ml and to my knowledge still entertains absurdly reactionary comms for no reason (though I haven’t brushed up on my lore in a while). Go make your blue Raddle.
More constructively: Having your “Northern Star” be “intentionally vague” is not a good practice. Having clear rules is a much better way to avoid falling into “what did the mod who reviewed the report feel like doing at the time?” arbitration issues. If you want to serve disenfranchised communities well,* then have that be the foundation and clearly define what that means and why you are doing it.
*My experience with this was that Beehaw was more about first world radlibs patting themselves on the back, but I digress
My blink reaction to these questions is always ‘not a good idea’, the fediverse is small and siloing is a problem i’d not like to see the fediverse wracked with, at least at this early stage.
I don’t know, seems like a big move to defederate. But then again it wouldn’t have to be permanent i suppose? So maybe not such a big move as i first thought?
But as i said above, i hang locally most often, i didn’t even know the pronouns indicators were sarcastic. So i should defer to other peoples thoughts on this one i think.
Id consider most of these examples you’ve provided to just be playful banter. Lemmy is a social network and you shouldn’t expect every interaction to be completely serious all the time. Besides, one aspect of Australian culture is “bants with mates at the pub” and none of the things posted by HB users in this thread, or any other thread I’ve seen for that matter, come close to some of the horrid stuff I’ve heard be excused as “they’re just joking around” IRL.
Why do you think that including one’s pronouns in a username or bio is transphobic? Or do you take issue with a particular user’s pronouns?
Finally, regarding your point about not being familiar with Beehaw, I’d point you to my first point about banter but also to the fact that Hexbear is a very large and old instance; up untill a couple of months ago they were running a version of Lemmy that did not support federation. The fediverse is diverse enough that unless you’re on an instance federated with Beehaw or engross yourself in a meta thread about it, some of the confusion may be legitimate.
Jesus that’s very generous. It’s “playful banter” in the way 4chan uses the term, or Donald Trump does, maybe. It’s toxic behaviour, plain and simple. The only thing up for debate is whether they’re doing it out of ignorance or, as I suspect, because they deliberately want to drive out the kinder voices.
Are usually, I dunno, funny? They’re also contextual. You don’t rib a mate when he’s looking for sincere feedback, you read the room. In their case, they’re reading the room and seeing a prime opportunity to prey on the vulnerable.
It’s not. The way they use this incredibly inclusionary tool to make fun of the concept, however, is. Saying their pronouns are “comrade” and “use name” makes a mockery of the concept. It reminds me of that old transphobic “attack helicopter” joke.
Is it theoretically possible that this is the case? Sure. But again you’re being very generous to a group of people who have demonstrated themselves not to deserve that generosity. Especially when we’re talking about people who care enough about the issue to comment on it in this thread.