this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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Hey everyone, I've removed bans for everyone that did not request one in the previous admin thread. (I think. If you got banned and I didn't restore your account yet, let me know and I'll fix it.) Don't worry! We're not gonna just ban people for no reason.

In case anyone hasn't seen it yet, Alaskaball confirmed that Sangria was their admin alt. They were messing around with their admin tools on their own account and figured it would be seen as a funny bit, but without being informed of the bit many of the mods and admins were just as shocked, confused, and appalled as you were. I've talked to the other admins and mods, and we're all gonna take it easy on bits for a bit. (Pun intended. This is the last one, I promise.)

If you're afraid that there's been an infiltration of transphobic, egomaniacal wrecker mods who hate the users, I want to assure you that's absolutely not the case. The overwhelming majority of mods and admins on this site are trans. Our admins are all trusted, long-time users in good standing. We regularly browse, comment, and post on our main accounts. You post and chat with us daily as comrades, and we value all of you. You may not recognize the usernames on our admin accounts because we regularly swap the alts used for admin privileges. This is why you'll see really old or unused alt accounts as well as really new accounts on the admin team.

I've seen a lot of speculation down below, some entertaining, some upsetting. We absolutely do not accept transphobia or any form of bigotry on this site. Some of the statements provided by mods and admins have been seen as transphobic and bioessentialist. I want to offer some transparency, but also clarify that I can't get much more specific on this for personal security reasons.

During the earlier discussions on how we felt things could be improved with these communities, multiple trans mods and admins described their reasoning in favour of the change by expressing with a variety of wording that it's the [he/him] demographic in particular that has been the source of toxic and troubling behavior in the tanks. That the he/hims haven't been beating the accusations, so to speak. With that group being largely cishet white guys on this site, these two terms were assumed to roughly correlate. We weren't making prepared statements for release, the comments that got posted here were paraphrased and combined from more casual comments made by trans people, in the mod chat to mostly other trans people about some of the chauvinistic and ironically bigoted posting habits that they saw as alienating and unhealthy for the site, and what we could do to improve the situation. We genuinely didn't foresee the potential for a miscommunication of those statements as being bioessentialist, and want to extend our sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding.

Edit: Please feel welcome to post in c/gossip as you would have posted in the_dunk_tank, and in c/counterpropaganda as you would have posted in the_dredge_tank.

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[–] iie@hexbear.net 33 points 6 days ago (14 children)

The reason most of us hate struggle sessions, the reason so many of us lay low until these things die down, is that struggle sessions are too fast and chaotic to be dialogue. Everyone gets too heated and pressed and defensive to actually listen or reach an understanding, so it turns into people talking past each other, sometimes building up personal resentments that last long after the struggle session ends and have little to do with the original disagreement. If you wade into it, you risk making enemies, and you don't chance making friends.

I think we need some site meta-culture or protocols for how to handle large conflicts in a healthier way in the future, regardless of the content of the conflict.

[–] iie@hexbear.net 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

My suggestions all sound really obvious, but they're obvious because we've all heard them before, because they actually work:

  1. Recognize that a struggle session is happening
  2. Slow the fuck down so there's time for real dialogue
  3. Actually earnestly try to understand where people are coming from, be curious about the human—which takes time, hence bullet 2.
  4. Don't throw personal attacks, because the other person will defend themself by throwing more personal attacks, in an endless feedback loop
  5. Don't respond to personal attacks with more personal attacks, de-escalate by acknowledging the other person
  6. Be patient, because communicating is hard. Not everyone can get everything out in a single perfect effortpost.
  7. Conversely, thoughtful effortposts are good in a struggle session, because they facilitate bullets 2 and 3. Effortposts slow things down, and they make space for people to express where they're coming from as a human being, and try to understand where the other person is coming from. In a struggle session, it can feel like every comment opens three new fronts of conflict, and the gap in understanding grows faster than words can cross it. Thoughtful, patient effortposts can help mitigate that effect.
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