Hello Blahaj users,
Unfortunately we have been discussing defederation. I would like for this to be sorted out, but our trans and disabled users deserve to be protected from transphobia and ableism. We know these are behaviors are perpetrated by a minority of Blahaj users, but they are tolerated here in the form of the 196 community. Of course, most Hexbear users are willing to re-federate once this bigoted community is removed. The admin Ada has been very helpful and I have faith in her to do the right thing for the safety of her community members.
In the meantime, I would like to extend an invitation to all leftists here to make an account on Hexbear. As long as you are anti-capitalist, you will be welcome there. We are hyper-inclusive and are strict against all forms of bigotry. There has been much disinformation spread about us, so if you have good faith questions, feel free to ask. We are not “pro-Russia” as many of our detractors claim, we are anti-NATO, as they perpetuate the amerikan empire. Please ask us anything in this thread!
We hope this defederation is temporary, or better yet, never comes. We do not wish to split two large queer instances just weeks after federating, but we must do what we think is right.
Trans rights forever! 
The admin Ada has been very helpful and I have faith in her to do the right thing
A pity then that one of your admins has thrown it all back in my face, with a public call out post currently pinned for all hexbear users to see.
I have done my best to make this work, and for all of my effort, I’ve had it thrown back in my face.
We were accussed of not addressing ableist behaviour. These actions in question occurred whilst I was in bed. Ultimately, I responded to them within 12 hours, removing the content in question and letting the person in question know that ableist language isn’t acceptable.
A hexbear admin accused me of being non responsive for that 12 hour delay. Hexbear on the other hand, let a dogpile thread targetting a blahaj user stand for over 24 hours, despite having something like 3 times as many admins as we do. I understand why it took Hexbear time to respond to the dogpile thread, given how new federation was and how their existing rules didn’t quite account for it. It’s a pity that they don’t offer the same courtesy and understanding in return, expecting response times that they can’t live up to themselves.
A hexbear admin also accussed us of not addressing transphobia in 196, referring to a specific event that occurred around a month ago. Despite finding that incident (that occured in a post that was removed before they were even federating with us) they somehow missed the very public post I made in response calling out transphobic behaviour and making the community expectations clear. A post that was pinned to 196, has over 400 replies and that you can still see right here https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1105166.
Similarly, one of their admins implied that they were unable to have good faith conversations with Blahaj admin staff. A position that is at odds with the messaging I received from the hexbear admin I have been communicating with, who sent me a message 4 hours ago that ended with “Thank you very much for your time, effort, patience, and perspective during these past few days”
This petty “no u” bullshit from hexbear has definitely soured my opinion of them. Especially finding out that they didn’t even wait to hear from you before defederating
Given the concern-trolling behavior I see from many of the hexbear users posting in the past few days it doesn’t surprise me that something like this is the case. It’s Friday night and I’m buzzed so I’m not going to explain this beyond ‘vibes,’ but to me absolutely none of this shit coming from hexbear seems to be in good faith. I do not trust the vibes. The vibes are bad.
I appreciate the work you put in to keep the vibes good, especially given that this instance is something that costs you money to keep going. FWIW I feel like any bad behavior I’ve seen from outside instances interacting with 196 (cough, lemmy.world, cough) has been dealt with at a reasonable speed, all factors considered.
I’m not sure if this is another troll or what’s going on. This is in really bad taste.
Yeah this isn’t outreach or conflict resolution, it’s an ad, lol. Which I don’t really care if people advertise other instances, the whole point of the fediverse hinges on not centralizing anything. Just don’t treat me like I’m too stupid to know an ad when I see it.
If I didn’t know OP from other meta threads I would say they’re trying to cause drama. But I don’t think that’s the case. I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
OP is conflating the actions of one? a couple of? mods (I’m not sure because none of the images posted on hexbear actually load for me) with the entire 196 community, it seems bad faith to me. And because I get the feeling other people are going to interpret this disingenuously, anyone using or tolerating slurs should be demodded and warned or removed from the instance.
I’ve also had enough not-great experiences from leftists who proclaim how inclusive they are while being unable/unwilling to recognize and address transphobia (ableism, racism, etc) without it being like pulling teeth every single time that I see no reason personally to move from a trans operated instance to one that isn’t. Given how the internet and climate is at this point in time I simply do not trust cis people to be reliable about this. If that’s not a hard line for anyone else that’s understandable.
It’s a troll. That’s what they do. I’ve seen it so many times with the goons from something awful taking over EVE Online, the_donald doing their utmost to ruin reddit, 4chan raids, etc etc ad nauseam.
The common thread is trolls hiding behind an ideology because it allows them to act out and get attention.
The only way to deal with them is to force them out and ignore them. Don’t engage. Don’t fight. Just ban, ignore, move on.
You already caused enough damage, please just leave. You are not wanted or welcome, and the defederation needs to be permanent and mutual to keep the rest of you out.
Speak for yourself. I want Hexbear to stay but without the hostility.
Your instance won’t be affected, except hexbear / blahaj folks won’t see each other.
Yeah, my vote is now for defederation from Hexbear.
lolwut? 196 is bigoted?
This sounds like some 4chan level “no u” trolling.
I hadn’t really seen anything from Hexbear, and only now and then would these discussions about it pop up in my feed. But the last few days, I’ve seen you specifically popping up a lot stoking flames and causing drama to the point where I can’t escape seeing this shit unless I block every LGBT space I sub to.
So now I’m on the “defed” hexbear side, because I’m betting most users on there are just like you.
I’m from some peaceful quiet lemmy that doesn’t have any of whatever this is going on. Why does this sound so malicious?
I too am getting weird vibes from it.
bc blahaj zone has a comm full of chasers (c/196) that fetishize us trans folk. then they went 0-100 w the ableism and we realized that 196 is incompatible w hexbear
But, blahaj zone is also trans,?
/Me being trans and a member of 196 and never feeling anything but save while looking for this mythical claim
I’m not falling for this shit.
if you’re anti nato then you’re pro russia.
ending nato is kinda russias entire thing
This post and its comments go more in-depth about the Hexbears’ grievances: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1989401
The announcement from a Hexbear admin: https://hexbear.net/post/369410
The casus defoederationis that’s got me most concerned is that the 196 mod appears to endorse usage of the -tard suffix. When the Hexbears mention ableism, this is the specific objection they have.
Really bad form of OP to not include any links, and honestly it should be a Hexbear admin making this announcement, anyways.
Also I would like to pop in here as one of our resident anarchist moderators (yes a contradiction I know) to assuage any fears of it being a space where sectarian shit is allowed.
We support all people seeking self determination regardless of their particular strategy. We also recognize the gains of human rights for all people made by places like Cuba especially which now has the most progressive policy regarding LGBTQ people.
Hexbear is a big tent space and there are a lot of folks that disagree with one another on some particulars, but we have managed to maintain a mostly cordial space for folks of all tendencies for 3 years now (holy shit it’s been three years) and most arguments resolve amicably or result in weeding out belligerents.
This is silly when the problem is one community—it’s possible to defederate a single community. This sort of defederate first ask questions later behavior surprises me and seems a bit disingenuous
It seems the mod of that community did use the ‘t*rd’ suffix and that is, without question, ableism. As, I said elsewhere, I don’t know why people who say they are progressive/leftist feel this is an acceptable suffix to use when I’m sure they wouldn’t use a slur of the same severity against trans people or queer people or people of a race different from theirs.
There does seem to be a general feeling across the entire political spectrum that that suffix is still OK to use, possibly because they see people who have a learning based disability as less than human?
It’s not OK to use. It ridicules and dehumanises people. I really hope if nothing else comes out of this that people in general, and that mod/community in particular, learn a little bit about disability issues and to start putting that suffix in the same bin they put all the trans/queer/black/asian/jewish slurs they no doubt loathe.
