Yesterday was intense for everyone. Some quick updates as of last night:

  • A large amount of the sitemod team has stepped away from the project. Other comrades from the community have volunteered to pitch in and been modded.
  • Some core devs also stepped away from the project. For the time being, you should not expect any further development of new features or bug fixes as we reassess our capacity.
  • Main has been locked. No immediate plans to unlock.
  • Registration is closed and will remain so for the time being.

We 100% understand and support everyone who left yesterday and are also looking forward to the next stage of Hexbear.

We're probably not going to be making any additional announcements or formal communication until after the weekend at the earliest. Thanks.

  • chadhominem [comrade/them]
    hexbear
    9
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    100000000%. The last few times I've come here It's been some site wide meltdown that just doesn't fucking matter unless you are terminally online. Personally, and may come off as condescending, but I also find a lot of the ills of the site to be just like general internet grievances that are virtually unavoidable - this is the fucking internet. The baseline foundation of the internet is a racist, sexist, transphobic, and reactionary hell hole that is primarily comprised of young white men who are LARPing behind their computer screens with the goal to aggravate some person and/or community, even if they don't agree with what they're saying, just so they can feel alive for once in their godforsaken atomized and isolated lives.

    This has always been the internet, this will always be the internet. Every time I access the internet, I expect it to be like this, no matter what community/site/forum I am on. You need to compartmentalize these things and not get emotionally invested in digital communities - it is literally unhealthy.

    It's said so often but it couldn't be more true, for the love of god just go outside. Get offline. Feel the breeze on your face, the grass under your feet. Spark up a conversation with an elder at a park, read a book in the sun. Volunteer somewhere. Feed the homeless, dog rescue, shit I even gleaned oranges for a local farm. Anything. Connect with a family member. Find new music, watch new films with your friends. Pick up some trash in your community. Thrift for some old instruments and learn to play something. Limit your fucking internet time in general and fucking vastly limit your internet usage on sites like these.

    Visit site, read good comments? Upvote. Read hateful comments? Well, that's the internet. Downvote or ignore and fucking leave. If you do anything other than this, and your involvement on the site isn't actually building/generating like real-life organization or action, you have a problem.

    Love ya'll but this shouldn't be a thing.

    • Janked [he/him]
      hexbear
      18
      3 years ago

      This is a really cynical take of the internet. The internet is the way it is because of decisions made by people running sites, not some Malthusian human nature bullshit.

      These behaviors can be influenced and changed by things like moderation and site features.

      Do you know how different things would be if every social media site wasn't designed to make you scroll forever and see as many ads as possible? If everything wasn't determined by "tHe AlGoRiThM" to drive engagement?

      We can change and fix these things. Hexbear/Lemmy's first mistake was trying to be like reddit instead of rethinking how users should interact entirely.

      I agree that not being terminally online and going outside is extremely good, but the internet is a huge part of people's lives and dismissing it entirely is foolish and ignores many people's material realities.

      • liberal [none/use name]
        hexagon
        A
        hexbear
        6
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        We can change and fix these things. Hexbear/Lemmy’s first mistake was trying to be like reddit instead of rethinking how users should interact entirely.

        We started with what we had and are iterating from there. We've already had a lot of success (pronoun tags and usage, removing downvotes). We'll see where things go, we're looking forward to it.