Now that the old Hexbear fork has been officially abandoned, this community will be used as a space for meta-discussion on the site itself.
I don't think I really need to explain much, their admins are transphobic. 
https://hexbear.net/post/1587342
Snowe, an admin, complained about a transgender person being offended over being misgendered. Ategon made an apology post but keeps snowe on, no public apologies from snowe to the transgender people affected.
Textbook 
note: conversation about Ategon's use of the word triggered edited out, might be misunderstanding, need clarified
They're probably just jealous that all the best programmers are trans
Programming.dev admins layering on programming socks like WHY ISNT IT WORKING 
Isn't it funny how the anti-"tankies" are always the most bigoted people?
how does all this fascism keep getting into my anticommunism?!
<---me and the huge fucking mess i've caused
your posts are great. please don't stop. 
hexbear is so transphobic with the uhhhh unlimited love and support it shows to trans people 
really burying the lede that one of their admins loves the harry potter and the protocols of the elder goblins game, that's reason to defed alone
yeah, not meaning to do that on purpose, im well aware, im just a sleepy lady and didnt want to type much but i have duped myself once again 
pretty good chance if you come across a programming.dev user commenting on hexbear it'll be some reactionary shit, too
given the comments are far worse than what the admins have said, yep
Death to programming
except the cool kind 
programming should be a profession in the way writing is. The only reason it's not a universal skill is because the field is full of manchildren who either fetishize shitty technology from the 70s for aesthetic reasons or don't actually know how to code so they build 15 layers of abstractions on top of eachother and 90% of the effort is spent dealing with the garbage these people spew out.
This whole programming thing is boring and looks like it takes too much effort to learn for too little benefit for the average person. Just replace them with the cool trans programmers tbh.
That place is absolutely the personification of 
If there's one lesson to be learned from federation, it's that shitty admins lead to shitty instances.
It was also always sus that they blocked a bunch of our comms by default
Also why is the other admin putting out this statement? Is the snowe still seething and crying too much to apologize?
i dont understand why we're federated with hacker news fuckos in the first place, they should stick to the orange site where they belong.
This genuinely read to me as them using "triggered" in the other sense, like "caused," as gets used in programming speak sometimes. I would never try to argue this as being true because I feel silly in retrospect, but just thought I'd share.
yeah now that two people have said it, gonna edit it out. i feel like this is my brain doing some weird flips, czechs hell of a drug
Your reading is very reasonable (I think that a general audience of native English speakers would be split on the which sense was being used), so there's no need to blame yourself either way.
nah they're referring to branches of a comment thread being "triggered" in the colloquial sense unless i'm misunderstanding the narrative around the images I can't see (and won't bother going to programming.dev to see)
chuds suck at coding
I don't even have to look but you know it's true
I read Ategon's post and while I appreciate their attempt at reconciliation(?), when you look at the actual internal changes they're making:
- admins will be required to have two accounts, one for admin activities and one for non admin activities. This is how some admins have already been interacting in the fediverse and basically makes it so comments done on the non-admin account should not be taken as that admin speaking on behalf of the instance. Generally the admin account will be things done relating to admin duties (e.g. my posts here in meta) while the non-admin account is other various conversations. Admins can be as anonymous as they want with the non-admin account similar to how our users here can be as anonymous as they want with their accounts
- im adding in some guidelines for tone while chatting for the admins so comments made that are on behalf of the instance should be respectful and not devolve to slap fights
Adopting an official policy of making admins use alt accounts for "non-admin activities" (which includes posting problematic garbage) doesn't seem to address any of the problems that led to this, other than allowing the instance additional plausible deniability for their admin's behavior. Really doesn't seem very transparent to me.
I'd rather know what the admins of an instance stand for and are all about by their posts, so I can make an informed decision before engaging with any of the comms on their instance.
The two account situation is to solve another issue with the situation which is taking things admins say as speaking on behalf of the instance due to all comments getting marked with the admin or mod flair. If they post things breaking instance rules on there they will still be handled. Im going to be refining the guidebook more with things like intended conduct on all accounts just havent fleshed out the specific sections yet
But yeah last paragraph is fair. Typically what I try to convey with the rules in the site sidebar so people dont have to dig around for stuff and can see what we handle on the instance but yeah not every opinion can be conveyed in instance rules
ok but the transphobia is completely not ok and the actual issue that needs to be handled.
To be fair,
They're throwing snowe under the bus and openly blame them for it further down. This is a bit of context that I guess is kinda excusing it, although in my opinion your third party program messing up an interaction with someone is a problem that could easily be resolved by realizing you made a mistake and fixing it, which snowe of course didn't do. So maybe they're giving too much credit to a bad admin but I don't think they're really defending the behavior.
I think the triggered has an unclear antecedent, but I read it as "a branch of the conversation was triggered (as in caused/set off)" not "a user was triggered."
That said, I don't really have strong feelings about programming.dev. They don't seem to show up here much but it's a mixed bag when they do.
hm i guess 
i havent seen anyone say those words that way. also got a minor case of bilingual brain so that might be it too. continuing to keep someone on the admin team that did that and still has yet to apologize to the people affected is a dick move, still.
regardless, the comments are a cesspool in that thread, grounds enough to defed imo
It would be a weird usage, but people definitely use in a comparable way when talking about video games (event flags and such), so a programmer would be the one to make that stylistic oversight. I can't tell you it's definitely what the admin meant, but it's worth asking.
Some rules lawyer is gonna say this has to be in the official defederation nomination thread so I'll go ahead and paste it there.
i always fuck this up lmao
Hey im Ategon, wanted to clarify some things about the situation
Used triggered in the sense I typically do with coding which is the action of triggering an event to occur. Ive edited it to started to make it more clear
snowe currently has limited internet which is mostly why ive been handling everything and im the one doing things like making the posts, etc. I was able to talk with him about the situation but there hasnt really been time for him to publicly talk about it properly
the comment from snowe was due to it not being relevant to the initial argument rather than targeting the content of the pronoun response itself, It is ambiguous when reading though. Ive been mostly talking to blahaj for now since thats been taking all my free time for the start of the day but im going to say here sorry to you guys as well for this situation happening since it was mostly hexbear users in the conversation
Used triggered in the sense I typically do with coding which is the action of triggering an event to occur. Ive edited it to started to make it more clear
Gotcha, thanks.
the comment from snowe was due to it not being relevant to the initial argument rather than targeting the content of the pronoun response itself, It is ambiguous when reading though. Ive been mostly talking to blahaj for now since thats been taking all my free time for the start of the day but im going to say here sorry to you guys as well for this situation happening since it was mostly hexbear users in the conversation
I can accept this partially (and will only agree to it if the other trans people in that thread, principally of which, @Kuori@hexbear.net, agrees to accept it) , though the comments in the instance admin thread are vile, and many are attacking @Kuori@hexbear.net and calling her an idiot or a troll for wanting to be gendered correctly. Will this be rectified, will bans be handed out to obvious transphobes?
i think it's reasonable to accept @Ategon@hexbear.net's apology here. they seem to be operating in good faith, despite their...let's call it potentially incautious word choices. that said, two(ish) things:
firstly, while i don't care if people insult me on a personal level (most of you are well aware civility is not high on my list of concerns), the attitude towards trans people's concerns in the linked thread is not encouraging. calling me an idiot is fine, i'll cop to that and gladly so. but letting blatantly false accusations like "hexbear people aren't even trans! actually they're transphobic" stand is flatly not. as well, the cries of "i can't believe blahaj is defeding us over such inconsequential matters!" don't speak well of some of the users over on .dev.
secondly, some of our users (like you and cromalin but emphatically not me!) spent a lot of effort trying to educate snowe, only to get back a load of arrogant horseshit. rather than apologizing to any of the people actually involved, snowe chose to...apologize to the admin of a completely unrelated instance? to make myself perfectly clear: i don't necessarily feel entitled to any sort of apology, but i do think if apologies are going to be handed out then a) snowe should be the one doing the apology tour and b) it should be towards our users, since they were the ones actually involved (as ategon acknowledged here). as far as my personal involvement in the matter, i'd just want snowe to stop and listen to trans people when a bunch of us are all saying the same thing. i understand my attitude towards them set an antagonistic tone but stubbornly digging in your heels when marginalized people are trying to explain something they know more about than you do is Not Good. since snowe seems to view themselves as being an "ally" i hope this is something they internalize sooner rather than later.
i'd also like to genuinely apologize to the folks here for sparking off such a firestorm. i can't help but feel this could have been at least partially avoided if i had maybe chosen to pump the brakes a little bit and been less aggressive out of the gate. it's...something i'm working on.
(sorry too if any of this is unclear or rambling, it's 4 am and i'm the living dead)
To your first point: I'm glad it wasn't just me. reading through that thread was mildly upsetting. Just more "damn those sensitive trans."
it's definitely not just you! it is gross and very telling as to the general attitude over there
i honestly think that's more concerning than my dust-up with their admin bc changing an individual's mind is far easier than changing the mindset of an entire community. without a concerted moderation effort like we had during the great transphobe purge i unfortunately don't really see it improving
Im trying to deal with the situation but this has been a pain to try to manage especially since its workdays, going to try to deal with the uncivil comments in the thread. Usually we do a multiple strike system for this kind of thing since people can change
The comment that was removed was:
Wow this Kuori person is a massive idiot. They to refer to a 3rd party is basic English.
You gave the reason for its removal as:
be civil, you have a point but you dont have to call someone an idiot for it
What do you mean by this? In what way does this transphobe have a point?
Usually we do a multiple strike system for this kind of thing since people can change
Something that takes months to years is not a particularly safe practice for marginalised people. It's really an either/or issue, either you're making a space safe for marginalised people, or you're providing protection to bigots.
Put another way - your benchmark for your "safe" environment to marginalised people becomes however many times you've decided it's ok for someone to harm a marginalised person until you ban them. What is the benchmark? Harming 1 marginalised person? 2? 3? How many marginalised people do you think is reasonable to get hurt and still call any given space safe for the marginalised?
I know you won't particularly like this framing, but it's a pretty fair way to frame it if you want to understand the perspective of those on the receiving end.
I appreciate the workload thing, genuinely. that said, this isn't the first time we've run into transphobia from snowe. and generally, asking minorities who are already being targeted by the society at large to suffer more in what should be a safe space in order to protect the feelings of someone in the majority just flatly sucks. in the politest terms, I encourage you to reflect on this.
that thread has unmoderated speculation about whether or not we're actually trans - an accusation we all receive from medical professionals, right-wing political actors, and our own abusive families. it's triggering for a lot of us. an admin for your instance setting it all off by telling us what we should and shouldn't be hurt by is a nasty cherry on a shit cake. does your instance stand up to protect the marginalized or will you allow latent bigotry to drive us all out?
these are real questions you need to answer for yourself - not us. if you fail to act, you will not have any trans or otherwise queer users (except those who make alts for specific purposes). is that the kind of community you wish to foster - one that exists purely for cishet white dudes hot off of reddit and the orange hellsite? moderation is a powerful tool you can actually use to shape your community - it neither stunts growth nor speech. the people you drive away are people you almost certainly don't want to attract - you're going to have a nazi bar problem. excessive tolerance for the intolerant only engenders intolerance.
Your transphobe partner should apologize and step down rather than having you do it.
It's cowardly and pathetic.
once again I am proven right about bazingas.
I'm willing to hear Ategon out in this thread but generally agree. barring substantial changes in policy, we should defederate.