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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Lyudmila@hexbear.net to c/main@hexbear.net

Hey, everyone. Hope this post finds you all well! A few days ago, PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS opened a comm request thread to name the community formerly known as The Dredge Tank. Now that it's been about 4 days and the votes seem pretty steady, we're rea-

angry-place "STOP THE COUNT!!!"

top-cop "Mr. President, she's talking."

As I was saying, we're ready to call the vote. Nobody's been happy with counterpropaganda, and we've heard you loud and clear. I'm excited to announce that Slop. is now open for all the posts you'd have previously posted to The Dredge Tank.

El Chisme continues to remain the new space for posts that would have been at home in The Dunk Tank.

In case anyone's confused about this, I'm gonna give a really quick explanation so everyone's on the same page with what's going on with the Tanks. The names of The Dunk Tank and The Dredge Tank have racist origins. The moderators of those communities agreed that the names of these communities should be changed. Unfortunately, while Lemmy allows the display names of communities to be changed, it does not currently allow the actual comm names to be changed. In order to change the names of these communities, we would have to shut them down and re-open new comms under new names. The mods of the dunk tank and dredge tank requested the name c/gossip. While there are some legitimate arguments being made relating to misogynistic societal perceptions of that word, the mods include women and enbies who disagree and specifically requested this name. I feel that this situation parallels the initial pushback that was experienced with disabled in which users voiced concerns that this name could be ableist, but the moderators of that community are themselves disabled and specifically requested that comm name, verbatim. Along with this name change, the mods felt that slightly expanding the scope of the community and simultaneously lowering the bar for the previous Rule 8 would allow users to post about more minor public figures as well as more major ones. This was seen as an expansion of the community's role, allowing posts to the new Dredge Tank replacement (counterpropaganda) to become a little more focused. We communicated this poorly, but the intention was to have users offer a sentence or two countering the reactionary take shown in the screenshot. Given how things spiraled from there, we've taken a step back from changing any of the rules during the switchover from The Dredge tank to Slop. We're trying to take time to let everyone breathe without changing too many things too quickly, but we also want to actually make sure people can get back to posting. Hopefully you're all okay with this pacing, lemme know below.


EDIT: thanks to @niph@hexbear.net for pointing out that this post didn't include the descriptions of the comms.

Where am I supposed to post...?

Slop is for what the old dredge_tank was like. Roast anonymous reactionaries to your heart's content!

Gossip for an informal discussion regarding people with power / notable / tools of power

Counterprop for a formalized discussion regarding reactionary people no matter how powerful/notable.


In upcoming admin updates:

  • I'll post some analysis of mistakes and missteps that were made in recent days, including some of the context that led up to those errors.

  • I'll offer a clearer and more complete explanation and description of the ongoing site culture issues that have been previously mentioned. These were poorly communicated before, but I'll do my best to explain both the issues at hand as well as the importance of dealing with them.

The last few days have been really confusing and frustrating for a lot of people and a lot has happened. This is not an appropriate place to reopen, re-litigate, or rehash the struggle session. I will not be debating either the struggle session or the subjects of the upcoming admin update posts here. Please refrain from doing so as well.


trump-feed "Folks, we're feeding the fish their slop, they're tremendously hungry, incredibly famished. And look: I get to feed them. They say: Mr President, please feed the koi fish, its din din time, and it is! I get to do the little shaka-shaka with the can, and they're happy, they're eating -they're eating- out of the palm of my hand, and they're getting so big and so strong. Look at all these koi fish! I bet they won't have any issues finding -finding- a special someone. And it's wonderful, it's great. Greydon Carter could never be a tremendously effective keeper of fish. His party is not so hot, and all of his betta fishes are dying! But Lyudmila's letting me feed them, and I'm doing a tremendously great job, and a looot better than what Sleepy Joe would do!"

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[-] yoink@hexbear.net 71 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I wasn't going to relitigate this, because I'm tired boss, but I still have to say, even translated to another language, I still don't agree with renaming it to gossip or any equivalent. In addition, this:

While there are some legitimate arguments being made relating to misogynistic societal perceptions of that word, the mods include women and enbies who disagree and specifically requested this name. I feel that this situation parallels the initial pushback that was experienced with disabled in which users voiced concerns that this name could be ableist, but the moderators of that community are themselves disabled and specifically requested that comm name, verbatim.

is exactly why this should have been put to a vote. Why do their voices and preferences matter more than mine? Especially considering at least one of the mods has already admitted they don't even like the thing they're in charge of? Not to mention that, whether intentionally or not, all users are relegated again to some mass of people, while the mods get the nuance of being part of these minority groups - why isn't it noted that the 'legitimate arguments' were also coming from women and enby users? And this parallel you're trying to draw comes off as essentially 'anybody arguing against this is clearly not informed or from the minority group affected', again whether you intend it to or not. Not to mention, if you accept them as legitimate arguments, why are they being cast aside for the personal preference of a handful of mods?

I really think yall have a lot of learning to do.

Editting to add: the more I think on this, the more this whole thing is baffling. We're seriously going to replace 'dunk tank' because of it's racial connotations, and we're going to rename it some variation of 'gossip' in spite of it's sexist connotations. What are we doing here?

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[-] DengistDonnieDarko@hexbear.net 62 points 2 weeks ago

"gossip" is a bad name. misogynistic overtones aside, it's just a terrible name. surely, we can think of something better.

[-] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 53 points 2 weeks ago

Honestly, the main reason why I don't like /c/gossip is because the gossipers and the gossipee have to be socially connected. The information passed on between the two gossipers is also supposed to be relatively unknown.

If I'm talking shit about our shitty boss with a fellow coworker, that's gossip.

If I'm talking shit about a professor with a fellow classmate who has never met the professor before, that counts as gossip if the classmate has a good chance of taking a course taught by the professor.

If I'm talking shit about Elon Musk with a fellow shitposter, that's just talking shit about a random (famous) person. That isn't gossip.

To me, /c/gossip sounds more like a drama comm for current struggle sessions or infighting between lemmy instances. So, the entire 4(?) day struggle session or the 1000+ brigade^TM^ of some random lemm.ee post would fit right in. "Spill the tea, sis" doesn't apply to famous people because they're, well, famous.

[-] niph@hexbear.net 38 points 2 weeks ago

It just doesn’t do a good job of describing the intended content of the comm. “Gossip” generally means interesting stories about celebrities’ lives, and isn’t really precise enough imo. Having a comm called “gossip” that is entirely full of dunks would probably contribute to the perception of a toxic site culture rather than detract.

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[-] ourtimewillcome@hexbear.net 60 points 2 weeks ago

While there are some legitimate arguments being made relating to misogynistic societal perceptions of that word, the mods include women and enbies who disagree and specifically requested this name. I feel that this situation parallels the initial pushback that was experienced with disabled in which users voiced concerns that this name could be ableist, but the moderators of that community are themselves disabled and specifically requested that comm name, verbatim.

am i fuckin reading this correctly??? only because some of the people were women and/or enbies, their decisions are now supposed to be the pinnacle of wisdom and uncontestable?

i know that the mods are meaning no harm, i had nothing but positive experiences with them before this whole debacle started, and OP in particular has genuinely been really great at clearing up the current situation, thank you for that, BUT BEING PART OF A MINORITY GROUP DOESN'T ABSOLVE YOU OF BEING WRONG AND JUST REALLY INSENSITIVE IN THIS PARTICULAR SITUATION! all this is a little bit similar to certain trans people stating that they are okay with the t-slur being used on the internet, and while im sure nobody harbors this kind of sentiment in here, i hope this shows what harmful pitfalls this "im Part of a minority group, therefore im right"-thinking can bring.

so to reiterate from my removed thread:

  • The term "gossip" has a long history of being weaponized against women, particularly in ways that diminish their voices and portray them as trivial, unimportant, or malicious when engaging in communication or expressing themselves. This cultural baggage doesn’t disappear just because a few people choose to reclaim or adopt the term in a specific context. By using it, the forum risks perpetuating a stereotype that affects gender and sexual minorities who are already marginalized, especially when used as the name of a community meant to serve them.

  • some folks from marginalized groups, might want to take back words that have been thrown at them, but it’s a pretty complex thing to do. reclaiming those words means being really aware of how it affects others, especially in places that aim to be welcoming. just picking up a term because some people in the community are cool with it doesn’t really consider the real damage that word might still do to others in that same group. like, using the word "gossip" might give off the vibe that this place isn’t really serious about tackling the bigger issues of sexism that are still out there in society.

  • hexbear communities should be all about making sure everyone feels respected and supported, especially those who have often been overlooked. using a word like "gossip" might accidentally push away folks who think it's disrespectful or plays into negative stereotypes about them. Even if some people who identify as women or genderqueer, might not see the term the same way, their views can really depend on their own experiences and privileges.

  • one of the key things to building a welcoming space is to watch the words we use, since some can hurt people, even if we don't mean to. just because some folks in the group are cool with certain words doesn’t mean they’re okay for everyone. If we want our community to feel safe and inclusive, we need to think about how our words affect everyone and steer clear of terms that can be harmful.

tldr: it is great that racist terms like the_x_tank are being purged from the site, but it is absolutely not great that potentially sexist terms are being used as a substitute.

[-] yoink@hexbear.net 43 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In all of this, not once have we gotten an explanation of why it HAS to be gossip, or why gossip doesn't have the connotations that we keep arguing it does. The most we get is 'we don't think it's that bad'. You'd think that if there was such a strong case for it despite all the protest against it, it would be easy to put together a comment explaining the logic, but not once has that happened, and at this point I don't think we're going to be told.

In all honesty, it's starting to feel less like they don't think it has the baggage it does, and instead they're fully aware but just really, really want to call it that anyway, everyone else's feelings be damned. I don't want to be cynical, but absent literally any explanation what am I supposed to think?

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[-] Yukiko@hexbear.net 34 points 2 weeks ago

BEING PART OF A MINORITY GROUP DOESN'T ABSOLVE YOU OF BEING WRONG

It does here on occasion. In my experience in the past, it can completely shield someone that should've absolutely been banned, but wasn't. In the situation I speak of, my opinion was invalidated because I'm white and they were a POC. I was completely unaware this individual was a POC to begin with, just that they were spewing toxic shit into the comm I was in and that I would ban in a heartbeat if they weren't a mod. I'm still extremely sour about it to this day because that person 100% should've been thrown out.

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[-] HidamariSou@hexbear.net 58 points 2 weeks ago
[-] niph@hexbear.net 51 points 2 weeks ago

The mods of the dunk tank and dredge tank requested the name c/gossip. While there are some legitimate arguments being made relating to misogynistic societal perceptions of that word, the mods include women and enbies who disagree and specifically requested this name.

A few thoughts on this.

First of all, I don’t think this was intentional but using the phrase “women and enbies” in this context can come across as erasure of non-binary identity by implying that it’s akin to “woman lite” - I run a space for people of marginalised genders and this was one of the early lessons we learned, so just passing it on.

Secondly, that female and NB mods suggested a name does not absolve it of flaws or reduce the perception/propagation of misogynistic implications. The majority of people using or seeing the comm won’t know the backstory behind it, and valid concerns about how off-putting the name is shouldn’t be swept aside for these reasons.

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[-] ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net 48 points 2 weeks ago

Calling it now, counterpropaganda and gossip/el chisme are going to die off and leave slop as a pre-rule 8 dunk tank.

Changing the names is necessary but it should have just been new names that clearly communicate the same intent or content, like The Septic Tank or Barbara Pit. Counterprop isn't going to get much but effort posts about actual propaganda, because the tanks have never focused on specifically countering posts, just mocking them. Gossip sounds like it would either be a celebrity comm or another c/Main, and I'm definitely going to keep forgetting which comm it's replacing. They're bad names that make the intents of the comms unclear and won't have the intended effect on site culture, they'll just change which comm the posts are on.

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[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 37 points 2 weeks ago

Slop is cool by me, I don't really care about the name thing, it was how everything else went down after that is a real burr under my saddle, i don't think using the Spanish term for gossip really is better tho.

That being said, I didn't even know there was a vote and it's my weekend and I've been at least checking in on my phone here every hour or two today. I'm not unsubbed from anything so it seems odd it didn't show up on my feed ever. I also browse new

[-] MaoTheLawn@hexbear.net 37 points 2 weeks ago

counterpropaganda is alright

slop is good

gossip is shit

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[-] Bureaucrat@hexbear.net 33 points 2 weeks ago

I ain't reading all this. You should have come to us bureaucrats for advice first smdh.

JK, love you all! But I'm too busy with the bureaucracy to read this now.

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[-] iByteABit@hexbear.net 32 points 2 weeks ago

Gossip just seems like a sucky name that isn't exactly what we do in the tanks, but whatever. I'm glad this is finally settled and the mods have followed through with the community feedback, it's finally time for our slop now

yummy

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[-] anaesidemus@hexbear.net 32 points 2 weeks ago

Hoggers As a newshog I like the word slop very much. I would like to suggest that slop be appended to every comm. Main slop. News slop. Neurodiverse slop. Slop slop. Gossip slop. and so on

I don't love keeping the name as gossip, nor do I think the parallel is very strong but that is a struggle session for another time. I'm just glad this is over.

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[-] JustSo@hexbear.net 31 points 2 weeks ago

Not retaining the tank part of the name is very short sighted. We're going to look back and wish we had tanks, comrades.

t34

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[-] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 31 points 2 weeks ago
[-] Mindfury@hexbear.net 38 points 2 weeks ago

yeah, the final chapter is we all became bureaucrat

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[-] Hexboare@hexbear.net 30 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Edit: deleted the post, I don't care anymore and will just block the gossip community

Edit 2: I finally understood the purpose of the gossip community as a seperate community with the different function to the old tanks. I don't love the name but I have called myself a gossipmonger so will unblock.

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[-] NewAcctWhoDis@hexbear.net 30 points 2 weeks ago

This is not an appropriate place to reopen, re-litigate, or rehash the struggle session.

Since that thread is now locked, is there a place that can be discussed?

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[-] Bureaucrat@hexbear.net 28 points 2 weeks ago

I'm upvoting everything here because I just want us all to get along doggirl-thumbsup

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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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