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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.
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I gotta say as a participant in a lot of these sessions, and I know this sounds funny or stereotypical, but...
Most strugglesessions I've experienced happens because of the following- People disagree on something minor
- Mods take one side
- The side with the mods make low-effort posts dunking on the others, while claiming the others are just [insert baseless accusation] + mad + infants (we love our casual ableism folks)
- The other side, being met with increasing hostility and dismissal are getting increasingly frustrated and desperate as they are still not being met, despite making great efforts to have their POV understood
- Mods ban one or two of the worst offenders of their preferred side, and a bunch from the others until the thing dies down
- Things die down
- People ask questions about what happened
- Mods remove any mention that does not support the narrative that their side was rational under cover of "avoiding metaposting"/"no relitigatin past strugglesessions"
- ND users especially are fucked because they don't understand what they did wrong
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My understanding is that struggle sessions are rarely one-sided, they're a feedback loop of escalation, hurt, and defensiveness in which all sides contribute. In this session, for example, there were comments accusing the mods of being a cabal of power-seeking transphobes. That's an escalation that shuts down discussion rather than fosters it.
I make the analogy that, just as revolutions tend to be chaotic and bloody regardless of their ideological content—libs conveniently forget how mess the French revolution was—struggle sessions have their own realities independent of the specific topic and specific people involved. The same unstable feedback loops arise in any struggle session.
My takeaway is that, in general, looking past this specific struggle session, we all have to work together to foster healthier discussion dynamics here.
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My understanding is that struggle sessions are rarely one-sided, they're a feedback loop of escalation, hurt, and defensiveness in which all sides contribute.
I completely agree, I tried to illustrate that loop.
In this session, for example, there were comments accusing the mods of being a cabal of power-seeking transphobes.
No there weren't, that's a reductive representation of the position the "dunking is not inherently a cishet white man thing" people held.
No one, except for the mods have talked about "shadowy cabals running the whole thing". I've talked about there being a clique of mods whipping up a frenzy in the private modchat, not a shadowy cabal of transphobes. I - and others - have talked about there being a separate culture in the modchat, between some of the mods in the modteam. Not some deepstate of evil wreckers trying their best to misgender users from the shadows.
I and others have talked about how the modresponse was bioessentialist and how the mods subsequently misgendered people, though not on purpose, but by way of their rhetoric. Which did happen. Nobody called them transphobic, except for the misunderstanding when alaskaball banned themselves and people - who at this point were pissed at being banned "as a bit" (really for disagreeing with TC69) and infantilized - interpreted "fella" as being misgendering, which I don't see, but I wasn't there.I make the analogy that, just as revolutions tend to be chaotic and bloody regardless of their ideological content—libs conveniently forget how mess the French revolution was—struggle sessions have their own realities independent of the specific topic and specific people involved. The same unstable feedback loops arise in any struggle session.
I agree in part, but I disagree with the "both sides are equally to blame" framing I interpret from your text. Following your analogy: The french revolution could have been avoided if the royalists weren't dumbasses who ignored and suppressed their subjects until it got to be too much. This analogy is obviously flawed since I've got loads of bread and I don't have to post here. I can just go elsewhere or disappear. Also I can't be killed thru the screen, yet.
My takeaway is that, in general, looking past this specific struggle session, we all have to work together to foster healthier discussion dynamics here
My takeaway is that we have to look at what happened and finally confront the current structure of moderation of hexbear is one that is inherently flawed.
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No there weren't, that's a reductive representation... [paragraph I'm still wrapping my head around]
Sorry if I got it wrong. I don't have a very good understanding of what happened.
That said, I'm not here to re-litigate the details of what happened. I probably shouldn't have tried to find a real example.
My point is that the thread was not a functional discussion. People were escalating and not listening.
Following your analogy: The french revolution could have been avoided if the royalists weren't dumbasses
My analogy is that certain situations have their own emergent properties, not that the causes of a revolution can be mapped to the causes of a struggle session. I'm talking about the chaos itself.
Struggle sessions and revolutions are both examples of situations that gain a life of their own. Emergent effects dominate over the desires of the participants. No one's in control of the situation.
My takeaway is that we have to look at what happened and finally confront the current structure of moderation of hexbear is one that is inherently flawed.
That might well be, but I hope we can talk about it slowly and patiently from here on out.
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Sorry if I got it wrong.
Don't apologise for not being online enough. Honestly sorry for getting it "right".
but people absolutely were escalating
Definitely agree
I'm talking about the chaos itself.
Makes way more sense for me now, thank you for the clarifyer.
I hope we can talk about it slowly and patiently from here on out.
Personally I feel like things would work out if we just got even meaner and more hostile from hereon out (tone: joking)
Really though, I genuinely hope so too. I am really happy with how it has been handled since lyudmila started posting.
I don't have a very good understanding of what happened.
:cognitohazard: <- Click for knowledge that damages your mind as if it was eldritch, but you don't get any cool powers from it
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Really though, I genuinely hope so too. I am really happy with how it has been handled since lyudmila started posting.
Yeah, me too, it's a relief to see people decompress and process things now that the action is over. I just wish we could have moved at this pace from the start.
I've gotten so much out of this site over the years, I hope we can keep things going here for many years to come.
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We might benefit from a new thread mode for conflicts. "Slow mode" or "struggle session mode" or "effortposts only mode."
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This is a great idea, seconding slow mode for threads when a struggle is kicking off
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Someone should make a feature request on lemmy's github
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Can we get a "piggy slop" mode too for all of us struggle lovers?
(tone: joking. I did not enjoythe arguments. I thought I would just write one post giving my thoughts and then it all went to shit)
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My suggestions all sound really obvious, but they're obvious because we've all heard them before, because they actually work:
- Recognize that a struggle session is happening
- Slow the fuck down so there's time for real dialogue
- Actually earnestly try to understand where people are coming from, be curious about the human—which takes time, hence bullet 2.
- Don't throw personal attacks, because the other person will defend themself by throwing more personal attacks, in an endless feedback loop
- Don't respond to personal attacks with more personal attacks, de-escalate by acknowledging the other person
- Be patient, because communicating is hard. Not everyone can get everything out in a single perfect effortpost.
- 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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I fully agree
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576 comments