My thinking is that if certain ppl really hate hexbear or vice versa, then there's a simple solution, which is to do everyone a favor and simply ban those particular individuals. Then both instances won't have constant toxic interactions to deal with, which results in a better experience for everyone. So, I actually think this mod action was probably a YDI, simply because it's probably the best thing for both parties, though calling it a win/win might be more accurate.
Anecdotally, I don’t think there’s been nearly as much conflict between Hexbear and dbzer0 as there used to be, and I’ve had good interactions with some of your mods, admins, and users.
Yeah agreed, in general we get along just fine nowadays when we stick to our own lanes. The hexbears' who get along with us are largely already here, and vice versa. So this "drama" is mostly just white noise from folks who aren't regular instance users anyway. It's an impossible task to keep everyone happy.
I’ve also, unfortunately, seen genuine Nazi apologia on dbzer0 protected as “criticizing the soviets,” and this is where the bulk of the remaining conflict stems from.
This is unnecessary and unhelpful hyperbole imo. Our users are free to criticise the authoritarian tendencies of the former USSR, as well as of modern day Russia and China, and they are completely free to criticise the authoritarian tendencies of western nation states too. Personally, I think it's more productive to criticise rising fascism in the west, because that is a bigger and more imminent threat, at least where I live. And that is, in fact, the vast majority of stuff I've commented on or posted about. But I can also totally understand how someone with different life experiences might be more focused on Russian authoritarianism, or Soviet history or whatever. It's just not my jam.
Whenever someone like OP starts a crusade against “the tankies,” seemingly inevitably resorting to Nazi apologia, equating communists to Nazis, calling for mass violence against communists, etc, it’s entirely reasonable for the communists to be upset at that.
Yes, I agree with the general sentiment you are expressing here, if not the phrasing. McCarthyism is resurgent at the moment. A lot of establishment dems are seemingly more worried about the "red peril" than they are about Trump. I talked to one the other day who had never even heard of Joe McCarthy and assumed he was a democrat, lmao. And admittedly there are some anarchists who are also rabidly "anti-tankie", sometimes to a fault. But hey, this is the internet, and people are gonna argue about pointless stuff all day long.
There is endless leniance for these types of people here, in my experience, as long as they hide behind “criticizing the soviets.”
True, we are lenient about it because many anarchists think the USSR was a brutal authoritarian state that had few redeeming qualities. And while I agree that generations of anti communist propaganda in the west have undoubtedly contributed to that sentiment, we can't just wish it away. However, I'd say we have to moderate probably 10x more ppl for defending US/western authoritarianism nowadays than we do ppl for defending russian authoritarianism, so I think it's a bit of a lopsided criticism anyway. I'd like to think we are a fairly lenient instance in general when it comes to moderation, except for a few niche communities.