We should defederate from programming.dev

I don't think I really need to explain much, their admins are transphobic.

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

You're viewing a single thread.

96 comments

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
  
  Ive been trying to improve things but yeah if you guys feel like it would be an issue that comes up again between the communities youre free to handle federation however you want including defederating from us. Just been trying to make that not happen due to misunderstandings and things were improving. Im going to be adding a conduct guide in the future for our members the follow on a supporting site and hopefully get more people around to manage things
  There are a lot of people in other instances in that thread as well (a lot of which you guys wont see comments from in posts in the instance anyways due to them not being on the whitelist even before it gets looked at by mods) and within the instance usually this isnt an issue before this case but we generally try to leave things for mods to deal with if possible to help admins with all of the tasks so things can be less strict sometimes (especially if not reported)
  Edit: also note im reading and taking into account all the things you guys are saying in the thread, just dont have time to respond to everyone
  
  for what it's worth i do see you making a genuine effort. regardless of how things pan out, i appreciate that your response hasn't been "lol fuck off [slurs]" or getting defensive.
  
  Yeah at the end of the day everyones human and we all should try to get along as much as possible including refining our current stances/ways we deal with things in the presence of new info rather than ad hominem people. Usually theres a lot of ideas brought up that one person themselves doesnt think of so trying to discuss and get those ideas. Been getting a lot of negative sentiment in this situation while doing so so might have to just heads down work on improvements for a bit now to improve on my mental health and just get some meditation working time but if anyone needs to get into contact with me for something you want to bring up feel free to dm my programming.dev account at @Ategon@programming.dev . Thanks everyone thats been giving stuff for me to think about in the thread already as well.
  
  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?
  
  sorry my bad with that wording. Point there is referring to them having a point they are attempting to argue which is the second part of that comment (the they section). Point in the context just refers to an argument rather than the supporting of an argument. Realize now that it can be interpreted pretty differently from what i intended edit: updated it to just be the be civil part
  
  😤
  
  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.
  
  can you link me to those comments with the speculation about that. I dealt with things but might have missed some of them but ive been trying to juggle doing a lot of things rn and they havent been sent into the reports
  
  I'm sorry but no, I'm not going back into that thread. it was painful to read the first time and I'm not wading back into it. this also misses the point of what I said.
  
  fair, I can check it over when im off work to see what I missed. We are attempting to improve things about how we deal with the actions and admin conduct in the future and im taking feedback here as well as in the other threads into account to help improve how we handle things in the future to refine the current stance on how we deal with them (including ways we deal with them Ive said in the past in this thread + some other areas, to look at and see if that can be improved which its been pointed out it can)
  
  I'm not sure if this is what she's referring to, but from here
  this post in particular it pissed me off specifically because it was up for like 12 hours, and when it was removed, the reason this comment was removed seemed like it was dancing around what the actual problem with the comment was:
  reason: please dont insigate conflict between instances here
  Is the problem that it's instigating a conflict or that it is itself an expression rooted in transphobia which is provoking a response from users if it's not addressed by mods? Because as I see it this is actually a violation of user rules of both blahaj + programming.dev but because the target is acceptable (those hexbear tankies) it gets a blind eye until we make it an issue.
  
  The comment there broke two rules, just chose one for the reason. Other one (transphobia) was more relevant to the comment itself and probably should have done that in the box, just been mostly trying to deal with things quick
  Went through the reports including that one mostly at the same time when I got free time to do so which is why it took a bit
  
  That's good to hear, I appreciate the difficulty in moderating, it's a lot of (unpaid) work. I did find the response upsetting, but the person in question has since apologized.
  
  🥰
- Your transphobe partner should apologize and step down rather than having you do it.
  It's cowardly and pathetic.

96 comments