What's insulting about "struggle session"? I will concede that it was dismissive, because I was dismissing demands for immediate defederation, which contradicts our decision making process.

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Ehhh... I'll try to assume the best here and just quote what Wikipedia has to say on struggle sessions.
If you read that and still think that's an apt choice of words, then... idk? yikes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

Struggle sessions or denunciation rallies were violent public spectacles in Maoist China where people accused of being "class enemies" were publicly humiliated, accused, beaten and tortured by people with whom they were close. Usually conducted at the workplace, classrooms and auditoriums, "students were pitted against their teachers, friends and spouses were pressured to betray one another, [and] children were manipulated into exposing their parents". Staging, scripts and agitators were prearranged by the Maoists to incite crowd support. The aim was to instill a crusading spirit among the crowd to promote the Maoist thought reform. These rallies were most popular in the mass campaigns immediately before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China and during the Cultural Revolution.

Regardless of where one stands on this particular topic, I don't think this is a term we should ever want associated with anything, let alone our vote discussion threads?

The discussion should be an integral part of the vote and decision making process and to me, dismissing it or shitting on in kinda stinks up the whole thing.
Dismissal, and implying the discussion is a sham, coming from someone in a position of power... I mean yea, that's kind of insulting? — not to me, but to the ideals of this place and the agora.

I can't really know your intent, and while I prefer to assume the best, it's not really a good look.

[–] imaqtpie 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I apologize. I acquired that term from hexbear users within the past month and I hoped to send them some kind of signal that our server was receptive to their users and not immediately hostile. Unfortunately, they still chose to be immediately hostile, so that didn't work out. I was not aware of the derivation of the term, I thought it was just a zoomer term for a thread where people were flaming each other.

It actually gives me great relief to know that there is a reason why people were so upset about that term, and yet it also makes me ashamed of myself.

The discussion should be an integral part of the vote and decision making process and to me, dismissing it or shitting on in kinda stinks up the whole thing.

I completely agree. My assumption at the time was that the discussion was yet to unfold, and the thread I was linking was merely a flame war with no productive outcome. Which is technically true.

I shouldn't have used that term without researching what it means, and I probably shouldn't have agreed to federate with hexbear in the first place. But I wanted to give them a chance, because I believe in leftist ideals and I hoped they could help us.

Honestly at this point I feel like just leaving Lemmy entirely, because I'm trying to guide this community and it's just an uphill battle that I will never win. Things have gotten distinctly more tedious in the past month, and I was hoping hexbear could inject new life into the rest of Lemmy. Now, I worry about whether there even is a viable path to relevancy for us.

I appreciate the fact that at least you gave me the benefit of the doubt, unlike many others.

[–] jack 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Please don't feel ashamed... Intent matters a lot, and I see you and the mod team trying your ass off to do right by our community. You made a good faith effort to connect with a bad faith community and you honestly deserve props for trying.

At hexbear, anger, conspiracy, and disrespect for everyone else is the primary focus, and leftism is nothing more than the vehicle they choose to deliver it. They actively encourage trolling and discourage philisophical deviation beyond tokenism. They actually believe the CIA is out to get them. Anyone who's not with them is a dirty liberal, Nazi, going to the gulag, etc. It's exactly the same vocabulary and mindset as the conservative extremists, or even any religious cult. At best, they believe they need to fight fire with fire, when the better answer is to smother the fire with a blanket.

They could remake the world exactly the way they claim to want, but they'd still be dickheads. We're better off without them; I get the sense they're happier without us as well.

Thanks for trying, seriously. You make this instance a better place.

[–] imaqtpie 2 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the kind words, it really does mean a lot to me.

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