It's to keep the space normal and non-horny so people (especially women, trans comrades, etc) don't feel weirded out and have sex pests in their DMs constantly. It evolved into a running gag, because that's the most effective way to make sure people actually stick to it in terminally online spaces.
But the idea that non-horny is normal is, itself, a relic of puritanism. Keeping out sex pests is one thing, but it also keeps out good posts like @autismdragon@hexbear.net 's posts of cute anime girls and boys which keep getting removed.
Uhm mods, Kars is the ultimate lifeform meaning he can't die and therefore has no biological need to reproduce and thus has no sex or gender, therefore any image of Kars cannot violate any rules regarding pornography
Nah there are way too many sex pests in the Western left so our spaces must be stripped of personal sexualization. There is the entire rest of the internet / social club world to be horny in.
I completely disagree with this and always will. Its just Protestantism. Leftism doing Protestantism to avoid dealing with discomfort. Zoomer puritanism. The same mindset behind "no kink at pride" and god I hope you dont agree with that garbage. That shit is an insult to queer culture.
And there have been a lot of examples of it hurting queer people who aren't even directing their sexuality at other individuals for me to ignore. Like I said, my Kars thread was removed and that was about an of age JoJo character. And like the title was moderately thirsty but the discussion in the thread was all about the show and the image I used was official JoJo art that they use on the Wiki.
Twink was right and will remain right and I will carry that banner forever.
I've repeatedly had to help kick people out of orgs because they were sexually harassing people and folks here have been harassed before as well, causing them to leave. Is your desire to post about a JoJo topic more valuable than that?
I think maybe, just maybe, theres a happy medium where we can fight harassment without doing stupid shit like removing my Kars post. I also think that those things arent even necessarily connected since we've had the volcel police culture since the start and you admit yourself that people here still got harassed so????
I've been here since the beginning. Harassment has gone down significantly, though I'm not aware of any organization or forum that has ever eliminated it entirely while still having active membership. It took many fights to get people on board with the idea that their desire to horny post without any pushback is worth less than making this an unsafe place for marginalized people, as sexual objectification impacts those groups more than others due to the politics of power and sexual pathology. Fetishization, for example, is fairly rampant and ingrained even in people that do their best to avoid making others uncomfortable.
I don't know anything about your JoJo post and it doesn't really matter to me. It just seems trivializing to weigh it against people getting harassed by chasers and racial fetishizers and people who just don't know where to draw the line.
I think we do a pretty good job here, on average, of letting folks be a little horny but preventing horny posting from being officially allowed in order to prevent sex pest culture from developing. I invite you to try modding a community or subreddit and seeing the things people have to deal with when folks are more lax about this stuff. For example, blahaj.zone.
I've also been here since the beginning and my memory serves me to tell me that not only was the volcel vanguard stuff here from the start, but it was here on the subreddit.
My point in bringing up my Kars post is just an example of something that was me, a man, posting something moderatly thirsty about a male anime charachter, being removed because it was technically a horny post. Its far from the only example its just one that effected me personally. Thats not weighing it against because...
We can fight harassment and fetishization and also post something moderately thirsty about a fictional character.
And I'm sorry but even though you seem to remember a different early hexbear than I do, the fact that volcel police culture has always existed here since before hexbear even existed but harassment has still happened tells me that posting an emoji every time someone says something vaguely horny isnt actually fighting harassment.
And like you can cite marginalized groups but I know poc and/or queer people on this site who don't agree with the anti-horny culture so. One of them has even cited being harassed here before, but still thinks we need to loosen up on the volcel stuff. The "suppressing queer sexuality" argument has resonated with some queer people here. Not everyone but, we had a quality poster leave over feeling shamed for his queerness by the volcel culture. And when I posted in the megathread about my Kars post being removed, people seemed to agree with me even if the mods never did anything about it.
I actually do mod a small community where horny is explicitly allowed and theres been issues but not outsized ones. One person felt uncomfortable with another user and left and we had to figure out how to hash that out. But in like four years thats happened once. And theres been discussions a few times about what kind of horny to allow in the horny channels as well. But thats all. Its a small community sure but I'm not completely unfamiliar.
As for blahaj.zone, I only saw it a bit before defederation but I understand that the problem there is a smaller version of the problem on 196. Where the mods aren't taking action against actual confirmed chasers being chasery. The problem that a community like that is going to experience is how to allow, for example, transbians the beauty of other trans women (which is what a LOT of the posts on 196 that attract chasers seem to be initially) without attracting/allowing chasers. For me the answer on a trans focused community is not to ban transbians from vocally being attracted to other trans women. And if chasers are attracted by posts like that... y'all really think its a good idea to punish trans women for the behavior of cis chasers?
I've also been here since the beginning and my memory serves me to tell me that not only was the volcel vanguard stuff here from the start, but it was here on the subreddit.
The meme, sure. Horny posting wasn't reigned in until a little later.
And I'm sorry but even though you seem to remember a different early hexbear than I do, the fact that volcel police culture has always existed here since before hexbear even existed but harassment has still happened tells me that posting an emoji every time someone says something vaguely horny isnt actually fighting harassment.
This just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. No interventions aside from banning everyone and shutting the site down will mean harassment doesn't happen anymore. Followed to its logical conclusion, you'd be opposed to every single attempt to reign in harassment. You aren't saying we should do nothing, of course, but your logic makes no sense. I also already said this. Is there any chance you are frustrated and are responding in an escalatory way?
And like you can cite marginalized groups but I know poc and/or queer people on this site who don't agree with the anti-horny culture so.
Of course. None of those groups as monoliths, so we should expect some diversity of opinion. This is not an argument against basically anything, ever. There are pro-cop black people, sex pest trans people, Nazi Latinos, etc etc (not saying anyone you're talking about is any of those things, just pointing out that this is basically a generalization of the illogic of "I have a black friend so I can't be racist"). We should weight positions and experiences in aggregate and on what actually works or does not for our goals.
Feel free to collect your examples and present them to mods, i.e not me. I have seen far more people harassed off of the site than you've mentioned here.
I actually do mod a small community
How many active users per day?
As for blahaj.zone, I only saw it a bit before defederation but I understand that the problem there is a smaller version of the problem on 196. Where the mods aren't taking action against actual confirmed chasers being chasery. The problem that a community like that is going to experience is how to allow, for example, transbians the beauty of other trans women (which is what a LOT of the posts on 196 that attract chasers seem to be initially) without attracting/allowing chasers
They inherently run at odds and that's why those spaces are full of chasers and sexual harassment. Even if your mods do their best, the people you attract to those spaces will be more likely to be fetishizing and only there to do so and you'll only be able to remove offending content, not prevent people from initially seeing it. Also in case it's relevant, for infosec reasons in a left space we should never encourage people to post pictures of themselves, even for 100% valid affirmation.
This doesn't just apply to queer posting, it's for anyone that gets fetishized. For example, places that allow sexual posts of the most normative cis women ever also have this problem. This is before getting into the inherent challenge of supporting people while objectifying them, which I won't state a conclusion on other than to say that it can go wrong very easily.
For me the answer on a trans focused community is not to ban transbians from vocally being attracted to other trans women
I don't think that applies here, does it?
And if chasers are attracted by posts like that... y'all really think its a good idea to punish trans women for the behavior of cis chasers?
Do you think that's a fair characterization? I'll just note that one of the people we had to kick out of an irl org for harassment was exclusively t4t.
I think we're talking about different things here sort of. The blahaj/196 stuff isnt relevant to Hexbear like you said but, I completely agree that we should do what we can to curb harassment. I just dont think a lot of the cases of volcel police culture being cited are actually examples of harassment, and that embarrassing people with the meme over the kind of jokes and such they are making isnt going to help curb harassment or fetishization. Let alone actual moderator intervention (which like admittedly, I do have a specific case of what I feel was huge moderator/reporter overreach that sticks in my craw, but I had this opinion well before that happened, I just have an example now). Its just going to end up with cases like Twink where the person feels embarrassed for expressing queer sexuality and leaving the site. And like yeah, I'll admit, the fact that Twink left over that was somewhat formative for me. It upset me that our culture repressed him so much that he felt unwelcome as a queer person. Should that outweigh the people harassed off the site? No. But as I keep saying I dont think the volcel police culture actually helps with harassment that much, at least in the situations I see it being used.
So no, I'm not opposed to reigning in harassment. I disagree with how its been done. If someone directs hornyness publicly at another user, curb that. But Ive seen volcel police used in situations that arent that at all. In situations where its just repressive.
How many active users per day?
Extremally small lol. Like 20 people. Just saying I dont have no experience moderating this sort of issue because I had to mediate one mostly by myself. But a small friends server isnt the same as Hexbear, we're in agreement on that.
The VOLCEL POLICE are on the scene! PLEASE KEEP YOUR VITAL ESSENCES TO YOURSELVES AT ALL TIMES.
نحن شرطة VolCel.بناءا على تعليمات الهيئة لترويج لألعاب الفيديو و النهي عن الجنس نرجوا الإبتعاد عن أي أفكار جنسية و الحفاظ على حيواناتكم المنويَّة حتى يوم الحساب. اتقوا الله، إنك لا تراه لكنه يراك.
The VOLCEL POLICE are on the scene! PLEASE KEEP YOUR VITAL ESSENCES TO YOURSELVES AT ALL TIMES.
نحن شرطة VolCel.بناءا على تعليمات الهيئة لترويج لألعاب الفيديو و النهي عن الجنس نرجوا الإبتعاد عن أي أفكار جنسية و الحفاظ على حيواناتكم المنويَّة حتى يوم الحساب. اتقوا الله، إنك لا تراه لكنه يراك.
Oh Okay, everyone, autismdragon says it doesn't help!
I'll just pack may bags then as a queer trans woman who is a victim on sexual assaults and abuse specifically that occured from online spaces, who, upon being invited to join this community, had only one requirement "Do they tightly moderate sexual content?"
Sorry that you couldn't tell everyone how much you wanna fuck Kars. I hope you feel safe. That's really important.
Maao literally admitted that people have still gotten harassed under volcel culture. Sorry youre under the impression that me not being able to say that "i want to fuck Kars" (not what i said) somehow keeps you safe from harassment but it demonstrably doesnt.
I literally know victims who find this culture opressive and puritanical so unfortch that particular card bounces off me sorry.
Congratulations on the illusion of safety at the expense of queer people's expression though! Im sure my ability to jokingly call Kars the perfect man has a lot to do with whether you get harassed here or not. And im sure it somehow counts as the "sexual content" you wanted to avoid.
Eta: also yes as a nd queer person me feeling welcome and safe here is actually important lmao? How is that even a question?
You should be banned from this site, I recognise your username and thought I'd try reasoning before adding you to the block list but you're just as unreasonable as many other freaks online, luckily I get to cultivate my experience. Goodbye, please learn you don't matter so much.
Idk this is really ironic. We're both basing our argument on our comfort. But somehow yours matters, mine doesnt, but only i have to learn this lesson.
Nah there are way too many sex pests in the Western left so our spaces must be stripped of personal sexualization.
Problem I run into is a lot of leftist groups in the US try and throw FUN events to make the group more approachable and appealing to young people. Which is a fine recruitment tool, issue is you get a lot of young people doing fun stuff together, they're probably gonna end up being horny. People complain about the DSA being a "dating club" but if you host your recruiting event at the fucking Barcade I don't think you should be surprised when the 20-something try and fuck each other.
Can't really keep people from developing relationships in left orgs without becoming culty. You don't even need fun events for comrades to knock boots. I've seen people couple up because they worked on the same project. At the same time, those relationships are a minefield that can destroy the entire org if ensuing drama (or worse) isn't handled appropriately.
IMO a good org does sexual harassment training early and often so that people with bad habits can correct them, and people who don't want to correct them will at least fear repercussions, and those facing negative (or their comrades) attention can be equipped to handle situations deftly and know the org will have their back.
Anyways yeah DSA has that reputation. It's also mostly white dudes, and I think that is both a symptom and a cause, as those facing harassment and not having their concerns taken seriously are less likely to be white dudes.
I think it's good to make an org be one where people are not sexualized by default, they feel safe organizing without that being put on them, and an anti-sexual harassment culture prevails. That's the goal I shoot for.