Skip Navigation
Remote View
Post on Main like it's the end of hexbear @hexbear.net
CARCOSA [mirror/your pronouns] @hexbear.net

On Mega-threads

Hello users of hexbear after some discussion we mainly wanted to get your thoughts on the two pinned megathreads, one general and one news.

We've noticed that the news mega has basically become the general mega and the general mega has kinda slowed. Some are thinking that it might be time to tell people to stop posting random shit to the news mega because some appreciate the ever so slightly more serious, focused tone of the news mega

As of now there is not much of a standard for comments however we wanted to discuss with you regarding making a change. Where the news megathread is for discussion on current events and their history/implications for future while the general megathread is for commenting on one's life, interests, or for shit-posting.

This would result in the news megathread being more heavily moderated to actively remove comments that are a better fit for the general megathread or off topic.

Please comment with any thoughts, opinions, comments, questions, or concerns.

125 comments

  • Keep both but disallow off topic shitposting in news mega. On topic shitposting should be legal.

    • This is my take

    • If we're tallying the opinions here, I agree that this would be the ideal situation. Shitposting should be fine and accepted in the newsmega so long as it's news-related, at least tangentially. There should also still be a completely separate megathread for general socializing, posting random thoughts, or whatever people want to say. One thread is for talking specifically about news, if it's not always serious discussion, and another thread where people can just hang out, shoot the shit, or let off steam. Pretty much how it was most of the time since the founding of the newsmega as more than just an ongoing Ukraine thread

    • Legalize it

    • +1

  • Perhaps some perspective will help, because it is important to understand why we have the news megathread on Hexbear in the first place.

    The news mega started off as Ukraine war daily megathread when Russia invaded Ukraine back in February 2022.

    I don’t know if people still remember, but 2021 Hexbear was largely dominated by US-centric posts, many of which related to electoralism and soc dem related news in America (Bernie was still our socdem grandpa who got shoved by the DNC back then).

    As the war in Ukraine dragged on beyond the first few weeks, people started to post about news and reactions from their respective countries in the Ukraine megathread, and the discussions that ensued attracted more international (non-US based) Hexbear users who gravitate towards non-US-centric news to congregate around the megathread and exchange their views.

    Back then, if you post news or write up perspectives about left wing movements in your country, say Denmark, or South Africa, in any comm, you’d likely get very few engagements and would easily be drowned out by the rest of the US-centric posts. (This is still largely the case, today, I’d say, though the war in Ukraine has really forced a more international perspective on our American/Western comrades).

    However, if you post them in the Ukraine megathread, people who are already interested in this kind of geopolitical affairs would be able to easily interact with them. You get a lot more engagements in the news mega than making separate posts in the news comm. It was then that people started to think we should probably turn the Ukraine megathread into a news megathread that provides a focus on non-US based global affairs (Comrade 72T was already posting tons of daily updates then, so the evolution of the megathread was completely natural at the time).

    Since then, the news mega has grown into a niche enclave where the more international (read: non American) Hexbear users (and just based on vibes alone, a significant portion of them are non-white) congregate and hang out to share perspectives about their countries/regions. As familiarity and congeniality set in (I don’t recall even a single major struggle session occurring in the news mega since its very inception), it has cultivated a kind of sub-culture where some users understandably grew more comfortable expressing themselves in the news mega rather than the other places of the site, simply because of familiarity and the perceived safeness in the news mega.

    What is happening in the news mega today (the memes and the shit-posting) is simply a natural progression of how the news mega came to being in Hexbear.

    I am not saying it’s a good or a bad thing with respect to Hexbear in general, but it needs to be taken into considerations that some users may see the news mega as a space where they can safely express themselves, and most of the time without judgment or getting into arguments.

    • It makes it easy for me to catch up on news all around the world. I already get enough us news, i want to hear about what's going on in the Sahel, or in Syria, or Brazil, or Vietnam. There isn't really a place where i can get all of this content in one place, especially with a culture like it.

    • I don’t know if people still remember, but 2021 Hexbear was largely dominated by US-centric posts, many of which related to electoralism and soc dem related news in America (Bernie was still our socdem grandpa who got shoved by the DNC back then).

      Let me tell you a secret. Look at all the posts on the front page right now, they all have many comments. The Lemmy algorithm highly prioritizes posts which have more comments to be shown on the front page. If you see a non-US post that you think is important, post a comment on the post, preferably something that is optimistic or positive. Post "good article" or why you think it is important, this will encourage the poster to post more similar articles. Post an emoji if you want. Your comment doesn't have to be particularly informative. As long as you comment on posts that like, you will see more things that you like on the front page.

      In the inverse case, do not comment on posts that you do not like. If you see a post that is malicious, western propaganda, etc. do not comment on it. You may be tempted to bully the poster or correct the narrative, but your comment is only going to boost the post in the algorithm. Most people who upvote a post probably don't even read the comments, so correcting a narrative is pointless. Report posts that you believe are bourgeois propaganda, mods handle it. Make your own post with a more correct news article.

      With this information in mind, I believe that having a "news megathread" where users post all world news is making hexbear more US-centric. Megathreads act as a containment, a quarantine. Let's say you have a story where China does something extremely cool. User A posts "China does something extremely cool thing" in c/news and 2 people comment on it. User B posts the same article in the news megathread and 3 people comment on it. By having the discussion split, the c/news post does less well in the algorithm and never shows up on the Hexbear frontpage. Likewise, if the article was only posted in the news megathread, it would also not show up on the front page. In either case, a world news megathread is reducing the chances for non-US news to reach the front page of hexbear. Having a news megathread makes Hexbear more US-centric.

      If you think that US news and world news needs to be split, Hexbear could have a international news comm and US news comm. Lemmy is a link aggregator software, the whole website is designed around the concept of posting links as posts, not as comments. If you want Hexbear to be less US-centric, then internation news posts should be posted as posts, not as comments.

  • Hard disagree. The general megathread is mostly people microblogging while the news megathread is topical. Even the shitposting on the news megathread pertains to current events. Plus, I get the sense there's almost no overlap between the regulars of the two megathreads, so if shitposting gets banned in the news megathread, the regulars would just flood the_dunk_tank with posts shitting on Zionists. I don't see them posting their shitposts in the general megathread. So in a sense, the news megathread is also a containment area so the entire site doesn't get flooded with anti-Zionist memes.

  • I think things are close to how they should be. Current events are consuming more of our attention and posting has shifted accordingly. Posts are mostly on topic, with the occasional person getting lost. I suppose when we escape the weeks where decades happen and return to the decades where weeks happen, the general megathread will return to normal activity.

    As for tone, I like the topical memes in the news mega, but I support removing them if they become stale / reposts to reduce the noise a little.

    • Much like the reason we used when we first federated, i also find that the newsmega has a sub-culture unique to it, compared to the rest of the site. The humor is, understandbly, a bit darker than what's typically posted, and the bits much more obscure. The regulars also seem to double down on the "reply, don't just upvote" behaviour, which is why it's so active. There's very little offtopic posting, as even the most shitposty comment is generally related to news.

      All to say, i do agree that once we get back to kherson, and everything grinds to a halt, people will migrate back to the regular mega and things will stabilize again. But for now,

  • I'm for this, but I would advise caution with the heavier moderating, a "no off-topic" rule can be very toxic to a forum like this.

  • Sometimes the general mega of the day isn't pinned and I can't find it, which is when I (sometimes accidentally) shitpost on the news mega if it is pinned.

    But I'd prefer to shitpost on the general mega, just keep it pinned nice and easy for

    like myself, ty.

  • I don't really participate in either but overall my thoughts on splintering things is that with the tiny user base we have, splintering things is a way to decrease engagement rather than increase it, which will further shrink the user base rather than increase it.

    That's just my gut though I have no evidence for it.

    Main.

  • Oh, is that why the general megathread got quieter? Because people started just using the news mega? That's a shame, because I stay far away from the news mega. I swear around half the time that someone here is being a complete asshole and I click on their profile to confirm my suspicion that they're a wrecker, they're just a 90% news mega poster who wandered into their first normal thread for weeks. Idk if most of the people in there are assholes, but most of the worst kind of assholes are in there.

    • It's definitely not that most in there are assholes but the second part of what you said. It's that the assholes feel safer there and so tend to concentrate there. Since until recently it was mostly just about the news and geopolitics (hence this OP), any communist who is anti-imperialist will fit right in. This is good of course, but it's only one of several other bars that people have to pass to be accepted in the culture of the rest of the site. It meant that people who otherwise would get called out for their bullshit like (for example) transphobia and antiveganism would never get called out for it simply because those topics were almost never delved into, certainly not in the way or to the same degree they are on broader hexbear. When those topics would start coming up to the point that there were disagreements, they would get quickly and understandably shutdown by mods with "don't bring that struggle session shit here."

      I'm not saying that any of that is bad on its face, but I think it's an explanation why it tends to be that a lot of the shittier takes seem to be from people who leaked out of the news mega. Someone who was permanently site-wide banned recently after multiple temp bans and warnings on the rest of the site would use obvious alts and go on the newsthread to say things like "once again the news mega is the best part of the site" because they weren't banned there and could get tons of upvotes for saying correctly anti-imperialist things. That just kind of exemplifies what I'm talking about, but it's not the only case.

      I love the newsmega and used to read every single comment every day when it was more explicitly focused on world news. Most of the people there, even the ones who mostly only comment there are not assholes. But it's a lot easier for the assholes to hang out there, get a well known positive reputation there, then clash hard when they encounter the rest of hexbear and fail to do self crit. I do not think that's a failing of the news thread, just an unfortunate inevitability of the focused topic.

  • Some are thinking that it might be time to tell people to stop posting random shit to the news mega

    For me, the question is who is some? If it's the community of the news mega then it seems like a sensible way to make sure the news has a place to be discussed without people's personal lives getting in the way. If some isn't the people using the thread, then it seems to me that their sentiment should sought out and thereby their desires be the priority. I.e. moderation should follow how people who use the news mega feel about it. Because for me that makes sense, but why ask me about an enclave @Kaplya@hexbear.net knows so much more about.

    Focused discussions about the news seem like they'd be best for the individual articles posted in c/news. We already have that focused discussion and shitposting in the ratios befitting hexbear. I don't think opinions about Ukraine necessarily need to be in the same HTML page as a discussion of literacy rates in the US.

125 comments