I didn’t want to make an announcement about this but since there seems to be some confusion (to say the least), I feel that I must.
You have almost certainly started seeing posts and comments from hexbear.net users in the past day or so. Long story short, when hexbear originally federated into Lemmy a few weeks ago, they left SJW off the list of instances they wanted to federate. A few days ago, hexbear users had a vote where they agreed to add SJW to their list of federated instances.
Myself and TheDude were informed of this vote by the hexbear admins while it was in progress. We agreed that if hexbear voted in the affirmative, we would be amenable to federation and seeing how it turns out. Now, here we are.
Hexbear is a Lemmy server that was created about 3 years ago as a new home for the former users of r/chapotraphouse. CTH was banned from reddit because they were openly calling for the deaths of slave owners, which reddit considered hate speech 🙄
Hexbear is composed of leftists of all shapes and sizes, and they also have a special sensitivity to the struggles of marginalized groups, including but not limited to LGBTQ folk, the disabled, and gingers.
Some things to know about hexbear: they removed downvotes from their platform. Therefore, they tend to make a lot of comments, because the only way to respond to something you disagree with is by commenting. This can give the impression of being brigaded, but that’s not necessarily the case. Also, their custom emojis are displayed very large on other instances. This is a technical issue that will eventually be fixed.
Of the major instances, Lemmy.world, lemmy.ca, feddit.de, and beehaw.org have defederated hexbear.
SJW, Lemm.ee, and lemmy.ml are still federated with hexbear.
I hope we can all get along, but obviously that’s not going to be the case. I recommend that users from either server make use of the block function as necessary. More importantly, don’t intentionally go to communities on the other server and attempt to antagonize them because you have a differing political stance. Some political debate is well and good, but there is a time and a place, and if you’re not sure, it’s probably best to keep it on your own server.
We will be banning hexbears liberally if they come in here trying to start shit, and their admins will do the same regarding our users. Pun intended.
Bottom line: we will not be defederating from hexbear in the immediate future. I personally believe they are a valuable asset to this platform, and I urge you all to give them a chance to contribute positively. If you find them annoying, just block them and/or report them; they are subject to the same rules of conduct as everyone else.
Please direct any comments and concerns to this thread, or to the Agora.