Different mods had different reasoning for desiring the name. Both things can be true at once

Slop for what the old tanks were like

Gossip for an informal discussion regarding people with power / notable / tools of power

Counterprop for a formalized discussion regarding reactionary people no matter how powerful/notable

The margins between the three communities are evolving and will be a conversation between the users and the mods.

It really does provide the ability to curate what kinds of “tank posts” you’ll see.

Slop for what the old tanks were like

Gossip for an informal discussion regarding people with power / notable / tools of power

Counterprop for a formalized discussion regarding reactionary people no matter how powerful/notable

It isn’t either one reason or the other, there were multiple people desiring gossip for different reasons, and the full reasoning was not adequately communicated. We are currently working to overhaul both the decision-making and communication process to prevent this from occurring in the future

We heard you loud and clear as in making Slop for those that aren’t happy with Counterprop

Counterprop, Gossip, and Slop can all be spaces for posts that would have been at home in the dunk tank. Users have the choice which space is right for them:

those that don’t want to use !gossip@hexbear.net can use !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net and !slop@hexbear.net

those that dont want to use !slop@hexbear.net can use !gossip@hexbear.net and !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net

those that dont want to use !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net can use !slop@hexbear.net and !gossip@hexbear.net

Can you please help me understand how having a gossip community is oppressive when people can choose to post in other similar communities, or choose to block the gossip community?

Writing a few words to critically analyze the content of the post would make it eligible for !counterpropaganda@hexbear.net or a person could just choose to put it in !slop@hexbear.net could even throw a “main” in there and post it in main.

Having Gossip in addition to the previous two allows people choosing to reclaim Gossip can do so.

Why Gossip instead of the dunk tank?

Because there was ample evidence of the dunk tank, as a term, being an abhorrently racist term that killed people, whereas gossip is a tool that has been vital to marginalized communities demonized by the patriarchy over time. The site has recently committed to addressing the issue of misogyny on the site and lemmy at large. The moderators of the gossip community are dedicated to reclaiming Gossip as a means by which a group of marginalized people can commiserate over those that wield the power which oppresses them or are willing tools of it.

The scholar Silvia Federici, in her Feminist and Marxist interpretation of the Witch Hunts of the early modern period in Europe, analyses how the term gossip was used as a misogynist, oppressive tool against women. Federici recounts that by the sixteenth century in modern England, gossip, a term that had been commonly used during the Middle Ages to indicate a close female friend, turned into a denigrating term signifying idle talk.

During the Middle Ages, sociality among women prevailed, most activities were performed collectively, and a tight-knit community emerged. In the sixteenth century, with the destruction of the guilds, industrialisation, the emergence of capitalism, and, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) the violent Witch Hunts, women started to be excluded from society leading to a feminisation of poverty.

The Witch Hunts demonised most interactions amongst women. Women were surveilled, marginalised and feared. Friendships amongst women became an object of suspicion, denounced, and understood as subversive. Women were portrayed as scolds, too domineering of their husbands, witches, and worse… Gossipers! And thus, the harmless stereotype of women as innate gossipers emerged.

I use the word harmless sarcastically for many reasons. An obvious one is that a torture instrument was designed with the sole intention of punishing those women involved in gossiping.

Furthermore, the term gossip has been used to not only destroy traditional female practices, collective relations and systems of knowledge but also erode women’s rights and devalue women’s labour. Today, it continues to be used to reinforce the gender binary, infantilise certain actors, and construct certain conversations as worthless.

Gossip is a tool used by women and other marginalised people to share information that other systems often won’t consider. Gossip keeps our communities together, it keeps us safe, it equips us with important knowledge. The personal is political. Our intimacies are political. To gossip is a subversive act, an anti-capitalist act, and a feminist act. Let’s reclaim this act, get together and gossip! After all, what do we have to lose? We are all witches in their eyes anyway.

Gossip as a gendered term

Origin of Gossip

History of Gossip

Evolution of Gossip

Because there was ample evidence of the dunk tank being an abhorrently racist term that killed people where as gossip is a tool that has been vital to marginilized communities demonized by the patrirarchy over time. The site has recently commited to addressing the issue of misogyny on the site and lemmy at large.

The scholar Silvia Federici, in her Feminist and Marxist interpretation of the Witch Hunts of the early modern period in Europe, analyses how the term gossip was used as a misogynist, oppressive tool against women. Federici recounts that by the sixteenth century in modern England, gossip, a term that had been commonly used during the Middle Ages to indicate a close female friend, turned into a denigrating term signifying idle talk.

During the Middle Ages, sociality among women prevailed, most activities were performed collectively, and a tight-knit community emerged. In the sixteenth century, with the destruction of the guilds, industrialisation, the emergence of capitalism, and, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) the violent Witch Hunts, women started to be excluded from society leading to a feminisation of poverty.

The Witch Hunts demonised most interactions amongst women. Women were surveilled, marginalised and feared. Friendships amongst women became an object of suspicion, denounced, and understood as subversive. Women were portrayed as scolds, too domineering of their husbands, witches, and worse… Gossipers! And thus, the harmless stereotype of women as innate gossipers emerged.

I use the word harmless sarcastically for many reasons. An obvious one is that a torture instrument was designed with the sole intention of punishing those women involved in gossiping.

Furthermore, the term gossip has been used to not only destroy traditional female practices, collective relations and systems of knowledge but also erode women’s rights and devalue women’s labour. Today, it continues to be used to reinforce the gender binary, infantilise certain actors, and construct certain conversations as worthless.

Gossip is a tool used by women and other marginalised people to share information that other systems often won’t consider. Gossip keeps our communities together, it keeps us safe, it equips us with important knowledge. The personal is political. Our intimacies are political. To gossip is a subversive act, an anti-capitalist act, and a feminist act. Let’s reclaim this act, get together and gossip! After all, what do we have to lose? We are all witches in their eyes anyway.

Gossip as a gendered term

Origin of Gossip

History of Gossip

Evolution of Gossip

Me too, thank you for your comments. I do appreciate your perspective, and thoughts on how to improve. I apologize for the stress of the past days, and it is our current priority to figure out a better system and implement it.

100% we are looking at finding a way to have every user be able to meaningfully participate in the site going forward in a way that is a bit more hardened to wrecking and reduces the drama inherent to them.

We recognize that what has been done is not working and are actively seeking to change the way future decisions are made.

If you have specific ideas for how things could be made better with regard to how site changes are made I would love to hear them.

I cannot but if you care to explain I am happy to listen

Many users posted articles explaining the horrible history of racism. I am open to being shown how gossip as a term has harmed women more than it has helped.

A post in that exact community was what determined the name of slop.

Anyone is welcome to submit a mod application.

For the first two years admins and sitemods made the decisions with occasional temp checks from the userbase.

I added mods to the decision making process and due to what happened we are working a way for users to also be involved with the process.

You are correct though that the people interested in creating, cultivating and moderating a community get the choice of what it is called. It has been that way the entire time the site has existed.

That being said we are trying to open up this process for transparency as well as user engagement.

How is gossip steeped in bigotry? I would posit that a social concept that protected women was demonized by the patriarchy to reduce its effectiveness.

The comparison between dunk tanks and gossip is incorrect. Women have been hurt for gossiping in defense of their community. The dunk tank is literally a violent racist thing.

I’m sorry but a racist game that killed and maimed people for years has no redeemable qualities.

Gossip has been used to protect communities and has a recent misogynistic association.

There were people concerned about !disabled@hexbear.net name yet the disabled mods that wanted the community specifically chose the name.

Thank you for the comment

Every community that has been made the past couple years has had the name chosen by the people moderating it.

Just because “gossip” can be used in an offensive and condescending way, does not make it so.

Women talking to each other is an important part of how we keep communities safe.

Women mods of the community specifically asked for the community name as they felt it best represented the types of posts welcome there.

You are more than welcome to make a !commrequest@hexbear.net post suggesting better names for a community

Only in !bureaucracy@hexbear.net

It has the stay “only mods can post” with this account as the only mod

I did this over a year ago but people complained the name was too similar and confusing.

!the_dank_tank@hexbear.net

It was the opposite, one admin gave Beluga a temp ban for DM harassment, a second admin changed it to a perm ban with the reasoning that Beulga was making alts to harass, and then went back and changed the perm ban reasoning to DM harassment. This happened in a relatively short period of time but you are correct that jumping to conclusions is not helpful at all