I recently made an account on Beehaw because I’ve been having pleasant interactions with the instance from my lemm.ee account. Some good threads, seemed like a progressive space. So I went back to the philosophy documents and read them again, liked most of what I saw (again) and signed up for an account today. Decided to break in my new account by browsing the top posts of the last month. Several of them were threads I recognised and had commented in, and felt like revisiting. Except my comments weren’t there. When I got to a comment I very specifically remember replying to (someone asked what’s up with HBomber and James Somerton), and couldn’t find my comment, I decided to check the modlog.
I’m banned. I’ve been talking into an empty void for 4 months. I was banned for being in bad faith. And one of my comments was removed by an admin, because I told people to assume good faith and apparently that’s not nice.
This doesn’t align at all with the documents I’ve been reading today. The ones about assuming good faith, and about giving people chances to clarify, and about how banning is a last resort only for obvious trolls. When I came to this community 4 months ago to make a post about fediverse drama, I wasn’t interested in active participation in the community, and I didn’t make that post with that in mind. I understand how that might not fit the desires of the community here. But I didn’t make that post in bad faith. I, and whoever wrote those pages on the philosophy of Beehaw, wanted the same thing back then. To create a corner of the internet free of hate speech and full of kindness. Now? I’m jaded and beaten. I don’t want to create a kind community anymore, I want to find one. I’ve given up on that ambition. So that’s why I reread the updated documents with hope. Why I created an account. And why I want to know whether beehaw.org is actually the website I read about in those documents. Because those modlogs say the opposite of what those documents said. If I don’t fit in here, if the ideals I thought I saw aren’t present, I’d like to find out quickly.
Should I still hope?
I see, I understand what you’re saying about the ban, then. But I still see no reason that the comment was removed, and I don’t like your description of events.
I don’t think there’s a factual reason it’s wrong to say I “decided to come to Beehaw to air my grievances”. But it’s a needlessly hostile interpretation. Another interpretation of the same facts is I “I came to Beehaw to warn users and admins of bigotry that could affect their community”. Beehaw is a safe space, it works to keep hate speech out. Part of that work is identifying hate so that it can be acted upon. This is even part of the Beehaw code of conduct:
When I see posts or comments that I think are not nice, I report them.I should have followed all of the guides in the code of conduct. I was angry and impatient, so I didn’t take the time or care to find the proper place for my report. I did act against Beehaw’s philosophy in the execution of my goals. But my goals were a result of following the same guidelines in the CoC, in having the same desires for the same kind of space Beehaw aims to provide.I use a different definition of niceness in my day-to-day than Beehaw uses. But while I’m here, I should probably define niceness as behaviour that aligns with the values of Beehaw. And in that case, I tried to be nice, and I didn’t do it quite right, but I did try. I came in good faith.
And that’s why I expected others to be nice and to treat me in good faith. I expect it now, too, and that’s why I don’t like your interpretation of events as being in bad faith. It’s not assuming good intent. I understand why you’d interpret things this way, Society conditions us all to look down on “drama” and “politics” and “rocking the boat”. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Looking beyond societally-engrained easy answers and taking the time to think about a situation with empathy is time-consuming and attention-consuming, and nobody has infinite time or attention. I say this to demonstrate that I don’t think you said what you said in bad faith. I’m just talking about a problem and seeking a solution. And I think the solution is to follow Beehaw’s philosophy better, on both my part and yours.
You’re not the first nor will you be the last person to ask us to extend an olive branch when the outward action could be easily interpreted as malicious. You cannot request us to treat you differently than you are treating others, especially when your account is from another instance where we cannot know if you’ve even read our rules.
I don’t think asking questions is wrong but you are once again airing grievances publicly. As far as I can tell you did not try to reach out to any of the admins directly before asking questions publicly and in the process of doing so insinuating (and now directly accusing) that we are not following our own guidelines. It’s emotionally exhausting to treat every user who does this with the best of intentions. Unfortunately it’s an imperfect solution, but often the way we decide whether someone gets questioned and treated with good faith has everything to do with how much good faith they are extending to others. We do this to protect ourselves from burning out, but more importantly because we are imperfect humans. This is why bans get discussed behind the scenes before they happen, to gut check ourselves and to leave room for imperfect interpretation.
If you’re truly trying to be nice and extend good faith to everyone I would suggest that you look at your own posts again with a critical eye. Ask yourself not what you intended to say, but how someone could interpret your actions in the most negative way possible. This can be useful framing to decide how and where to soften your language and where you might be making assumptions and need to be asking questions.
I’m sorry if this comes off as a bit brusque or unfair to you. I wish I had the time or emotional bandwidth to explain in more detail how things could have unfolded differently. Ultimately the issue is that you did something that enough people found not nice that some reported it and ultimately it got removed and you were banned. If you wish to avoid this in the future the best advice I can give you is to really make an effort to treat people with good faith and to find people to run your words by if you want to approach a difficult subject but don’t know how to phrase it.
The answer to that question is always “You’re a traitorous insane antifa queer and everything you stand for is a threat to the aryan race and God’s will, you should be put to death immediately.” It never changes no matter what I say, so I gave up asking it. I decided to spend my time on people more likely to assume good faith when they see social progressivism. That’s how I treat others, and I want to spend time with people like me. People who don’t let personal ego or questions of intention get into your actions.
Now feels like the right time to talk about my personal definition of niceness. In my experience off this site, niceness is an appearance, and kindness is a behaviour. Nice people usually aren’t kind. Nice people are usually white neurotypicals who can dance the dance of social norms and portray themselves as “the good guys” no matter what they’re doing, which is a power that allows them to commit all manner of evils unnoticed. I’m scared of nice people. I get along with people who are mean and kind. People who will swear at me to my face and defend my rights with the same ferocity. So that’s always been my worry when I looked over Beehaw’s philosophy. The question of what kind of niceness they mean. I’m not pulling this out of my ass either, you can google “nice vs kind” and find a lot of articles like this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nice-kind-difference_l_650b53ffe4b0d75184692b0e
In Beehaw spirit, I’ve been attempting my experiment of whether I fit in here by assuming the best of people. Assuming that when beeple say nice, they mean kind. But I desperately need to know, is assuming the best of people really Beehaw spirit? Or should I have been assuming a little worse?
Apologies for being unclear. I meant within reason. How can another tolerant and nice stranger misinterpret what you have said. What information might they be lacking, as the entire context that they have of you may be the very post you are making.
It sounds like you’re getting at the concept of civility, often used arbitrarily to exclude others. This also dips a bit into white fragility and policing the voices of minority folks. In our philosophy posts which can be found in our documents, we try our best to outline what kind of behavior is considered nice. The guise of civility, that is to say, using really nice words means nothing if the intent is malicious. You can use really nice words to say really heinous messages, and we don’t allow that on Beehaw. Intolerance is not tolerated. You’re welcome to say all the mean and nasty shit you want in response to someone spouting Nazi rhetoric (although please report them too so we can ban them).
However, the way you word it, in specific this part
is a bit more difficult to give a definitive answer on. We want people to be both nice and kind, but we also recognize, as I have stated, that we are all human and we get emotional and we are imperfect and we want to allow space for all kinds of people here. However, being online you are going to run across a lot of people who know nothing about you. All they can see is your words, and to them it doesn’t matter whether you would defend their rights with the same ferocity as you are swearing at them, they can only see the swearing. You can’t just say that you’ll defend their rights either, because you have no way to prove it and someone could easily say the same to justify their shitty, intolerant words. This is why we use interpretable language and our rules are very simple. You need to recognize that you are posting in a community, with other individuals, and a certain level of peace is necessary for that to work. There are times where you will have to be the bigger person, or simply not bring certain discussions to the community because it is simply not the right place for them.
You mention a lot of very difficult concepts in your comment here. Reason, intent, nazi rhetoric. Philosophers have spent a lot of time debating what these things are and how we can recognise them. Not everyone is going to agree with your conclusions about them. I know that intimately, because my understanding of reason, intent, and nazi rhetoric is vastly different to the average.
For example, I find the society we live in to be intensely unreasonable. It’s a society where money rules the world, my gender is said not to exist, and magic isn’t real. I find all of these things absurd. So when we are talking about how badly someone could misinterpret my words within reason, well I don’t think a capitalist, binarist, or atheist interpretation of my words is within reason. But I’m going to run into people like that in nearly all of the internet. Most people’s interpretation of my words is not within reason. I am certain that my words can only be taken as intended within reason, but I don’t expect to generally be met with reason when I speak. We’re getting into subjectives with relative answers. This is hard. I can’t really use the mental tools you’re suggesting, because those tools aren’t built for someone like me. They’re built for someone who is similar enough to the average that their understanding of reason includes most people.
When we look at intent, this disconnect between an assumed objective and the truth of subjectivity gets even more ridiculous. I think I explained the problem with judging someone else’s intent pretty well in my removed comment. It’s why I don’t use intents, I think they’re a huge waste of time and a source of endless conflict. And I still don’t know why that comment was removed. I told people to assume the best of others and accommodate neurodivergents. I don’t see how that’s not nice. I’d like to hear about what went on with that.
And as for nazi rehetoric… well that’s the toughest one of them all. My original post on Beehaw 4 months ago was me being mean to someone who spouted nazi rhetoric. But I doubt most people would agree, because most people don’t have their fingers on the web of cause and effect like I do. So you didn’t understand that I was doing exactly what you say I should do right here. Our senses of empathy are so flawed and limited.
I’m not trying to argue with your lived experiences here, but as a neurodivergent person myself, I don’t think that judging intent is a meaningless endeavor. Yes, it can be messy and difficult, but I do find it worthwhile to examine writing from the perspective of what the author is trying to convince the audience of. I personally don’t think that the answer is to just stop trying to interact or be understood by neurotypical people, because like it or not, we can’t avoid neurotypical people in life. Yes, I do wish neurotypical people were more accomodating to neurodivergent people but I don’t think being antagonistic is helpful. I think it’s pretty unfair to say that because you don’t like using intents, that everyone else needs to stop as well.
As for your point on the web of cause and effect, I think it’s important to remember that there often isn’t a clear cut path from A to Z. And people with different life experiences will come to different conclusions about whether A leads to C or B leads to C. If you want to communicate to others that A leads to Z, you need to thoroughly explain how you reached that conclusion rather than assuming that everyone knows that A leads to Z 100% of the time.
You say that our senses of empathy are flawed and limited but I also haven’t gotten the impression that you’re making any real effort to understand other people. I’ve tried to read your words several times over and each time it feels like you think you’re absolutely right and everyone else is absolutely wrong. I don’t understand half the things you’ve written and you never explain them or try to present other opinions. You bulldoze through everyone else and shut down when they ask you to slow down and explain where you came from.
To be clear here, I actually sympathize with a lot of the sentiments you’ve mentioned here. But just because I feel frustrated that someone does not see things exactly the same way I do, does not mean that I can automatically assume that they’re wrong and evil and it’s okay to be mean to them.
Why would you think that I see evil in anyone else when you know that I don’t like using intents in discussions? That’s a contradiction.
This is what I’m talking about. You’re using intents and you think I think you’re evil. But it doesn’t make sense given the very conversation we’re having. I don’t think you know how to have a conversation without assuming you know everyone else’s perception of everyone else’s intents.
Using your empathy to deduce the conclusions of someone else’s cognitive empathy is an advanced technique. You’re going straight to the most complicated thing empathy is capable of, and you’re making mistakes. You need to slow down. I’m difficult to empathise with, so you need to stop pushing yourself to use the most advanced techniques on me, you need to be patient and use some simpler techniques, and you need to learn how to have a conversation without relying on your empathy as a crutch.
I know you discussed a lot of other points in your comment, but I’m not going to talk about them right now. Because you and I both agree that I’ve been going too fast for you. We both need to take our time and make sure you understand what I’m saying in its entirety, and that means not getting distracted. We’re going to slowly discuss the empathy issue until you fully understand what I’m talking about. And I have a lot more to say on the empathy topic, but first I need to understand that you understand that I’m saying you need to slow down. You’re trying to use too much empathy and it’s not working. Your empathy is telling you untrue things about me, because you’re expecting it to perform miracles for you.
These statements are very pompous and NOT nice.
Consider this a very strong warning.
Axolotling misunderstood me because they made a mistake. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes, they don’t make you any worse as a person. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes mistakes can lead to hurt feelings, but knowing about them is necessary to solve problems. Axolotling told me that they were having trouble understanding me because I didn’t explain things fully, and they asked me to be more thorough in my explanations.
Do you think nice behaviour is helping people who ask for help in the way they ask for help, changing my behaviour when they ask me to, and being honest and gentle with them about how they can accomplish the goals they want to accomplish? Or do you think nice behaviour is ignoring people who ask for help, refusing to change my behaviour when others ask me to change it, and ignoring problems that other people want solved?
I will follow the rules either way. If you tell me not to tell people they’ve made mistakes, I’ll listen to you. If someone asks for help understanding me again, I’ll explain to them why I can’t help, provided I have your agreement that this is what you want me to do.