chimerror

Chimerelda E. Error, layabout

@chimerror

I'm Kitty (and so can you!)

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Just a leopard from Seattle who sometimes makes games when she remembers to.

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chimerror
@chimerror

I'm starting to feel like no matter what y'all claim otherwise in various comment threads this site is becoming "just four queers and their 10 friends who will shout down any criticism before turning it into a meme or drowning it out with airy posting"

I don't even disagree with the points that are often made in response, but I can't help but feel like if this is how y'all are going to respond to dark mode, what the fuck is going to happen when the real serious shit goes down?

I see the exact same reactive defense of comfort that I saw month ago with the whole tech.lgbt shit on fedi just with people who think that they are all above it and that they are immune to becoming Lowtax because they're queer leftists.

I don't think y'all need to prioritize dark mode. But this is an awful response that has been a pattern, and it's a pattern that I don't like.

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kda
@kda

TBF, we've already seen what's happened with more serious issues, and… …you're not wrong at all in being concerned.

Like, yeah, I frequently find myself pointing out to people why there's this kind of response, but the combination of a trauma response and more general fragility is not a good combination. The conversation of how to resolve this pattern via some active strategy rather than "wait for the site to become financially sustainable" or "wait for another site to become less inhospitable to the people on here who are most anxious" is one that needs to be had. :x

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kda
@kda

y e a h

Like, even as someone who really, really wants this place to work out, some of the ways people — sometimes including myself, regrettably — have been driven to act out of that panicked "I need to do whatever Thing will have the highest probability of making sure this place doesn't die" are, quite frankly, maladaptive.

This isn't to say that criticisms of the site have universally been made in a fair or even good-faith manner, but the spiralling escalation which tends to occur between people who are used to fighting much larger targets when it comes to protesting site owners' (in)action and people who absolutely need this place is not going to be good for its long-term stability.

It's not as simple as "everyone should calm down", but figuring out how to get to a place where these discussions can be had with a proportionate level of calmness or heatedness is going to be crucial.

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chimerror
@chimerror

Exactly, and I think it's even more crucial from just the reality of knowing that as a site of leftists, there are going to be people egging on that spiralling because it has and will caused disunity.

I really do think there's a lot special here in the design of this site and even if I don't like this particular response, I still generally want to hope this is a group of people that can maybe take a good swing.

But if any angry criticism is going to be met with more anger, then we're doomed.

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kda
@kda

Yeah. ☠️ The more meta-meta- side of this is something I think I should actively try to start a conversation about when this current meta simmers down, because I'd like it if people could try to discuss this in the context of all of this site's big historical site-wide disputes rather than just this one.

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hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs

yeah, this is sorta where i'm leaning as well. there were maybe two or three posts that came out of this event that were actually useful in any material way; the rest was people responding to what they imagined other people said. it's hard not to jump to the defense of a website i genuinely like, but i think part of accepting a website is... letting staff speak for itself (or not), and letting people have criticisms.

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garudina
@garudina

"arguing with someone who never existed" is sadly the most common mode of discourse on the internet, and in politics at large. I never even saw anyone asking for dark mode, I only saw rechosts of people telling the dark mode people to shut up, and rechosts of people telling those people to shut up.

but it's like this every time there's a big public Discourse on here. everyone subchosts everyone else, or rechosts someone subchosting someone else, and all those chosts start with a reasonable point about civility and fairness - which is why I think people rechost them - before rambling into naming the party they wish would shut the fuck up. it's exhausting and antiproductive, the same as five years ago when everyone would constantly retweet the latest Trump misdeeds or racist street violence. at some point you're just advertising for the misery.

but... there is a real weird social dynamic around here with the Chosen Electorate who were friends of the staff before Cohost existed and feel the need to defend them from random chosters, and also with people trying to chost this website into lasting forever by sheer force of language

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chimerror
@chimerror

Definitely and I completely accept that is exactly what I did on this and it really was just that dynamic that gives me enough fear to do that.

It's funny I didn't even share the original post because I legit thought it was a bit harsh and figured that the best was to let the vent happen and just fall away.

But it really was the inability for that to be everyone's response that then began blowing up.

So yeah, point taken, and thank you for your civility here.

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garudina
@garudina

I feel guilty now, I didn't mean to be passive-aggressive about this. n.n; I just generally like you but don't know you too well and generally don't want to climb all over you correcting your thinking or attitude or etcetera. But earnestly, thank you for keeping me accountable to saying what I mean.

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