[a sign reads FEMINIST CONFERENCE next to a closed door, a blue character shrugs and says…]
I don’t care
[next to the same door, the sign now says RESTRICTED FEMINIST CONFERENCE WOMEN ONLY, there are now four blue characters desperately banging on the door, one is reduced to tears on the floor, they are shouting]
DISCRIMINATION
SO UNFAIR!!!
LET US IINN!!
MISANDRY
For real.
This is literally what happens in Lemmy’s women-only sub. Posters are still complaining about it in comments below.
Ugh… I fear for the future of my sex. Sometimes, I want to slap some basic respect into other guys. Nothing fancy or philosophical, just “don’t be a dick, leave other human beings in peace” kind of common sense. Yet it feels like a losing battle.
Here’s my take on it:
I think we do deserve a private community of only women where women can have a safe place to talk about whatever they want without men. The problem is that this is not a private community, lemmy and piefed are fundamentally public spaces, not private, it is impossible and unreasonable to have a private community.
Perhaps in the future we’ll gain the ability to make real private communities where users must be approved to view posts, but that’s not today.
The mods of the community have the idea that it’s everyone else’s problem, that tens of thousands of people should go out of their way to remedy the issue by blocking the community just so a couple hundred (thousand?) people can have no responsibility for it.
I participated in the community at the beginning of its existence (despite my username, I am not a guy), and have long since left and blocked it because I really hated how the mods treated others. Maybe it’s changed over the last 6 months or whatever, but they’ve left a permanent impression on me.
Yeah nah mate
Anyone can join. Anyone can read. You’re just asked not to comment because it’s not a space for cismale voices.
I - and you - see HUNDREDS of comms and posts in any random feed that don’t apply to you. You skate over them, don’t even blink. It’s absolutely nbd.
But you need a fucking cone to not post on a single women’s community and it’s some how the community’s fault for expecting you to act like a reasonable human?
Bullshit.
AFAIK the expectation is that everything there is publicly viewable, but posting is bound by the rules.
And that’s (IMO) within Lemmy’s structure. Mods can set whatever rules for posting that they want, and it isn’t the only community that’s “exclusive”.
Yeah one time I accidentally commented in one of the women’s space community, as I thought it was only a meme aimed at women. The mod both recognized it was an honest mistake, and noted it actually added the conversation so they kept it up but said something along the lines of “thank you this is great but this is also a women’s only space, please don’t do it again” and they were very respectful about it. So I just lurked in that comments section as to respect the rules
Point is I too would probably be upset if my community was overran with “as a man”. What’s that one comic strip with the guy always going oh no, basically in the one I’m thinking of, they carve out their own niche, but then the majority comes in and kicks them out
Like is my heart in the right place, yes I think so, but would it lead to a situation like that, also yes
But I don’t see the point of people throwing a fit. Like go a general community like one of the Asks and throw it there. Like I fundamentally don’t understand people going “waaah I can’t be a part of something I didn’t want to be in”
It reminds me of one of my friends upset he wasn’t invited to one of our line gaming get together, despite the fact they hate the game
WHAT I MISSING I DONT GET IT
it’s not that they weren’t playing the game, it’s that they were excluded from the group. they would have liked the chance to say no, or just to hang out and keep y’all topped up with snacks or whatever i don’t know the exact dynamics of the group. next time, even if they hate the game, invite them and give them a chance to say no. that’s what they want and what does it cost? that way they don’t feel excluded from the group. it’s (probably) that simple
When you’re allowed everywhere by default , it can bruise something in your brain when you hit a closed door.
Now couple that with generations of bullshit tropes about women-only spaces being either lesbian pillow fight fantasies or penis-slicing plotters and shit gets weird
Men have been forced to change seats on an airplane for the ‘crime’ of being male while adjacent to children.
It doesn’t help matters to generalize like this.
Men’s brains ‘bruise against closed doors’ a lot more often than you assume.
From personal experience posting my content on multiple platforms, Lemmy’s userbase is by far the most fragile one regarding sexism.
Yes, even worse than Reddit, where this very comic had its comment section locked by the rcomics mods due to the hundreds of pissed off dudes crying in the comments. At least they get downvoted on Reddit. Lemmy really is dudebro land, and needs to fix that if it wants to grow further (which I would like as a Lemmy enjoyer).
I’ve said this a few times already, and it usually makes Lemmy users uncomfortable, so I’ll keep repeating it as often as necessary.
Us Lemmy dudebros obviously cannot fully appreciate your level of rage-baiting.
So I’ll tell ya what: since we are too fragile for your upscale messaging, feel free to take it somewhere else. Your content, and you, are not welcome here at !comicstrips.
Are you being serious?
Is this the official stance of the new mod team or a sarcastic reply?
Legitimately can’t tell.
Intentionally rage baiting comics don’t really belong here.
You’re intentionally inviting uncivil discourse which is not in line with Rule 1: Keep it Civil.
Going through the comments there’s a lot of flame baiting going and posts like this usually generate a ton of reports due to things getting out of hand very quickly.
Maybe a better sub for this type of content would be [email protected]?
You fundamentally misunderstand what a comic is. You also clearly do not know what a rage comic is. It’s not a good look for someone picking up mod duties on a comics community. I would suggest looking at other successful/popular comic communities around the internet (start with r/comics on Reddit for example, there’s other places worth investigating too).
I’ve been contributing here for a year without any previous issues. Nobody from within the community has ever told me that my content doesn’t belong here. It usually gets good scores/votes. This is the first time I’m getting this demand, and it’s coming from a brand new mod team, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t read this comment and give you time to think it through properly.
Getting rid of content that generates conversation will leave you with a dull or dead community soon enough. Alienating people who have been contributing content regularly for a while won’t help. That’s probably not your end goal.
I acknowledge that perhaps comparing your comics to ragecomics was incorrect and insulting to you, I apologize for that.
That being said your posts that tend to get the most comments are your most divisive comics like this. It’s not that you’re generating insightful conversation, you’re simply provoking a response through divisive or inflammatory messaging.
The problem comes from the insult slinging the content invites along with the reports that come out of it. Doesn’t help when the flames are fanned by commenting “cry more”. It feels like you might thrive off of rage-baiting like this since you seem to be aware of the headache your content is causing to mods as you remarked that this very comic was locked on /r/comics.
Fair assessment. I deleted the “cry more” comment and another similar one, my apologies, those are indeed uncivil. However, I would like to remind you that until very recently this community was entirely unmoderated, and that slinging insults at reactionaries / sexist / racist folks was the only way to make them go away. I can adjust that behavior now that the place is (hopefully) properly moderated, but it’s a different request from the “you are unwelcome here” that your colleague opened with, nor was the “did I stutter” they followed it up with when I was trying to clarify the situation a civil response tbh.
My comics are satirical. The point of satire is that it stings when it hits the correct notes. If you think social/political satire doesn’t belong in this community, then you should add it to the rules. But that would mean banning a lot of the most famous / classic comics of all time, such as The Far Side, Peanuts, Mad Magazine, Dilbert… hell even Astérix is straight up satire.
Satire is very different from ragebait: it’s meant to make people think about preconceptions they have, about topics they don’t usually question, by presenting them under a different light that exposes the fundamental hypocrisy behind that situation. Ragebait is just stuff made to piss people off for fun. I don’t do such content.
I am in good terms with the mods of r/comics. We have regular conversations, and never once have they accused my content of being ragebait, complained that I was uncivil (although to be fair the place is actually moderated so I can just report comments over there), or complained that my comics aren’t comics. Quite the opposite actually, they enjoy that I (and other popular cartoonists) act as a magnet for unmasking bigots, it helps them get rid of those people.
They locked the thread because it was attracting an overwhelming number of men’s right activists, so many more than usual that it had to be a raid from a third party community. It wasn’t because they had any issue with the content of the comic or with the discourse that was happening under it (actually there was some pretty good discourse regarding transphobia if the comic is seen under a specific prism that I didn’t take into account, which is healthy and important discourse).
My comment that spawned this entire conversation was a commentary on a deep sexism issue that Lemmy has to deal with, especially in unmoderated or poorly moderated communities. Whether I continue posting content here or not, those people will still be there, and you’ll have to deal with them sooner or later. Keep that in mind.
All in all, I understand that it’s hard to take over a husk of a community and turn it into something better. If you think I don’t fit, then fine, your place your rules. Just make sure that decision fits with what the community actually wants (doesn’t seem to fit with the votes / scores my content gets + nobody in this community has ever told me my content doesn’t belong here), and that everyone here understands what your definition of a comic is, otherwise you’re exposing yourself to fragmenting or dulling the community, which is something I don’t want to happen even if I do get excluded, as this is the kind of stuff that alienates Fediverse users and hurts Lemmy’s overall popularity.
Good luck figuring this all out. Thanks for actually making a proper detailed comment about it. If you genuinely think my content doesn’t belong here, then just ban me and be done with it, would be better than your colleague’s confusing attempt at trying to act tough. Otherwise I’ll continue posting on the usual schedule, as I’ve been doing for a year now. I enjoy the conversations in here, sometimes it mostly generates rage and negative reactions sure (especially when it’s about sexism tbh), but most of the time they’re constructive and interesting. See you tomorrow… or never I guess, depending on how you feel. Your move. Good night.
Pretty sure I didn’t stutter.
This is not the correct hill to die on.
If you confidently feel that I am unwelcome here, why not just ban me and be done with it?
You’ll also need to ban some of the other regulars who have been contributing content to this place for a long time now. You might want to have a serious inner discussion within your team and with the community about what a comic actually is. A good start would be looking at other successful/popular comic communities around the internet (start with r/comics on Reddit for example, there’s other places worth investigating too).
Getting rid of content that generates conversation will leave you with a dull or dead community soon enough. Alienating people who have been contributing content regularly for a while won’t help. That’s probably not your end goal.
Take some time to think about it, I’ll head out for now. Good night.
You come into this community with bad faith posts simply to start arguments, and are told you’re not welcome here. If you continue with said behavior, you will be banned. This has been your warning. Enjoy your evening!
I share comics in Lemmy’s main comics community.
They’re shared in good faith, with the goal of being relatable and thought provoking content. As all comics are, that’s precisely the reason why people make comics, especially satirical ones. I have better things to do with my life than creating chaos for the sake of chaos.
This comic has a good score, a good upvote % ratio, has generated some interesting conversations (and some chaos too, sure).
You told me I am unwelcome in response to a comment that has 89 upvotes vs 20 downvotes at the time of writing this. Are you sure that you understand the community you are representing / moderating? Seems like there’s an obvious rift here.
In the end it’s up to you, and if you want me gone, then I’ll be gone, I’m not here to argue with you. I’d just like to spare everyone (you included) the headache of whatever happens next if you start power tripping. It would lead to the usual lemmy community split, fragmenting the userbase even more, etc. which is not desirable for any of us.
You should really think this through, starting with learning what a comic is, and looking at what the community wants or doesn’t want to see here.
Prior work does not give you free license to come into this community and be an ass. You are bound by all of the same rules and expectations as all other posters. If that is not acceptable, you are free to go find (or create) a more suitable community to post in. Bigotry of any kind, for any reason, is unacceptable.
if you have a personal issue with the OP and you use your moderator flair to try and threaten them, you are not the type of individual that should be a moderator, imho.
the post does not violate the instance rules and neither does their behavior.
this is not a great look.
Worth noting that none of the incels in this thread got a threat (or a ban) like I did.
And that the example of my past “problematic” behavior by the other mod was an old unmoderated thread full of racists and white supremacists in which some of my comments were retroactively deleted for being uncivil, but none of the racists in that thread got moderated or banned, somehow making me the main issue there.
Consciously or not, it means their demand is not “be civil” but rather “we’re protecting bigots, and anyone who gets annoyed and talks back to them will be dealt with”. It’s just flaccid tone policing, and somehow extends to comics too, not just comments.
As I told them, I’ll be nice and pretend I didn’t read this comment chain, and will continue posting my comics as usual. However, I won’t stop clapping back at bigots if they remain unmoderated. Let’s hope the new mods will learn something from being badly ratioed for their takes in here.
This mod team needs the oversight of someone who has actual experience moderating a big community (and doesn’t act like a dork the instant they get a sliver of power over others). If they aren’t up to the task and keep threatening people who are trying to push bigots out instead of the bigots themselves, I’ll have a chat with the instance admins. Don’t want yet another Lemmy community to fragment, dull, or die.
At least 2 of the mods are involved in this.
It’s somehow amazing how the comm got worse once mods were added
This is insane overreaction.
This is Lemmy, we don’t have advertisers to appeal to so we don’t have to sterilize our content for their sake.
This person’s posts ruffles feathers. That’s okay, people can have their feathers ruffled. I don’t see any significant harassment, name calling, hate speech as a result of this poster or their posts, so I can’t fathom any reason to react this way. People are allowed to be uncomfortable, people are allowed to disagree; the existence of controversy or disagreement or discussion in and of itself is not indicative of a problem.
We have got to stop acting like approaching a caution sign on the road is the same thing as experiencing a car accident.
Lemmitors when women make political comics:
Damn I am tired of sexist people like you. Stop badmouthing men if your brain is too smooth to understand that “dick” can be a female too. Write no dick behavior instead, you sexist idiot. Might as well start doing memes with “no black people allowed” sign
Calling your hypothetical “dick” “a female” is not helping your case… (it also sounds rather funny the way I said it hehe)
Okay then let it be asshole. Everyone has one innit?
Huh, almost like the comic is sexist. Who’d had thunk?
tbf that sub’s rules are a joke.
But the sub does a hell of a lot of man bashing behind the ridiculous fig leaf of ‘not all men’.
I block it.
Tell me you haven’t looked at a community without telling me you haven’t seen it.
The top post of this week is about chocolate.
The top post of this month is called “real men cry” and it’s about how men should be allowed to be emotionally vulnerable.
Funny enough, the top post of the last three months is a screenshot of:
“I see so many men saying feminism is bad. Please tell me which of my rights I don’t deserve as a woman. I’m curious.”
If they were genuinely curious and wanted to know an answer to that question, then why would they post it in a community where men couldn’t respond? That seems disingenuous.
Why not go to 4chan or xitter and ask the men there why they don’t like feminism? Cause I assume that’s where they’re seeing all these “men saying feminism is bad.”
But generalizing it as all or most men doing this and then posting it somewhere only women can comment, just seems like they’re looking for a circlejerk/echo chamber where everyone will reaffirm their biases/assumptions.
Let’s also not pretend that every self-proclaimed “feminist” is solely concerned with her own rights. Lots of people on the internet call themselves feminists without really understanding a thing about feminism. You could more accurately call them “pseudo-feminists.” The “man-hating feminist” stereotype comes from somewhere, and the error is in calling them “feminists,” not in saying that they hate men.
If they’re reinforcing toxic masculinity culture, and instead of dismantling systems of oppression they make it their goal to participate in those structures as the oppressor, then they’re not feminists. But a lot of women do this while calling themselves feminists.
So I think a lot of the hate and criticism directed towards “feminism” is really directed towards pseudo-feminism, and people don’t understand the difference because how likely is someone to read bell hooks or carol gilligan when it seems like all the so-called “feminists” on social media are repeating stuff like “gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss” (which is literally just women participating in patriarchy, not dismantling it).
I mean if you don’t want people confusing feminism with pseudo-feminism, that’s fine and understandable. But you can’t really pretend all of the criticism directed at pseudo-feminism under the guise of feminism is exclusively geared towards removing women’s rights. By understanding the problem, you can begin to address it. So police your own, and call people out when they’re promoting pseudo-feminism and calling it “feminism.”
A good indicator, is that if someone is telling men that their feelings don’t matter, then they’re not really a feminist.
It was a screenshot of a social media post.
Well, I haven’t looked at it for a while.
I’ve been there since it started.
Tell me, are the evil man-hating feminists in the room right now?
I blocked the sub, don’t worry.
Well, you’re here, so…
Then again, the “feminist” part is kinda dubious, so maybe not.
Also, have you ever heard of the idea of subjectivity? That there may be no objective truth and that people can see and interpret the same acts in different ways?
Just a thought.
No. I’m new to words and concepts, please mansplain it to me.
So what you’re saying is that you’re not a troll?
You’re doing a brilliant job of selling the community.
Why would I try to sell it to someone who obviously doesn’t belong there?