Hey, everyone. Hope this post finds you all well! A few days ago, PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS opened a comm request thread to name the community formerly known as The Dredge Tank. Now that it’s been about 4 days and the votes seem pretty steady, we’re rea-

angry-place “STOP THE COUNT!!!”

top-cop “Mr. President, she’s talking.”

As I was saying, we’re ready to call the vote. Nobody’s been happy with counterpropaganda, and we’ve heard you loud and clear. I’m excited to announce that Slop. is now open for all the posts you’d have previously posted to The Dredge Tank.

El Chisme continues to remain the new space for posts that would have been at home in The Dunk Tank.

In case anyone’s confused about this, I’m gonna give a really quick explanation so everyone’s on the same page with what’s going on with the Tanks. The names of The Dunk Tank and The Dredge Tank have racist origins. The moderators of those communities agreed that the names of these communities should be changed. Unfortunately, while Lemmy allows the display names of communities to be changed, it does not currently allow the actual comm names to be changed. In order to change the names of these communities, we would have to shut them down and re-open new comms under new names. The mods of the dunk tank and dredge tank requested the name c/gossip. While there are some legitimate arguments being made relating to misogynistic societal perceptions of that word, the mods include women and enbies who disagree and specifically requested this name. I feel that this situation parallels the initial pushback that was experienced with disabled in which users voiced concerns that this name could be ableist, but the moderators of that community are themselves disabled and specifically requested that comm name, verbatim. Along with this name change, the mods felt that slightly expanding the scope of the community and simultaneously lowering the bar for the previous Rule 8 would allow users to post about more minor public figures as well as more major ones. This was seen as an expansion of the community’s role, allowing posts to the new Dredge Tank replacement (counterpropaganda) to become a little more focused. We communicated this poorly, but the intention was to have users offer a sentence or two countering the reactionary take shown in the screenshot. Given how things spiraled from there, we’ve taken a step back from changing any of the rules during the switchover from The Dredge tank to Slop. We’re trying to take time to let everyone breathe without changing too many things too quickly, but we also want to actually make sure people can get back to posting. Hopefully you’re all okay with this pacing, lemme know below.

In upcoming admin updates:

  • I’ll post some analysis of mistakes and missteps that were made in recent days, including some of the context that led up to those errors.

  • I’ll offer a clearer and more complete explanation and description of the ongoing site culture issues that have been previously mentioned. These were poorly communicated before, but I’ll do my best to explain both the issues at hand as well as the importance of dealing with them.

The last few days have been really confusing and frustrating for a lot of people and a lot has happened. This is not an appropriate place to reopen, re-litigate, or rehash the struggle session. I will not be debating either the struggle session or the subjects of the upcoming admin update posts here. Please refrain from doing so as well.

trump-feed “Folks, we’re feeding the fish their slop, they’re tremendously hungry, incredibly famished. And look: I get to feed them. They say: Mr President, please feed the koi fish, its din din time, and it is! I get to do the little shaka-shaka with the can, and they’re happy, they’re eating -they’re eating- out of the palm of my hand, and they’re getting so big and so strong. Look at all these koi fish! I bet they won’t have any issues finding -finding- a special someone. And it’s wonderful, it’s great. Greydon Carter could never be a tremendously effective keeper of fish. His party is not so hot, and all of his betta fishes are dying! But Lyudmila’s letting me feed them, and I’m doing a tremendously great job, and a looot better than what Sleepy Joe would do!”

  • TerribleHands [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    1 month ago

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

    Ironically, doesn’t this apply to “dunk tanks” too? It’s a concept that has racist origins but has for like seven decades been nothing but an innocent, non-racist fairground game.

    The point is that people are upset by the term “gossip”, whether or not the intent is to be upsetting, in the same way that modern ‘dunk tanks’ aren’t intending to be racist or hold racist baggage.

    • CARCOSA [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      8·
      1 month ago

      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.

      • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        12·
        1 month ago

        You’re just creating some made up relationship between two things when there is none. Some people disagreed about this, some people disagreed about that. They’re the same.

        Using Disabled for a comm name is a shit ton different than using Gossip.

        It seems the real difference and what I keep hearing is that it’s the mods choice on the names they choose. If they’re name is steeped in bigotry so what the mods wanted it and who are you the community to go against the mods?

        • CARCOSA [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          5·
          1 month ago

          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.

          • TerribleHands [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            10·
            1 month ago

            A dunk tank at a fair ground in the 21st century isn’t a violent racist thing, it’s a thing that has violent racism in its early history but is otherwise just an abstract neutral concept that can be perfectly innocent in modern contexts.

            I’m not advocating for the return of the name on this site by any means; I think we, as leftists, should be aware of deeper implications of terms, and not use terms that can or do upset people even if in general society they are used without any malicious connotations or intentions. Can you seriously not see any parallel?

            • CARCOSA [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              5·
              1 month ago

              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.

              • TerribleHands [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                10·
                1 month ago

                It’s a term that’s clearly upsetting people here, for reasons that have been gone over again and again in these threads.

                I feel like that’s the only thing that should matter. It doesn’t need to provide “more help than harm”; that’s some weird utilitarian logic. If it upsets people, change it. How is that hard? Genuinely don’t understand why you’re so bound to this name?

              • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                5·
                1 month ago

                Go to the message by yoink you responded to in this thread and then go to the message she was responding to and there you go. If that’s not enough to convince you it’s obvious you have no interest in being open to feedback on this issue.

          • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            9·
            1 month ago

            Where did I compare them? You’re doing that, not me.

            Many users have given you countless examples of how it’s sexist and misogynistic and the mods and admins response is continuously been the community, many of whom are trans and not white, is behaving like cishet white men because the view of these select few mods is different than yours.

            It’s gross and toxic behavior. It would be so easy to just listen to your community.

      • crosswind [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        5·
        1 month ago

        Through all that’s happened, I’ve been repeatedly encouraged by how quickly and nearly unanimously the whole community agreed that the tank names needed to be changed. The dunk tank had been around for years, but once the harm was pointed out, it was time to for it to go.

        Seeing the staunch defense of the name “gossip” when quite a few people immediately say they find it offensive makes me think that was a special case, and not the sign of the strength of the community I had hoped it was.

        • CARCOSA [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          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.

          description of torture

          This instrument called the scold’s/witch’s/gossip bridle was an iron muzzle that locked onto the women’s head and mouth, pressing their tongue down to prevent them from speaking.

          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

          • crosswind [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            1 month ago

            As your sources say gossip as a tool can protect women. Gossip as a term, or potentially as the name for a community, can be used to oppress women. While it would be great for this site to play a role in strengthening the tool and weakening the term, it shouldn’t be taken as a given that the users who are affected by this are comfortable taking on the fight of reclaiming the word, or that they think this change is effective in doing so.

            I appreciate how seriously you are taking the harm of the racist term. I don’t appreciate how, at least from the outside, it looks like the position you are in of needing to defend the mods has led you to downplay the harm of misogyny to create a comparison.

    • Hexboare [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      While the general principle is the similar, the impact of “the dunk tank” on Black men in particular is so much worse than the connotations of gossip

      There is also work to reclaim gossip as a gendered term owing to it’s contribution to women’s solidarity and safety - there’s no similar attempt for “dunk tank” and I’m not aware of anything positive arising from brutalising people of colour for entertainment

      I’m trying to thing of a similar phrase to dunk tank that’s been decontextualised, I’ll post again if I think of one