[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.
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 !ragecomics@lemmy.world?
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.
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.
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.
I expect better than this from the mod team.
Please do. Uncomfortable is good.
That’s where learning happens!
That’s what my pappy would say as he was beating the shit out of me.
It’s the ultimate consequence of going all in on recruiting people from reddit, which I have been trying to tell people for years. You’re not making the fediverse better, you’re making it more reddity. There’s no point in leaving reddit while bringing the worst of the culture.
There’s also some element that “alternative sites” tend to accumulate the people banned from the primary site. Luckily the strong left-leaning initial crowd kept most of the bigotry at bay during the formative years, but I really dislike that in general-purpose instances, many have failed to create much original culture distinct from reddit. Lemmy isn’t reddit, and that can be a good thing.
Lol good job.
I appreciate you posting this kind of stuff!
I feel this every time there is a post or comment about how women should have bigger pockets in our jeans and pants.
Are there really dudes defending fake/small pockets on women’s clothes? That’s a new level of…I don’t even know what.
lol Yeah it happens. They don’t so much defend them, more argue with women that it’s our fault for buying pants with small pockets, even though there aren’t many options. Or since women like our pants so tight, pockets would look wrong to stuff them full, when all we want is to be able to carry a few items like ID, credit card, and a small amount of cash. And there is always someone who links to a search for “women’s pants deep pockets” on websites like Old Navy or The Gap thrown around like that actually means those pants have deep pockets, when they frequently have those useless half pockets. Or that women should just wear men’s pants even though they don’t fit women’s bodies and are uncomfortable.
It’s a misunderstanding of what women are actually asking for, so instead of admitting they don’t understand, they double down and argue with women that we don’t really want that 🤷♀️
That is some wild shit
Huh, almost like the comic is sexist. Who’d had thunk?
It’s not
Huh, almost like you’re a pissed off butthurt male. Who’d had thunk?
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?
The not so funny meaning of the statement was supposed to be that using female as a noun is usually considered offensive when talking about humans.
I’m not sure how that or the possible alternative and more amusing interpretation of implying your penis being a female of it’s species, deserves being called an asshole.
Also I don’t think I understood your second sentence because to my knowledge just under 50% of humans would be expected to have a dick which is notably less than everyone.
deleted by creator
Lemmitors when women make political comics:
I am sorry you have experienced that. It is my hope that we have simply created a place where people feel more comfortable discussing and expressing uninformed opinions with an open mind toward learning and conversation rather than a safe place for bigots.
I think at least part of that comes from the fact that the most vocal feminist and anti-misogynist (and ant-racism, etc.) instances get defederated by the admins of big instances like .world which tends to concentrate the more reactionary elements into instances like .world even though it has the larger user base. Since the people who would tend to be the most vocal fighting back against the dudebro types are in a different section of the fediverse that .world cuts itself off from, those voices aren’t heard and so the bigger chunk of lemmy (.world) gets a well deserved reputation for being worse than reddit in terms of crying, fragile (and white) men being overrepresented in the user base.
Luckily I haven’t been exposed to much of that behaviour on my local instance. Which instances/communities are you finding all these jerks at? (I’ve blocked a couple for unrelated reasons so maybe I’m not seeing them.)
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
The comic you’re thinking of is by webcomicname, and… it’s better than my comic at making the same point tbh, I love their work.
I also commented there by accident once because I didn’t read the community name. They politely asked me to refrain from doing so. I was embarrassed, and have been more careful.
Apparently for some people this is unacceptable.
The same for me. I later just blocked the community because I will definitely forget to check again and then comment and I don’t want to be an annoyance.
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.
Removed by mod
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
The legit concern I’ve seen is that it doesn’t fit in Lemmy’s structure. You can’t just exclude a demographic, right? But I respectfully disagree, as I believe the expectation is that the community is “read-only” to posters identifying as men, and posting is a perfectly enforceable thing on Lemmy.
Other arguments are just baits for toxicity I’d rather not get into :(. But yeah, one factor is definitely like:
With that sub I think the problem is when the posts end up in all, which really does fit badly with the structure - then people comment without realizing which community because you tend to forget to check every now and then (or don’t even read side bars at all because there’s so many, so won’t know until you make the mistake of posting there), which then causes those unnecessary whoopsies and extra mod-work.
I fully agree that lemmy is annoyingly misogynistic which in turn means blocking that community only makes the feeds even more male-centric. I don’t know what would solve this
I think it’s fine that people accidentally comment and mods have to do the extra work, it allows the community to stay open for women to be able to find. That was how I found it.
The easiest solution is, when a man gets told that it’s a space for women, he can just say “Oops, sorry about that” and move on, that is how most men respond when asked to not comment there. Its the men who have awful reactions and get argumentative that since a post came up in all, they should be allowed to join and comment whenever they want. Which is just silly.
If they don’t mind all the accidental commenters there, then there’s no issue I guess? And I fully agree that it is stupid to get all pissy about being politely asked to leave, even if you disagree with a mod policy like that. Just walk away and don’t be a jerk, it’s not that hard jesus christ.
And yes I’ve made the mistake of commenting there too, so I know what lead to that lmao. Though I’m not a man and wasn’t asked to leave, so it’s not exactly the same
Accidental commenters get things explained nicely to them - have a look at any hot post on the comm. You’ll see the copypaste response .
How they respond to that public mod reply is on them.
Yeah I was more worried about all the work that it requires to do, since all the posts I see are basically the very popular ones, and I don’t know how they recognize the unwanted posters without it taking a lot too. I’ve seen topics with a lot of those responses and that seems very frustrating for the mods and the community itself - especially if there’s plenty of the entitled jerks. But if it’s not a problem for the community, then there is no problem
You would be surprised how many individuals find this too difficult lol
Yeah, I mean it would be nice for folks to read the rules, but as long as they don’t get nasty when being asked to not comment, it’s not an issue. From what I see hanging out there, it doesn’t seem to be a big deal most of the time. Mods just say their thing and the convo moves on. If the community were marked as private, many women, myself included, likely never would have found that space.
It doesn’t feel good to feel excluded. Being told that you’re not wanted in a space/event/group makes people have an immediate reaction. I will certainly let people have their spaces, I’m just offering why I think it happens. Like you saying about the friend that wasn’t invited. The friend being upset wasn’t upset because he wanted involved in that game. They were upset because they weren’t invited. That can make you feel unimportant, overlooked, or forgotten about. In terms of friendship, it’s better to make the offer and let the person make their own decision. Unless of course you have invited the person in the past and they like blew up at you for even asking about something you know they hate. In that case I’d say not inviting is best.
Speaks to our primate nature.
I think what’s missing is the request to be more special than others.
There are aquarium groups, but I’ve never seen them comment that you should shut up if you don’t own an aquarium. There is a “dull men” group, and I never saw them trying to forbid someone to speak in their room if they are too interesting or too female.
If you don’t want out-group people to participate, your solution is not a platform that allows everybody to participate, and then scold people if they do. It just makes it seem like it’s a deliberate setup to be able to tell people “You made a mistake. You have the wrong gender” - and if not that, they at least demand special treatment among the equals on Lemmy, also not a character trait that people appreciate.
What I hate most about the women-only community is that there are so many interesting topics that I want to chime in, or that I forget to check which community it is before accidentally commenting against the rules, but I don’t wanna block the community because it’s still very interesting to read.
I’d become a woman but that just seems like too much work
In my other comment replying to the parent comment, I did that (by accident) and I left this part out but what I wanted to do was go onto ask lemmy or some similar community, link the original post and start a discussion there. Women get to keep they’re space, and men joining the conversation in good faith get to chime in
I also saw one idea floated a while ago is a bot that automatically crossposts from those women only comms into a general community, basically same concept as idea 1 just automated
But like I said in my other comment, while I would love to hop into those conversations, it kinda destroys the idea of women only community as they’d probably eventually be pushed/drowned out of their own space
Yeah, there’s plenty of room for me to run my mouth elsewhere.
you could ask a mod to ban you?
I’ve considered that, but then they’d just have to unban me after my inevitable transition
Also the ‘equal rights equal fights’ rhetoric I often see on here and reddit. Like seriously? Are we children?
When have you ever been in a situation where you have to punch a woman? It’s such a ridiculous argument. I don’t understand why women wanting to be paid as much as a man for the same job is equivalent to getting involved in physical fights. ‘hey, you want to be paid fairly? Better be able to hold your own in the ring! No complaining allowed, you wanted this!’
I would, but feminists didn’t leave atheism (2012) and then gaming (2014) alone. Probably other things before 2012 when I wasn’t aware, and now we are here.
What exactly did feminists do to atheism or gaming?
You stink of incel
I would wager a large sum that you would hypocritically take offense to the notion of using a woman’s (actual or assumed) sexual history as basis to insult her, while readily doing just that to a man, as you just did.
Ooh are we playing nitpick the word meaning? I love this one.
The term incel was invented by a woman to describe herself.
No. “Incel” was very obviously used as a pejorative in the comment I replied to.
What I’m doing is pointing out the hypocrisy of using sexual history as a value judgment for one sex, while being outraged at it being applied to the other sex.
And they very clearly were using it as shorthand referring to self victimising misogynistic redpill devotees.
Shit man, I’m autistic and picked that up.
ok
I’m going to leap to the conclusion that you’re single
That’s a lot of words for “I’m an incel”
I pity you.
Removed by mod
It is that. You literally just used “you can’t get laid” as a personal insult toward a stranger.
Fixed that for you.
More pathetic fantasy used as a substitute for learning.
Let the record show that only one of the two of us has been engaged in this childish insult-slinging.
EDIT: You spend a lot of time with these kinds of fantasies, huh? lol
Removed by mod
Nope. That isn’t what is happening. What is happening is that we blocked them. I took the extra steps to block the mods. That way their angst and drama doesn’t impact my life. They want a safe space/echo chamber, fine. Why would I care after I’ve blocked them and moved on.
I mean, I accidentally commented on there and apologized when I revealed I was a man and agreed to stop. But I also hate not being able to comment/dissent when I read stuff so I blocked the community.
Yeah, that’s perfectly reasonable. That’s how I discovered it too.
I hate it that Lemmy just shoves you whatever sub, I had to manually block those, because I stumble in and shitpost wherever. I also had to block several political subs, because I know I’m flammable.
It’s called curating your own experience and as someone old enough to remember the real internet, i’ll take it over an algo in a heartbeat
I blocked it just to make sure I don’t comment and break their rules. Very simple solution 😀
Which subs are those? I don’t think I have seem them, or I most have missed their rules.
We appreciate the effort
deleted by creator
holy ew, I sincerely hope you were blackout-drunk for those thoughts
a nitpick, though: if a gender is lost, are all transitioners to said gender doing an unethical deed?
deleted by creator
You said if you have a son then you should encourage them to kill themselves. That’s not a “little overboard”.
Not sure what to tell I am in a spiral right now and there is no getting out.
My main motto in life is “Wherever you go. There you are.”. The occasionally spoken corollary is “Don’t be a dick.”