Beehaw Support @beehaw.org alyaza [they/she] @beehaw.org 1 yr. ago

New Communities + Beehaw is once again looking for community moderators

quick dual announcement

New Communities

we've tabulated the easiest part of the survey (other results coming NOW) and we're pleased to announce that, in the future, we'll be creating six new communities. these six choices can be stratified as:

Community Moderators

this also means we're taking on new Community moderators. as with last time: this is not a full time job and we don't want it to be, but this is also not a completely trivial commitment either, so please only apply if you're comfortable with making that commitment. (if you think it's becoming overwhelming or too much for you at a later point, that's different and we can discuss that then.) our community mods haven't had many issues though, so i doubt you will either.

What is expected of community moderators?

I'm sure you can surmise, but to be specific:

Encourage and promote respectful and constructive discussions, and address any behaviour that goes against our community's spirit to be(e) nice.
Assist people by answering their questions, offering guidance, and helping them navigate the platform effectively, ensuring they feel heard.
Where possible, give us and/or your fellow active mods concerns, improvements, or insights you have from your section of our community.

What powers do community moderators have?

You'd be expected to use these responsibly, obviously:

The ability to remove or hide posts, comments, or other content that violate our community guidelines.
The authority to issue warnings to users who breach our mantra, and in severe cases, temporarily suspend their accounts.

We generally encourage a compassionate approach to moderating, though. Unless someone is clearly unproductive, we encourage you as a mod to engage in constructive dialogue before banning. And if you don't have the energy for this, you can flag a post to bring it to our (or another mod's) attention.

Additionally: blatantly misusing these or using them maliciously will be instant grounds for demotion, and in the latter case likely permanent banning from the site. Do not do that, please and thank you.

If I'm selected, how can I report stuff to the admins?

On site, you can flag it and leave it for us to deliberate. You can also reach one of us by DM on here.

If you need to immediately contact us for mod stuff, our main hubs of operation are Discord (where we have a specific channel for community mod reports) and Matrix (which is pretty relaxed and easy to follow). You can also use a DM on Beehaw itself.

How will mods be selected?

Hand selection. In the future we may supplement hand picking mods with another method—any mods selected by that method would most likely serve on a temporary basis (and that would be made clear to them on appointing).

Applications can be made here.[^2]

[^1]: because i've already seen moderately concerning posts w/r/t to this: please do not make us regret this community. it is currently this grouping or nothing. [^2]: we are working on a non-Google platform here but our first alternative failed to materialize today and there are easily half a dozen other things we need to prioritize right now (including the big 0.18 update, which had its timing on here derailed by a crippling bug). we'll get to an alternative when we do. if you do not want to use the form, DM me and we can arrange something.

14 comments

All this elitism and drama over the vegan and vegetarian community reminded me why I hate vegans (yes, I'm a vegan who hates vegans. We exist)

I will never understand vegan elitism. The goal should be reducing harm as much as we can. Elitism does nothing to promote veganism as a philosophy and there will always be someone more strict and more ridiculous than you.

There are people who say eating mushrooms isn't vegan because fungi share similarities with animals. I kid you not.

Can I suggest naming the community simply plant-based?

That ways it not only includes the philosophies of veganism and vegetarianism, but also people that for religious reasons or health problems have to follow a dietary regime based solely or mostly on grains, plants, etc.
- I'm against calling the group plant-based. Veganism is concerned with animal welfare and the well-being of the planet, while plant-based ignores all that and only focuses on diet. You say you hate vegans? That's fine, start another group but leave our group alone.
  
  You say you hate vegans? That’s fine, start another group but leave our group alone.
  
  I see you decided to ignore the fact that I AM VEGAN (which I even mention in my comment) and that I was clearly joking.
  
  Animal welfare and the well-being of the planet are two reasons to be vegan. Some people care about both... scratch that, every decent human being cares about both including people who are not vegan. You can, for example, be a person that loves cats and doesn't want the amazon to be destroyed without being vegan.
  
  Anyway, some people are vegan for those two reasons. Some are vegan for only one of them. And some are vegan for a combination of other reasons.
  
  Such as "I will get sick if there's butter in this cake" or "meat is too expensive" or "I follow a religion that says not to kill animals" (which is not the same thing as "animal welfare"). Or maybe someone is a manager at a restaurant, and they're sick of one in ten customers asking "can you make this dairy free?" so they added a vegan label to everything on the menu that is vegan. Or maybe they just want "leather" gloves that can handle frequent exposure to water (vegan leather performs better in wet conditions).
  
  I'm probably missing some. There are lots of reasons someone might want to discuss "vegan" topics.
Very polemic the decision to group veganism and vegetarian.

Why do you think a diet and a philosophy are the same thing? I do not understand this decision and the stubbornness of it. Why are you not open to discussion?

Please explain how this makes any sense. Why not then socialism and vegetarian? or conservatism and steaks?

Veganism is not a diet. I am not making this up and can be checked by literally any source on the internet.

With this decision, you are undermining what veganism is by reducing it to a simple diet that can be grouped with other non even similar diets.

You pride yourselves that this lemmy instance is respectful and inclusive. But you are disregarding vegans and refusing to even talk about it to improve things so you don't hurt people's feelings.
- you have a heterodox perspective here. most people don't perceive vegans and vegetarians as different in some foundational way, and people who self describe as vegans aren't necessarily in alignment with your perspective. i certainly am not. whatever certainty you seem to have about the distinction between veganism and vegetarianism is not as obvious to other people as you seem to think.
  
  if you truly are having trouble understanding why veganism and vegetarianism would be grouped together, you are likely in an information silo, because the links between the two are well described on wikipedia, and the philosophical underpinnings of the movements (because vegetarianism is not just a diet, its an ancient and significant cultural practice) are deeply interlinked.
  
  genuinely would recommend assessing where it is you are getting your attitudes from. to those not invested in the minutia of differences between philosophical movements with similar goals, you arguing to divide along these lines comes off as dogmatic behavior.
  
  Vegetarians can eat fish, eggs, milk, honey, etc. Vegetarians may enjoy leather clothes. Vegetarian can also enjoy activities like fishing or going to see caged animals in a zoo.
  
  This is a small example but these activities are not vegan because it involves the exploitation and suffering of animals.
  
  When the community is created, pictures containing food with dead animals can be perfectly uploaded under this 'Vegan and Vegetarian' category. Do you think vegans like to see animals that have been killed for their taste?
- I actually volunteered to moderate that sub specifically for this reason. I'm hoping mods will be contacted before subs are created to discuss.
  
  IMO 'Vegetarian and Plant Based' is probably a more fitting sub name/subject.
  
  I don't think Beehaw is ready for an honest conversation about veganism.
  
  No, they showed they are not ready.
  
  Which is very strange given that they cater to multiple ideologies, sexual inclinations, races, etc. But no, "there will be no discussion about veganism and you will enjoy what we are imposing, period".
  
  I'm shocked.

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