Pre-comment disclaimer- all uses of you here are in reference to hexbear as an instance, not individuals.

I know this is a joke, and I’m a bit uncomfortable making this reply in the first place, but to be entirely honest dunk tank and Cth (which iPhone wanted to correct to Cthulhu, which is why it’s capitalized, and I’d rather share that fun fact than fix it) have confused the absolute fuck out of me as far as what y’all are about, because some of that content is -really- aggressive toward what I used to identify as (and why I’m ancom now - canvassing as a liberal who never felt liberal went far enough), and it’s the vast majority of what comes up on my feed from hexbear, sorted by new (to do my part, 🫡!).

But then I also see the policies, the politic, and the community, and I’ve had zero bad experiences with any of you, hence the confusion.

But I intentionally seek to understand, and have always had user instance information enabled on comments to show where people come from, so it makes it easier to aggregate the information.

I know a lot of the newer users are on apps, since a lot of them came here -because- of apps (I did, tbh, but I like the feel of the platform) and by default most apps (all the ones on iOS that I’ve tested, at least) suppress instance information, to make it more like Reddit, I assume, so they don’t recognize the good stuff from your users, they just see the dunk and cth posts, and assume you all suck because they haven’t been exposed to it and then this HUGELY active community pops up ragging on what they identify as. Rather than question it because they see you elsewhere and know where you come from, they see those posts and that’s it.

The apps also really suck for community finding and searching based on instance.

I’m pretty sure I’m on the same page you lot are but… I honestly don’t know sometimes because I don’t really know you and I see a limited amount of who you are.