The votes were available to anyone via certain mbin instances for example, without even needing to be signed up. Multiple mods of the vegan .world community were also mods of the vegan community of VTC, but I don't see how that works against Hamid in particular, since I have no knowledge of his involvement. Beaver is likely still a .world mod via her suspected alt, but she was banned from VTC after her public spat with Hamid involving posts like the OP.

I think you're mixing things up. Beaver was not among the [!vegan@lemmy.world](/c/vegan@lemmy.world) mods who fought against the .world admin Rooki's interference in the community based on his personal beliefs and made-up rules. Beaver just briefly participated in some of the related discussions. Then long after the incident, she posted memes (which I don't believe were reactionary if you mean right-wing), including some that mocked it. A new mod of the .world vegan community called her out for that and for allegedly banning people too eagerly and removed her as a mod. None of it involved the VTC instance. Slrpnk has a decent summary of the events. There are reasons to believe that Beaver is an old account of the OP (Sunshine).

Also worth noting that there was/is a significant number of Russians in Azov, which too works against the ethnic repressions argument made in the STALKER thread on Hexbear. The number of soldiers speaking Russian on the front lines has been a bit of a hot topic in Ukraine, with some of the very patriotic Ukrainians like Yanina Sokolova having famously defended the practice against Iryna Farion. The latter would end up shot dead by someone with Russian ties (as proven by a Russian neo-Nazi group publishing the video of the killing captured by the shooter).

Edit: Slightly reworded a few parts written too hastily.

Apparently Hexbear's Code of Conduct is as performative as its leftism.

We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.

And then in practice (just from scrolling through their crosspost):

• "This dipshit was so low effort"
• "eat shit fascist."
• "I hope you literally eat some shit, you genocide revisionist"
• "The Ukrainian perspective is being wrong and stupid"

Further in the rules:

We will ban you if you insult, demean or harass anyone.

No matter who you are, if you feel you have been or are being harassed or made uncomfortable by a community member, please contact one of the comm mod's or any of the sitemod team immediately. Whether you're a regular user or a newcomer, we care about making this community a safe place for you and we've got your back.

Yet I got tagged in that thread twice without having participated in it: once to be insulted (see above) and the other time by a mod of multiple Hexbear communities expressing their intent to ban me for this incident in the reddit sub I mentioned in the OP, which I would argue is one of the most straightforward cases of harassment.

I'm a long-time moderator myself in communities with thousands of users, and I think one of the roles of a moderator is to deescalate, not pile on. It's literally something I recently documented in my moderation guidelines draft prepared for one of the platforms I help run.

Yeah, and I suppose that seeing their support for the LGBTQ+ community for example, it just doesn't click that they could be supportive of the other things they support. Russia notably outlawed "the LGBT movement" as extremism and prohibited transitioning before Trump did the same in the US. So while I had an understanding of what a tankie is, that contradiction worked against me and must have made me think those people could be reasoned with on other issues.