Hi,
jlai.lu is the french instance of Lemmy, some user posted this thread 16 days ago : https://jlai.lu/post/11504685, and a flamewar ensued between hexbear and the french, e.g. between happybadger and their administrator here.
Since they didn't really have any reason to defederate initially, they're now adamant that they should defederate only because of this discussion, since it proved that every Hexbear&Lemmygrad user is agressive(, as if jlai.lu users weren't agressive in this discussion as well).
I still find hard to believe that they could defederate on such weak basis, and it does feel like a convenient excuse, but that's what they're saying, ask them for confirmation if you don't believe it either.
They also used a list of post found on /c/[email protected] as if it was representative, but it hardly counts as an argument, what a stupid situation...
They've now pinned this post for 12 days, and the defederation with both Hexbear and Lemmygrad seems unavoidable.
I've known this for more than a week but didn't care that much, yet when talking with them, and especially @Camus here, they/he said that they/he would like to talk to you. @Camus is very patient/nice, and you can look at his number of comments/posts to gauge his influence, probably their most active user(, kind of a french ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆).
Well, to be more precise, he informally asked for some excuses from Hexbear, but my post here didn't reach them, perhaps because of "r*tard" in my username(, r*tardataire designate someone who's late in french).
However, more than excuses in the name of others, you only have to show him that we're not aggressive(, if you have some time, it won't change much in the end), something very easy/natural to prove for >90% of Hexbear users(, and perhaps >70-80% of Lemmygrad 🙂, it does feel a bit more bitter/serious here, not a criticism).
They have some communities that aren't that far apart from what could be found on Lemmygrad or Hexbear b.t.w., so it can't really be said that they'd reject us solely based on terrorism apologia, supporting Stalin, etc.(, even if their "leftist" admin is against socialist countries because our capitalists said that they're authoritarian).
Staying federated with a french instance would be useless for 99% of Hexbear and Lemmygrad, so if you intervene it'd mostly be on the behalf of current/future french users(, it can be nice sometimes to speak your native language without using an alt account), and perhaps also for Lemmygrad and Hexbear's reputation on jlai.lu.
If you're french, and/or simply nice, and want a chat with them, feel free to do so directly under the post or with @Camus.
(Kinda worth mentionning in passing that, currently, their top two posts of all time sorted by the most comments are the ones cited above about this defederation)
Also, keep in mind that this defederation is unavoidable though, if it doesn't happen now it'll be next year or the year after. As you know, reddit banned ChapoTrapHouse, GenZedong, etc., and we were quickly banned from lemmy.world and others, so we'll one day be banned from other "centrist" instances such as the french one. Just like we'd also be banned/censored by our governement if our numbers grow enough to disturb/'be a threat'.
Furthermore, Hexbear took action, and decided to defederate first without even trying to discuss more calmly. So don't waste too much of your time either(, but please don't go there unless you intent to speak calmly).
Thanks for reading :) !
Look lets not be unable to self reflect here, there has been a large meme that I do not fully understand the context behind, nor the bennifit from, of randomly hating french people, and this is a problem, especialy when you cary that into the french instance. You are right that it is probably not the best look especialy for an admin to mention throwing us into a well, but lets also be congnsent of our actions here too, when you start out on anti-french sentiment, for reasons based on frenchness, you are not going to get welcomeing results, and to be honest starting a flaim war is the best possible interpritation of that.
My point is that if one says things like this, I'm not going to care if they complain about the same kind of violent wishcasting being aimed at them (and I'm definitely not going to care if they tut-tut about someone merely being abrasive or profane). They're just being dishonest, and there's no reason to engage with that.
Besides, none of this is about saying mean things anyway. It's about a few of the most active users over there thinking that if you support AES states you're a fascist. They aren't willing to have any sort of good faith conversation with you or me; they think we're basically brownshirts, they think we should be thrown in a well. One of my first comments in their defederation thread was asking this Anansi asshole a genuine question about atrocity propaganda -- no insults, no jokes, just "the west has lied about this in the past so I'm skeptical of them today." The very first reply included:
That's what they think of you and me. This is what they are upset about -- not mean words -- and they are unwilling to discuss it.
Look what I am saying is that us wishcasting because someone is french, is not going to help, and is far more damaging to our aims and allows them a way to immedatly deflect any of our points, its not helpful and it also and opens up the door to shitposting that only elevates the tempreture.
Also are you saying you are so unprincipled that insults are going to make you lash out? that because they do not know what they do not know, and are opperating on the propoganda they are fed and bombarded with? We need to keep our cool, WE need to learn how to discuss it with a hostile audence. Unless this is your first day as a Marxist you should both know and expect this to be the thoughts on our opinions, we cannot let that break us into insults and "edgelording" no we must keep our cool.
Agreed. I don't make those sorts of comments, and I've pushed back on them under this username and others in the past. But I also understand there are good reasons to be deeply angry over the crimes of empire, and I've seen how being perfectly civil doesn't get you far, either.
When someone responds to a discussion of atrocity propaganda with "I hate you, you just want to kill minorities," you are no longer trying to discuss anything with that person. You're now making arguments for the people reading along. You don't have to be a doormat to do that, and being too conciliatory can give the impression that your argument isn't that strong.