Sorry for interloping as a new lemmy.ml user -- I wanted to share my perspective because I was one of the very early adopters of hexbear (then called chapo.chat) after the ChapoTrapHouse subreddit got banned. I no longer have an account there because despite the mods best efforts to uphold "left unity", I at best felt tolerated as an anarchist and just stopped browsing eventually. The reddit strike coinciding with hexbear federating convinced me to create a lemmy account to maybe reconnect with some of the communities there.
The great strength of the old subreddit was that it was a safe haven for leftists of all flavors, practically the first of its kind as comparable places like /r/DankLeft did not exist yet. After a few years of relative isolation, I think it's fair to say that hexbear has become more staunchly ideological (and I'm sure some would say for better) and at least to me it lost some of its more broad appeal. My hope for federation was to see some of the more calcified beliefs over there shaken up a bit with an influx of new users. I guess it's also fair to say that that hasn't happened yet, but it's only been a few days so far.
My hope is still twofold: for Lemmy as a whole, I think it's good that there is a strong leftist presence somewhere to avoid the complete flattening of opinion one can experience on, say, /r/worldnews or /r/politics. I'd hope to see more voices that are critical for example of US hegemony, the two-party system and capital as a whole compared to reddit. And for hexbear I still hope that they can reclaim some of their former big tent appeal, they have always advertised themselves as welcoming to everyone broadly on the left and despite my many criticisms, I do think the mods there do indeed stand by that. These hopes may all be a bit naïve, but I do believe defederating from the biggest leftist instance that (at least in theory) is non-sectarian will only lead to more calcified beliefs on both sides. A lot of that is also for hexbear to decide though, they will have to choose what role they want to play in the fediverse.
Sorry for interloping as a new lemmy.ml user -- I wanted to share my perspective because I was one of the very early adopters of hexbear (then called chapo.chat) after the ChapoTrapHouse subreddit got banned. I no longer have an account there because despite the mods best efforts to uphold "left unity", I at best felt tolerated as an anarchist and just stopped browsing eventually. The reddit strike coinciding with hexbear federating convinced me to create a lemmy account to maybe reconnect with some of the communities there.
The great strength of the old subreddit was that it was a safe haven for leftists of all flavors, practically the first of its kind as comparable places like /r/DankLeft did not exist yet. After a few years of relative isolation, I think it's fair to say that hexbear has become more staunchly ideological (and I'm sure some would say for better) and at least to me it lost some of its more broad appeal. My hope for federation was to see some of the more calcified beliefs over there shaken up a bit with an influx of new users. I guess it's also fair to say that that hasn't happened yet, but it's only been a few days so far.
My hope is still twofold: for Lemmy as a whole, I think it's good that there is a strong leftist presence somewhere to avoid the complete flattening of opinion one can experience on, say, /r/worldnews or /r/politics. I'd hope to see more voices that are critical for example of US hegemony, the two-party system and capital as a whole compared to reddit. And for hexbear I still hope that they can reclaim some of their former big tent appeal, they have always advertised themselves as welcoming to everyone broadly on the left and despite my many criticisms, I do think the mods there do indeed stand by that. These hopes may all be a bit naïve, but I do believe defederating from the biggest leftist instance that (at least in theory) is non-sectarian will only lead to more calcified beliefs on both sides. A lot of that is also for hexbear to decide though, they will have to choose what role they want to play in the fediverse.