User blog:Cosmo224/HHW isn't the same as it used to be.

===A New Manifesto: HHW isn't what it used to be

While I may almost never edit on HHW, and will stay on chat, I feel like I need to say this.=== HHW isn't what it used to be in 2017 and early 2018.

I joined HHW on November 30th, 2017, after many of the so-called 'old guard' (like Hype, MH, Akio, Bob, Brick, Layten (banned a few weeks before I joined), and MG), but before many newer users (like Giedrius and Caleb),  Back then, Discord was random. You could suddenly find a completely random quote from somebody, Bob fantasizing about having sex with L1G, or a literal NSFW fanfic. Back then, #fanfics still existed, and people weren't being told to move to #chat-2 for discussing a topic (like tornadoes, or translations) that were only ever popular for a few weeks anyway. Reading chats from 2017, you get a unique experience that simply isn't there today, due to the overburdening regulation on what exactly is allowed in what chat room, the removal of #fanfics, and more. I know having NSFW fanfics is not really great for a community that wants to show that its decent to the wider Internet and some of the things told in #fanfics, some made by myself or others, were immature and unacceptable but the steps taken have almost choked the incredibly unique community of HHW that you could find literally nowhere else on the Internet.

Things like "no gay jokes", and "no jokes about suicide", even applied to obviously sarcastic and non-threatening, albeit immature, terms like "go commit die" and "ur mom gay", choked the HHW community. I can understand banning obviously homophobic jokes, or 'serious' suicide jokes, and trying to be LGBTQ-friendly, but these jokes, while somewhat immature, were a part of the HHW community, and nobody really hated each other back then. I appreciate I have made many mistakes in my gestures towards those of right-wing political opinions, including threats that I have long since moved on from (many sarcastic, but that's beside the point). Many of these policies are unpopular, especially among normal users and the lower echelons of the administration, and (although this is pure speculation) may have influenced some recent users' decisions to become inactive or leave the community entirely.

I also believe rules recently introduced, such as rules dividing what exactly goes into #chat, #chat-2, and #spam-in-general, disrupt the free flow of conversation. For example, translations and foreign languages go in #spam-in-general, whereas multiple posts about snow continuously go in #chat, but only while the Atlantic hurricane season is not active, otherwise they go in #chat-2. This is confusing, and conversations moved to different chats tend to die. One ponders how this could be used for censorship.

The rules seem bureaucratic for a community that was once random and entertaining, and I feel that it stifles new users from enjoying HHW due to this.

Reading this, you may think "well the rules are worse than they once were and the community spirit damaged, but at least we don't hate each other right?" Well think again, thanks to a little server called '''WorldPolitics. '''

This server was created on January 25th, 2018 as a server for political discussion within the HHW community. This was mostly created as a way to stop Dane (a progressive) and Astro (a moderate conservative) from clogging up #chat-2 debating about political issues. HHW is pretty moderate compared to many communities, and is pretty balanced between left and right-wingers, although I would say that HHW as a whole leans towards the left slightly, and thus in the early days there were more liberals than conservatives.

Originally, the server had a typical moderator-administrator-owner staffing structure. However, over the next several months the server evolved into a democratic system where the rules were created by elected representatives.

The first elections under the new system (there were limited elections with extremely low turnout beforehand, but this was the first election that truly mattered) was scheduled for June 12th, 2018. On both sides, the caucuses attempted to stack the vote in their favour, and accusations were made against the conservatives of election rigging. This sowed distrust in the government. Around this time as well, the conservatives posted an invite either on r/The_Donald or 4chan. This resulted in several individuals with racist, homophobic, and sexist views joining the server. This caused extreme tension and mistrust between the two caucuses, mostly between me and a user espousing a Nazi ideology known as The_Don_73. On several occasions our interactions devolved to trolling, flamewars, and death threats, which I very much regret and damaged my standing permanently in the HHW community, as well as further arguments which I again regret, which can only be blamed on my implusiveness.

This came to a head on August 31st, 2018, when the president, Mason, resigned and Dane was elevated to the presidency. The electoral system was divided by caucus, where the liberal caucus got 3 Senators and 3 Representatives, the conservative caucus got 3 Senators and 3 Representatives, and the independent caucus got 2 Senators and 2 Representatives. Mason resigned after a five hour flamewar involving Don, which landed him in the #prison channel.

After this, an independent going by the name Darth and the conservative caucus began an orchestrated deadlock against the liberal administration. No bills were passed for several months as the flamewars intensified, with one user being banned for using anti-semitic racial slurs against Alpha. Until...

In January of 2019, almost the entire conservative caucus was expelled from the server after a kangaroo court trial of Don, a multiple-hour flamewar, Mason leaving the server and transferring ownership to Dane, and a harassment campaign against Astro orchestrated by Orlando, Don, and someone going by Oswald Mosley Jr. (Oswald Mosley being the leader of the British Union of Fascists). (I was expelled from Congress by this time, not for setting off flamewars or sending threats, but for jokingly changing Don's nickname., proving both caucuses would not punish one of their own in most cases.) Out of roughly a dozen active conservatives from memory, only two or three remained, Mason having left the server - Astro, and someone named Diminatas, who was one of the few non-HHW conservative caucus members to not espouse racist, sexist, or homophobic views, being a monarchist (Yes seriously, although he was actually a pretty nice guy.)

The server died after that, with only 27 messages being sent from May 1, 2019, to May 10, 2019, vs over 12,000 in August of 2018 and having dozens of active members at its peak.

Anyway, the events in WorldPolitics caused distrust to be sown among the members of HHW that were there, including myself. Just today, an admin accused another of not caring about their opinion on pings, and during a heated discussion a few days ago another admin said to me "I bet you your friends in WP agree." I know my decisions were rash during that incident, and I know due to the multiple previous impulsive actions I have done that it makes no difference, but I am sorry.

I came for the hurricanes, but I stayed for the community and their wild and random humour. Literally the only reason I didn't leave years ago was due to the amazing community.

I believe that the reason many newer users don't stay for a particularly long time and the rate of new joins is decreasing is because of the death of the amazing, unique, and random HHW community. Back in early 2018, everyone who joined stayed for months. Now, many leave within days. I believe this is due to well-intentioned but misguided rulemaking choking the spirit of the community we had back then.

Maybe the best solution of government for a community such as HHW is a managed democracy, or limited democracy. A system of government where the normal users have some choice in the rules (votes being posted by an admin for public voting), with the admins putting forward most votes. This would allow the voice of the users to be more accurately represented in the rules, while at the same time preventing anarchist or far-right tendencies from inflaming discussion. Users would also be able to put forward votes, and if at least 25% of admins agree it should be held, the vote is held. If at least 55% of voting users approve, it becomes part of the rules. All this would require was allowing users to submit rule changes, and moving the currently secret, administration-only voting process for rules to a public vote. One server that has implemented a similar system is the discord server of RationalWiki, to great success.

Voting is held in the #starboard channel, and any vote that approves becomes part of the rules. While many meme rules are submitted, this could be cut down by simply not allowing them. I believe that implementing this system will make HHW a fairer and better place for everyone.

Consider this a new manifesto for the future of HHW. If people do not support it, it should not be implemented. Take this as a proposal, not a demand,

Cosmo