Hey there. New member, freshly registered.

I would say that the biggest threat to a solarpunk community like this one is greenwashing. More specifically, I'm thinking about techno-solutionism - a devious form of magical thinking that lets us think that tech is going to solve everything.

It is okay to share news about the latest technological advancement, to marvel at the ever lowering price of solar energy. But if it leads people to think that we can just replace fossil with another energy source and keep our societies and economic structures as is, this is toxic.

And I get that if you get enthusiastic about some tech and post it here, but then someone starts raining on your parade in the comment section, that person could easily be disqualified as a doomer.

How can we foster a sane debate about technology in this community ? Honestly I don't know, but I'm eager to try!

All the best,

Here's my take: I think this sort minute rule making in a code of conduct is harmful. The purpose of permanent bans is to remove trolls and other bad faith actors, but no one you've described is bad faith. We shouldn't be against diversity of opinion here. If anything, I think a time out or temporary (24h) ban is more appropriate to stop people from raging or behaving badly, but all opinions should be welcome.

About the /c/collapse sub, I like the idea that Robert Evans uses, of not referring to "collapse" but instead "the crumbles" - podcast link. The point is it's not going to be a single moment and it's not going to be absolute, so the idea of it being a thing that either will happen or won't happen is a false dichotomy.

It's a slow, inexorable process of change and that implies that rather than a landslide that will just fall on us all without any hope for remedy, it's a process whose path we can influence and change. Maybe you could close /c/collapse and create /c/the_crumbles or something like it? Maybe explain the purpose of the rename and put some resources in the sidebar to ideas about radical hope and practical ways people can help. I also think directing people's despair in that direction can only be a good thing.

I wish I could volunteer to moderate something like that but I'm afraid I can't really give the time or consistent energy to it. It's just an idea :)

I think one of the big attractions of solarpunk in general is the sense of tempered optimism it offers in the face of darker narratives (cyberpunk, doomer) – ie. there is hope out there but it is going to take a lot of hard work to get there

Regarding doomers: Big agree in general. My understanding of a "doomer" is someone who thinks all hope is lost and there's no use doing anything. That extreme pessimism doesn't add anything tbh, especially in a hope-oriented instance.

Regarding civil disobedience, I also strongly agree.

Re: absolutist veganism... while I agree it can be as much of a hindrance to discussion as doomerism, I'm not sure we should have something codified specifically about vegans. The thing is, anyone can be so fervently for ANYTHING that they're not able to have an open-minded discussion assuming good faith. Heck, that includes the "I don't eat greens I'm not a rabbit" folks. I think it'd be a better step to have a rule against... I don't know what to call it, dogmatic arguments? Absolutism, ad hominem attacks, etc, the stuff we see with a lot of online Veganism but that certainly isn't only vegans. For sure we could use the example of veganism, but also of religion vs. atheism (not as relevant here, but I feel prone to the same behaviour, at least from my experience in online Atheism), maybe it could even tie in with the doomerism rule.

Either way, I want to echo what others have said and say this is already a lovely, inspiring community, and I'd love to see that wonderful community codified in some way.

I feel like these discussions should be separate posts, since a lot of the comment threads are kind of unwieldy.

Doomers: I would make part of our code of conduct an agreement to avoid non-constructive negativity.

Civil disobedience: I think the code of conduct should include a requirement not to speak in a way that could incriminate anyone or inspire harm against specific people. I think this is broad enough to take care of the worst concerns while still allowing people to debate the merits of industrial sabotage philosophically.

Vegans: I would make a rule against community gatekeeping. This should be sufficient to address anyone who tells someone that their diet or lifestyle disqualifies them from participating in this community, without singling out any specific diet or lifestyle choice.

These are very good and useful talking points.

After all, what attracts me to solarpunk in general is that it is positive in the face of a negative situation. Yes, vegan and collapse-concerned viewpoints are very welcome on my feed.

My personal rubric that I try to adhere to when posting is: Hopeful and Helpful.

Collapse topics and promotion of veganism can certainly be expressed in hopeful and helpful ways.

My attraction to the banner of solarpunk is that I hope it will also attract others who still want to try. These are the people I want on my team as the slow disaster unfolds.

As for the talk of direct action, this is definitely not the forum for safe planning. I personally would welcome discussions about what makes for effective activism in various contexts, but that discussion would also include awareness of when and where to talk specifics.

Thanks for showing the leadership to make this community healthier and better. May your solar array always operate at peak efficiency.

I started drafting some ideas for the code of conduct here: https://wiki.f-hub.org/books/slrpnknet/page/code-of-conduct

Feedback appreciated.

Doom is a natural response to the death of hope. The cure is to help people build paths to a new hope; a solar punk hope of a solar punk future.

I didn't know where to ask this so I'll ask it here: where can I donate money to the instance?

Thank you for the amazing job, guys

So it seems you're automatically defensive about wanting to moderate vegan speech (preempting with "don't feel personally attacked) and deep down I think you know why.

I understand you're just trying to make a space where everyone feels welcome. But harrassment policy and other conduct policy should cover people getting out of bounds and requires no vegan specific clause. Making a vegan specific clause is a little hostile.

Unless you are truly aiming to ban people for having the opinion that it's not ok to not be vegan. That would be tone policey and censorious, in my opinion. If a vegan is actually harassing someone that calls for moderation, but its already a rule to refrain from harassing. If you want to make a rule on harassment and include several examples, and one of them is a vegan example, that would be fine.

It just reminds me of other contentious issues like racial justice or gender issues. Sometimes people didn't like getting called racist, but do you censor a racial minority because their message is intense and makes someone a little uncomfortable? People have the right to decline interactions that arent going well but they shouldnt expect to always be perfectly comfortable when writing in the public square.

Meta, how does moderation / deletion work?

If i post to another instance and they remove my comment, does it also disappear from my own local profile view (as if the hosting instance controls display of all comments even remotely)? Or would it have to be removed by my own host to make it disappear from my own local profile view?

Hi! I got banned from one of the communities in the instance about a month ago (climate). I think (hope) it was actually a mistake? I got into a discussion with someone under an article, they kept saying dumb things, and the mod for that comm removed his comments with the reason "don't troll", but then banned me for 30 days for "trolling" (and not the other user who had their comments removed). I messaged the mod for that comm to ask if it had been a mistake, but I'm thinking they may had blocked me as I didn't get a reply.

I'm posting mainly because I don't want that permanent "stain" in my record when it was possibly a mistake. Is there anything I can do about it?

For the civil disobedience bit in the CoC, it might not hurt to link to Kolektiva's recent snafu, as a reminder for caution.

we can’t really allow planning discussions (RE: disobedience)

You can't. We can't also be spouting off and calling for people's heads on a stick either, as permitting that kind of talk emboldens the one guy out there that's unhinged enough to do something because he's got 'online backing' even though it's mostly people just venting. I get the punk part. I don't always agree with it, though. I think there's a lot of peaceful ways to make meaningful changes without blowing up a pipeline (Ludwig style) or chaining yourself to a tree.

as an aside, I'm kind of a doomer? maybe? I'm certainly disillusioned with our state of inaction and the way things are headed. It may well be way too late to do much other than brace for impact, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. You'll see me over in /c/reclamation shilling restoration strategies and talk. I think encouraging research and industry to work together is a good way to make changes and more responsibly source our minerals and resources.

Idk, man. shit's fucked, but in the meantime, I'll be chewing gum and trying to stick it in the leaking dam.

The discussion should be about how to handle content that's fine with enslaving and slaughtering of other species instead of how to restrict the ones that oppose animal abuse very strictly.