• Carl@lemm.eeEnglish
    16·
    6 days ago

    New update for those of you following this story

    We have established contact with the previously-AWOL owner, and after much discussion, we have determined that while there was an error in the auto-payment initially, the renewal funds were transferred manually to Sav and the auction continues despite that. We are currently appealing to Sav support with our domain credentials. We are also looking into whether an ICANN-compliant grace period was implemented prior to the rescinding and auctioning of the domain.

  • Carl@lemm.eeEnglish
    104·
    8 days ago

    This almost certainly won’t kill the Hexbear community, and frankly I don’t think there’s any way they will choose to pony up the auction money. This community has moved from reddit to discord to the fediverse and they’ll probably just be on their backup/original domain chapo.chat for a month or two before switching over to whatever the admins decide to switch to, and then it will be business as usual under a new name.

    Still there’s a lesson here about setting up a durable online community - don’t let someone control the domain registration with their personal account, you’re just asking for something like this to happen. If they don’t have one already the admins should set up some kind of organization that can “own” the new domain, donations, etc so that this can’t happen again.

    • CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.eeEnglish
      23·
      8 days ago

      I just don’t get how you could keep trusting the people that run the instance after this. Its like the whole manjaro thing I could never use it because I do not trust the people in charge because they won’t stop fucking up.

      • GhostOfHoxha@lemmy.ml
        10·
        8 days ago

        Making some assumptions about who is who (because they’ve intentionally made it difficult to keep track for doxxing reasons), this should be the last connection they have to a previous admin team that’s been at the core of a lot of the unforced errors over the years. I think it may actually be smooth sailing after this. Either way, I have too many alts across different instances to be too worried about a single one falling. I would indeed miss Hexbear though.

        • hoppolito@mander.xyzEnglish
          5·
          8 days ago

          Don’t have a horse in the race myself (since I use arch, btw) but e.g. here is a compiled list of some past issues.

          • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk
            3·
            8 days ago

            830 days since manjaro last fucked up. I’ve been using manjaro for a while. other than some hiccups i’d expect of a rolling release distro i’ve been fairly happy with it

    • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
      19·
      8 days ago

      The current vibe definitely is “Dont pay money to cyberlandlords, give it to people in the mutual_aid comm”. Let it go and get a new domain

  • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    92·
    8 days ago

    The rest of the Fediverse should put together a GoFundMe to buy the domain, and stick up a page with links to donate drones to Ukrainian soldiers, and care packages to families of Uyghur muslims detained in concentration camps in China.

      • Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        7 days ago

        I wonder if the high bids will actually go through or if it’s just trolling. Definitely weird to give such big amounts of money away for a joke outside the space where it’s needed.

    • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
      7·
      8 days ago

      Couldn’t somebody buy it and change it to force all the assholes out and then change things to make it a proper instance?

      • Evotech@lemmy.world
        13·
        8 days ago

        Idk how federation works, but I imagine the domain name isn’t the only thing that ties the instanses together together?

        I could be wrong

        • 3dmvr@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          8 days ago

          nah they could, theyd just change it to their ip address, like the domain vendor deleted their ip address from the records when they didn’t pay

          • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            4·
            7 days ago

            That’s not how the Fediverse works. Instances are per domain, not per IP address. You can change IPs however often you want, as long as your domain points to the right server.

              • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                3·
                7 days ago

                That doesn’t matter to fediverse software. Any new instance on hexbear.net would have errors when trying to federate with other instances, and it probably wouldn’t be able to do so at all. But even if it did manage it, what are you expecting to do to mitigate the errors that arise from other instances referencing users/threads/posts/comments/communities/modlogs that existed on the old instance, but do not exist on the new one?

                • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  2·
                  7 days ago

                  referencing users/threads/posts/comments/communities/modlogs that existed on the old instance, but do not exist on the new one

                  Yeah, that’s what I was talking about. It would be a different instance that doesn’t have the same database as the original one.

    • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
      2·
      7 days ago

      care packages to families of Uyghur muslims detained in concentration camps in China.

      So right to the pockets of Adrian Zenz?

    • vger@lemmy.mlEnglish
      55·
      8 days ago

      They didn’t really move. That hostname has been a synonym for hexbear.net all along. It may have been the instance’s original hostname.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
      34·
      8 days ago

      How does anyone know that this is a fair auction. As much as the users may be hated or disliked, I still don’t believe in companies or corporations taking advantage of people like this to make a cheap buck.

      Who’s to say that every bid in the auction is being artificially raised by a company rep and no matter what amount anyone comes up with, the owner will just keep raising it until they find a really high value.

      Shitty situation all around and as much as they are not liked, I wouldn’t want anything like this happening to any honest instance out there.

      • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
        15·
        8 days ago

        I dont think anyone on hexbear is actually bidding on the auction. For one most users are poor and the consensus seems to be that any money that would go to cyberlandlords would be better served in the mutual_aid comm. Like if someone wants to spend money on hexbear, they should spend it on those that need it the most.

      • 3dmvr@lemm.eeEnglish
        11·
        8 days ago

        Thats always risky and I highly doubt it, they could just not buy it and then they’re stuck holding the domain and can’t sell it for a cheaper price immediately after

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
      31·
      8 days ago

      Thanks! Unlike a lot of Lemmy users, I have a soft spot for hexbears. I think they had a genuinely traumatic experience when they federated and their very personal instance was inundated with people who didn’t think and talk as they did. I’m glad they’re ok.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
        4·
        6 days ago

        Homie, they inundated everywhere else with their bile, very few people actually came to their instance.

        They were the traumatic experience.

      • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        24·
        8 days ago

        they had a genuinely traumatic experience

        Jesus Christ, this is so ridiculous. They federated on their own accord, and from what I’ve seen very little non-hexbear users ever came to post on hexbear communitites. Seeing some new users in your online community who disagree with you isn’t fucking traumatic, in fact these people adore arguing and “dunking” on “libs”.

        • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
          13·
          7 days ago

          Dunking on other instances was literally the entire reason they federated in the first place. Their users were salivating at what they would do to lemmy.ca before we defed’d.

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
          7·
          7 days ago

          Seeing some new users in your online community who disagree with you

          It takes so very little for liberals to take their masks off and start talking word-for-word exactly the same as incel nazis.

            • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
              5·
              7 days ago

              How about instead of puffing your chest out like an online incel douchebag asking me to cross a brand new line in the sand, you respond to what was already pointed out.

              i.e. you being an incel nazi cosplayer and pulling the ‘just simply for disagreeing and nothing else’ bullshit you and every other incel nazi uses every time your behavior is called out

              • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                5·
                7 days ago

                what was already pointed out.

                Almost nothing has been pointed out. You said my comment resembles those of “incel nazis”. No actual explanation or concrete criticism, just aggressive vocabulary and vague accusations. Of course, you can’t provide anything more than that - had i actually given even a hint of support for nazi ideology, you’d easily point it out, rather than just calling out… my wording?

                bullshit you and every other incel nazi uses every time your behavior is called out

                What is this “my/our behaviour” that you’re talking about exactly?

                • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  5·
                  7 days ago

                  I didn’t explicitly give verbal support to specific nazi parties (motte) I just said these snowflakes go running whenever some vague and nonspecific disagreement happens! (bailey)

                  You can’t criticize me for using the exact same rhetorical tools literal nazis use and in the exact same context! It’s just a coincidence! You have to follow my rules and satisfy my framing!

        • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
          3·
          7 days ago

          Their users wanted to defederate right away when they saw the rest of Lemmy. The people in charge (able to pull the switch) kept telling them to hold on and it’d get better. A small number of people made the decision for all of them. It’s all the rest for whom I genuinely feel bad. Their community was highjacked and, I think to them, attacked. I can have empathy for the average users.

          • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
            5·
            7 days ago

            Having seen how Hexbear interacted with other instances, I have zero empathy for them. They were an incredibly nasty group of people towards anyone who thought differently to them.

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
        14·
        8 days ago

        Ah, I saw a lot of people traumatized by their posting, but it is the first time I hear about the opposite.

        • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          24·
          8 days ago

          Hexbear is the only place online I’ve found that I feel most comfortable speaking my mind as a neurodivergent queer communist. People act like hexbear is some harsh authoritarian zone, it just simply doesn’t condone chauvinism, transphobia, or let people post western propaganda without it being questioned. Some people react poorly to the way they are responded to on hexbear when they post some bullshit that we’ve heard and debunked 1000 times already.

          • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
            4·
            7 days ago

            They also made a habit of “raiding” other instances, and outright flooding any conversation they didn’t agree with with the most vile takes they could come up with, or, failing that, the pig shit Gif.

            But yeah, they’re secretly caring people, sure.

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.mlEnglish
              7·
              7 days ago

              They also made a habit of “raiding” other instances,

              Lol, I love seeing the mythology of hexbear evolve in real time. I particularly like how you put “raiding” in inverted commas to make it seem like you’re quoting something, rather than just making it up whole cloth.

              • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
                4·
                6 days ago

                I mean, I saw it happen. You argue with one, and twenty others show up and just flood the thread.

                But sure, keep lying to yourself about how your friends are secretly caring people or whatever.

      • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
        13·
        8 days ago

        Their community reminds me of that one Something Awful subforum with the same style. I guess hexbear is just a younger demographic

    • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
      10·
      8 days ago

      According to that statement they don’t have access to the account to renew that one either, so they’ll lose it eventually and it should be considered temporary. 🤷‍♂️

  • Zink@programming.dev
    67·
    8 days ago

    I am not writing this to shit on them, but I have to appreciate the irony in the situation. Something about a communist community getting messed up by lapses in individual responsibility, or an authoritarian leaning community getting messed up by fuckups in leadership.

    • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
      21·
      8 days ago

      As @Sunshine@lemmy.ca mentioned it’s now at $505.

      What’s up with j_s_0e6b87? (Let’s call them JS). If they really want the address that’s the wrong way to go - bidding too high, too early, too often, and in a bidding war against everyone else. A better approach is to wait until the last hours and then try to snip it.

      Unless their goal is to raise the prices this way?

      EDIT: currently $676. JS is in a bid war with TB (t_b_2a08d7), a newcomer. 🍿

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
        15·
        8 days ago

        Wouldn’t it be better to agree whatever bit yall want to do with the domain name and spend the money on something more productive? Here’s a father trying to buy his kid a new leg after Israel blew it off.

        I speak for all of hexbear when I say the domain isn’t worth that much, and losing it to capitalism is a funny bit, redirect it to /r/neoliberal or the wikipedia article on economics or the Black Book of Communism or something. Maybe declare Juan Guaidó the interim president of hexbear and redirect to his twitter.

        Losing it to some anticommunist “left” weirdo to flex how much money they are willing to waste on an internet grudge instead of helping literally anyone is less funny.

        • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
          10·
          8 days ago

          I’m j_s_0e6b87 aka JS. Linking r/neoliberal? Pfffft, not even close! I want to Make Hexbear Great Again. It’ll talk about the wonders of NATO, and how Israel is doing the right thing (if you disagree you’re Antisemitic and a living proof of the horseshoe theory). I also want to denounce the horrors of mayocide and shitty image reactions, plus insert the Nazi 14 words there otherwise it’s literally 1984. (Just kidding.)

          Okay, serious now. I don’t know what’s up with this bidding war; this shit is weird. Currently the highest bid is at US$710, that’s 200x more than I have in my wallet*. And it’s perfectly possible that the bidders are all doing it for different reasons: perhaps they believe that it had enough traffic to justify the price, or they want to recover it for your instance, or they are indeed in some weird vendetta.

          And if it’s a vendetta it could be for a thousand reasons. It could be anticommunism, but it could be as well some HB user behaving like a wild monkey outside your home instance and getting someone pissed enough to do this stupid shit.

          *R$20, or roughly US$3.50. Yup. If I had some money I’d gladly donate to Karim.

          • chickentendrils@lemmy.mlEnglish
            4·
            8 days ago

            I mean they just try to collect the highest bid and then ban you if you don’t pay. I’m thinking it’s just someone fucking around.

            Edit: yeah I’m guessing this is it. If you social engineer support and pretend to be them… Seems like John Smith is the bidders’ name on the site, before they turned me away.

      • TheBeesKnees@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        5·
        7 days ago

        JS has bid 26 times now without missing a beat. It’s up to $2,345. That’s insane… and with 8 days left! Like bruhh what?? I refuse to believe they genuinely want to purchase it vs just driving up the price.

        • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
          5·
          7 days ago

          It’s a popcorn fest for everyone! Including Hexbear users, they clearly don’t give a fuck about the address itself.

          My guesses are, in order:

          1. Same as you, they’re just driving up the price. They’ll stop bidding near the end.
          2. They genuinely want the address because they have some really bad bone to pick against HB, and they have more than enough money to waste on it.
          3. Some really clueless HB user wants the address, even if their own admins said to not bother.
        • Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          7 days ago

          Same, it’s going to be an intense 9 days from now on. The finale is a great mystery as to how will everything turn out. What will be the final price? Will people cancel their bids? What will be shown on the new site? Who’s the one bidding? Who will win? And all the drama and arguing in the meantime too. Lemmy’s going to be busy.

    • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      3·
      7 days ago

      If the highest bidder refuses to pay up, will it pass to the next one down?
      Cause I feel lile some of those higher bids would just evaporate and it’d make perfect sense to place say a 500 bid rn (1920) just in case, if you were so inclined to decorate the domain after aquisition

      Edit: And also it would mean you could start a bidding war with hexbeareans to drive up their cost to the maximum they would pay, without any risk to yourself as long as you remained anonymous

  • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
    56·
    8 days ago

    Wow, that’s a fuck up of monumental proportions. Still 9 days left on the auction, I wonder how much it’ll ultimately sell for.

    This could be really annoying when they all make accounts on lemmy.ml. Funnily enough, having them sequestered over there and defederated from the rest of us has been working pretty well lately. Moderators and admins better start dusting off the banhammers.

      • jqubed@lemmy.world
        28·
        8 days ago

        Reading through the admin’s post it looks like they have the exact same issue with chapo.chat being registered by an admin who is no longer active and not responding to the rest of the admin team. They explicitly say to view the move to chapo.chat as temporary unless they can get control of that domain.

        Sounds like a good lesson for them and many other fediverse instances to form some sort of non-profit/club/organization legal entity and better ensure that these critical items are open to multiple individuals to reduce the bus factor. I would assume having a legal entity would make it easier to get donations to cover costs too.

          • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
            10·
            8 days ago

            I’m taking it as “grew up and realised he had been an idiot, so stopped talking to them or supporting the cause”

            • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
              15·
              8 days ago

              Y’all are really overthinking this. Have you ever just gotten tired of using some platform or just become less chronically online in any capacity? It doesn’t mean they died or had a change of heart. People’s interests change over time. Not everyone wants to do the same thing forever.

              • Ambii [She/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                11·
                7 days ago

                These people are holding onto some weird ass one sided internet beef with a lemmy instance of communist trans people, do you really think they’ve ever touched enough grass to grow past the age they first joined reddit?

                • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
                  4·
                  7 days ago

                  Don’t play the victim. Those who were around when Hexbear first federated with the main instances remember how awful their behaviour was. Being a trans communist doesn’t shield you from criticism, nor does it excuse that behaviour. None of grudges people hold are unfounded.

          • vger@lemmy.mlEnglish
            25·
            8 days ago

            It’s the same instance. That’s just a synonymous hostname that points to the same IP address.

          • bishbosh@lemm.eeEnglish
            14·
            8 days ago

            Right after the r/chapotraphouse sub got banned, they moved to chapo.chat, but the community wasn’t really that tied with the chapo trap house podcast anymore, so they moved to hexbear.net.

  • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
    45·
    8 days ago

    Just add the following line to your host file and add an override to your DNS:

    37.187.73.130 hexbear.net

    Problem solved, this is how we did it in 1985.