I mean, that sounds like your referring to anarchists criticizing authoritarian communism, which is certainly not something slrpnk admins and mods would have any interest in “cleaning up” given they are anarchists themselves. If you meant liberals then I did say that we tolerate them there, at least on the memes community. We believe in outreach.

Being anti-Marxist is definitely a big negative, especially since you tolerate liberalism. Believing in “outreach” by allowing liberals yet rejecting Marxism is where you get “left” antileftism. It would be better to be an enforced anarchist community intolerant of liberalism, which would help y’all avoid the problems I see with slrpnk.net. Grad has a strict Marxism-only platform, and it has no issues, Hexbear has strict left-unity and has no issues, but solarpunk isn’t defined by anything other than the aesthetic, so it becomes a source of “left” antileftism rather than just an Anarchist community.

That’s fair. Solarpunk is primarily an artistic movement, so it is vulnerable to co-optation in the same way that any artistic movement is. IMO socialists are in desperate need of a strong modern artistic movement and if we don’t want it to be co-opted we should be embracing it.

As a Marxist, I want to point out that this is more Utopianism, ie trying to come up with a formula and enforce it, rather than trying to steer development. The Superstructure, ie art, culture, laws, etc, comes from the Base, ie the Mode of Production. Art naturally follows and supports the Base. Trying to force an aesthetic onto a utopia, ie a better form of society you wish to implement directly, is difficult and prone to coopting.

Perhaps it was an overreaction, I can’t say for sure because I think most of that drama played out before I joined lemmy. I have also never personally experienced right-wing anti-leftism on slrpnk.net so I might assume that we have cleaned that up.

To be clear, calling Marxism “authoritarian Communism” is a form of left-punching. You may not believe anti-Marxism is anti-leftism, but the fact that you allow liberalism but not Marxism is where the issues come in. It would be better, again, to be a strictly Anarchist community, or to allow both liberals and Marxists, blocking out left-wingers in favor of right-wingers is where the cooption comes from.

Therefore, I would say you have 3 good solutions:

1. Unblock leftist instances like Hexbear and Grad, while retaining liberals as well. This way, outreach balances itself out

2. Block liberalism, this keeps Anarchism as the focus

3. Add lots of resources for theory and discussions for theory that go beyond how this “utopia” may function, ie how do we actually get there? I see lots of “what we stand fors” on the sidebar but very little in the way of actual praxis, which adds further to the cooption process. Hexbear has anarchist and marxist theory linked everywhere, even in the sidebars and taglines, same with Grad (which even maintains a wiki and beginner reading list). Solarpunk kinda just has the manifesto. Even a simple theory reading list can do wonders for the theory levels of your userbase.

Of course, you’re free to continue as you see fit, I’m just going to have the same issues with slrpnk.net. You don’t have to appease this random Marxist-Leninist, you don’t owe me anything, but I do think you’re harming your server by being more tolerant of right-wingers than Left-wingers you disagree with on practice.