Hi! I'm Oasis, I was a member of UHSD for a full year (2023) then a moderator there for 9 months (January to September 2024).
I initially joined UHSD in late 2022, as part of my return to the larger Homestuck fandom. I was happy to come back to these communities and thought I could learn a lot and have interesting conversations.
I was immediately "welcomed" by many homophobic and misogynistic "jokes". Bigotry continued, in all possible flavours - sexism, racism, queerphobia, ableism, statism, classism, psychophobia, etc etc, you name it - and without adequate moderation. In the first day of participating in UHSD, I had to block over 20 people, including some mods.
I considered leaving but decided to stay for a while, thinking I had been in more toxic cesspools already and that I could manage this mess. A few members had interesting things to say, although it was generally drowned in constant shitposting, bizarre attacks on official creators and an unique mix of open aggressivity and passive-aggressivity. UHSD is the only place I ever saw where you had to face BOTH the PvP approach to dialogue and caustic gossip endlessly.
I spent all of 2023 blocking as many bigoted and/or aggressive members on UHSD as I could, ignoring their posts whenever possible and occasionally reporting their messages. My reports were generally dismissed.
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In January 2024, Makin made me a moderator. He said he was motivated by the fact "we disagree on virtually everything H24 (...) that's usually a good trait to have". I found it an interesting approach, I thought (wrongly) he was willing to work on his server and to integrate criticism.
I joined the UHSD mod team with the explicitly stated purpose to make the server better, to help changing the culture. I tried the (proverbially bad) idea to "change the system from the inside".
In 9 months, I was not able to bring about a single positive change. The admins and other mods said NO to every reform I proposed, let it be a large one or a tiny one, let it be a progressive one or an organisational one. Every tool I brought from my 22 years of experience in moderation, they refused. It didn't matter how polite, formal, conciliatory or adamant I was, everything was systematically refused. The mod team even stopped me from banning the R-word, repeatedly.
A FRAF member in previous pages asked "what the fuck mods even DO in that server". The answer is, not much. Mostly they were interested in keeping some semblance of order, with no ethical or political stance expressed, except maybe some irritation towards the progressive.
Intra-bullying was a common occurrence in the UHSD mod team, I refused to practice the national sport but generally the band seemed to consider everything was fair game. One of the mods refused to talk to me regarding moderation matters and mocked me (both in modchat and in public), another one tried repeatedly to get me banned under multiple false pretenses (for example pretending that advising members to join a server on bottom surgery was "inviting minors to a porn place"). I was trying to cooperate with everyone to make the server a better place, and at best the mods were neutral on the matter, at worst openly hostile.
In April 2024, I asked Makin to de-mod me, he refused.
I finally slammed the door in September 2024, quitting both the function and the server, after one last public discussion where members, MULTIPLE MODS and Makin himself insisted that Andrew Hussie was a cisgender man. That was the last straw.
I was then attacked further despite having left the server, not interacting with the community and blocking most of UHSD mods and admins.
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I regard this entire era as a personal failure: I lost 9 months of my life in this position and exposed myself to considerable disrespectful, belittling behaviour. I should have known from the get-go this was not going to work. I should never have tried to reason and to dialogue with the worst of the lot. I should never have offered my precious time, focus and energy to UHSD. I'm worth more than that and everyone on this Earth is worth more than that.
I advise everyone here to do what I failed to do: to realize that these UHSD people are not worth your time, focus and energy.
Do not engage with them. Do not try to reason with them.
Others have tried. I've tried. It's no use.
Life is too short to waste your good faith and good will on people who do not demonstrate any.
Block them. Report them. Ignore them. Move on with your life.
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Post-scriptum
MAKIN PERFECTLY KNEW THAT KALIWETE WAS A NAZI.
He already knew in early 2024. I reported Kaliwete/Kaliborn over and over, both in PM and in modchat. Makin didn't care.
Bolas also reported Kaliwete over and over. Makin didn't care.
Finally Makin got pressured enough to directly ask Kaliwete if he was a nazi, but he didn't take any action against Kaliwete, and Kaliwete left UHSD of his own volition.
Makin and his team later allowed Kaliwete to join their post-UHSD shelter server.
