this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
222 points (80.3% liked)

Asklemmy

43946 readers
526 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I am one of the admins of Beehaw and I'm trying to get some feedback on our potential move.

Let's start out with a little Beehaw history before judgements are passed, please.

A handful of us were beta testing Tildes when we decided to have discussions on a Discord server.

We decided that our 'Northern Star' or guiding principle would culminate as 'Be Nice' with purposefully vague/flexible interpretations. Our overall goal is to provide a safe space to disenfranchised persons.

We talked for a little over a year and some of our members became impatient. Then someone stepped in to suggest a couple of platforms that we could consider getting started with.

One of those platforms was Lemmy. None of us knew, at that time, anything about ActivityPub.

During the Reddit exodus (surrounding the API outcry and blackout), our instance exploded. We were, initially, crippled by the mass amounts of users seeking refuge.

Thankfully, someone stepped in and volunteered hundreds of hours of work to stabilize our instance and refine it further.

After many hours of talks, it became clear to us that our overall goal could be achieved outside of Lemmy/ActivityPub.

Right now, we feel that Lemmy and ActivityPub have downsides that are limiting us from achieving that goal.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago

Do what you feel you need to do. Beehaw was my first Lemmy instance, although I have since left. What I initially liked about it was that there was active moderation and the admins seemed to do a good job keeping things running. It was a chill place that didn’t really appeal to the more toxic types you run into on the internet. It was like a friendly little bubble and a good home base in the fediverse.

While I appreciated that toxic instances were blocked, I felt blocking instances simply because they didn’t have great moderation was a little too much. It meant I was missing out on a lot of good content too. I understand the decision but I realized then that the original Beehaw community was more content to be insulated than I was. For a lot of people there, it was more important to have their own tight community than to be part of the fediverse. There’s no hard feelings about it. I enjoyed my time on Beehaw and contributed to server costs. I found another good instance that’s better federated and manages not to have a bunch of nazi and racist garbage so it’s all good.

These conversations have been brewing for a while at Beehaw. I would imagine a lot of the people who don’t especially like the insulated approach have moved on to other instances or created alt accounts for when they want to interact with the larger fediverse.

I don’t think anyone will miss anything if Beehaw migrates to a non-federated platform.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago

beehaw deeze nuts

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

I already mentioned this on an old Beehaw thread, that Beehaw's vision would be better suited to old-school forums, like phpBB, Invision etc (no Discourse please, it sucks). Forums are more conducive for long-term discussions and offer far better user access controls and mod tools.

General-purpose old-school forums are mostly dead these days unfortunately but I see an opportunity in Beehaw for them to make a comeback, and I would 100% support such an initiative.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago

Since you all defederated from lemmy.world I don't see any posts from Beehaw, so from a practical standpoint leaving the fediverse wouldn't affect me in the slightest. On a personal level, you all should do what you feel is best for you community and I wish you good health, good fortune, and good luck with whatever you decide.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago

I'd laugh lol.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago

Are you looking for someone to convince you to stay? Lol

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago

That would be great

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

I think it would be a real shame, and would fragment the fediverse as a whole - some of Beehaw's communities are some of the best on the Fediverse (and I really appreciate the work of the mods of communities on Beehaw), but the Fediverse / Lemmyverse is a lot bigger than just the Beehaw instance, and I really like being able to participate in communities from all over. Having to create accounts separately on lots of walled garden instances is probably not worth it, so I think it would make both Beehaw and the rest of the Fediverse weaker.

Overall I'd be sad about it, and discourage, but I'm sure the fediverse would live on despite it, in a weakened form.

Perhaps the real question is why would you consider doing that? It seems like a lose/lose for everyone. Would you be able to elaborate on what the exact problem you are trying to solve is? Perhaps the community could help you come up with a better solution.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

As a non-Beehaw I would like you to stay because I like nice people. But I understand if you have to go.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (3 children)

it would be a net positive for the fediverse if beehaw left

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago

I would guffaw if beehaw defawed

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago

I hardly frequent any of your communities, but I enjoy the contributions of most of your users and will be sad if they go.

That said, I would consider staying on - and contributing to - the Lemmy software regardless of federation. We are all experiencing the same issues with lack moderation and other features, and I hate to see effort go to waste.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago

Your website will rot on the vine.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago

Most of the topics in interested in have moved off of Beehaw and communities have grown elsewhere. I probably wouldn't even notice if Beehaw left.

I say do what's best for you and fuck what everyone else thinks.

[–] Mandy 24 points 10 months ago

I started on beehaw but left for the current one, as I felt it was less about being nice and more about toxic positivity, very retrictive.

And since than I have not even once seen a beehaw community.

So id say go ahead, neither side likely will miss much, if anything.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

I'd miss you guys. I've jumped in on conversations on your instance a couple of times and it always seems like a nice place

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (4 children)

The fuck are you asking non bee haw users for?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (4 children)

As a fellow lemmy.world user, I gotta say: Jesus Christ y'all are brutal lol

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They somehow managed to anger both the communists and the libs lol, all while being hostile to conservatives (which is based of course).

That's not exactly a sustainable platform; you just get an echo chamber parroting already majority opinions even when they're wrong, and not many people like that.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago

I recall beehaw having some good communities when I was first on Lemmy this summer, but I haven’t seen much from there on Kbin or the lemmies I use - presumably because beehaw defederated for whatever reason. If you’re not going to be connected to the largest instances anyway, what’s the difference?

Sure, having a standalone forum is a legitimate thing to do, like it always has been since the start of the internet. Seems like it would be harder to grow the site without the network effect of the rest of Lemmy though.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago

I think the fediverse would be better off without Beehaw, so yeah, get off Lemmy and go build your own platform by yourself. I wish you the absolute best of luck, and thank you in advance for taking all the worst kind of people off the fediverse with you.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago

From Beehaws docs on defederation:

We are simple with defederating: we do not allow hate speech, and we must consider our own limits when it comes to moderating. If an instance allows hateful speech or in our judgement has users who are too much for us to currently manage given the state of Lemmy, we defederate with it.

If the goal is to limit hate speech and provide a safe space on Beehaw, then I think you should defederate from the fediverse. I think however the value in providing a safe(r) platform for engaging with the rest of the fediverse to be more valuable, but I am personally in no need of such a safe space myself.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Have you considered making the internet a better place and simply deleting it?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago

When you say "leaving the fediverse", do you mean leaving the platform/protocol altogether, or just defederating from everywhere?

Either way, I would think it'd be a loss for the community and the broader fediverse, but ultimately it's your decision. There seem to be some free speech absolutists ITT, but personally I think taking the approach of aggressive defederation is perfectly valid.

I'm curious, what benefit do you see in total seclusion?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Sorry, I hadn't heard of your instance or seen any of your posts so I don't think I can answer.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Stop it, this is a bad idea.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I'm on kbin, but have enjoyed the discussions I've had or read on beehaw. I've mostly lurked.

You're clearly trying to get social media right, and I respect that. Obviously it would be a loss for the fediverse if you left, however you are volunteers, it is your community. You owe the fediverse nothing. You should put the safety of your own users first.

If you do leave the fediverse for good, please let us know. I would consider joining beehaw or another forum/community to join/follow some of the discussions I've seen on beehaw. Especially discussions on sensitive topics that are harder to have in other parts of the fediverse.

The one thing I will say, is that leaving the fediverse will make you less known/accessible to people who need a safe online community. Of course, I suspect it'll also keep out some of the people who cause more moderation and safety concerns. So it's quite a dilemna.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

leaving the fediverse will make you less known/accessible to people who need a safe online community

I just want to echo this. Highlight it. Paint it on the wall in giant block letters in red paint. Light it up in neon.

The only way for Beehaw to provide a safe space is to exist in a place that needs a safe space.

*edit:

Interesting attempt at astroturfing here from a hexbear user:

Weak and transparent, but interesting.

Does the hexbear community have beef with Beehaw, or just this one person?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Decently new lemmy world user here, never heard of BeeHaw before. Don't think I'll miss it.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

Personally I think it would be unfortunate. I like some of the communities on beehaw I'm subscribed to, but I'm not sure I'd bother to switch over. Even right now, many posts I see don't get any interactions, others just a few and that's with users from other instances. I'd imagine starting over would kill many of these communities off almost entirely.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›