How would you feel if Beehaw left the Fediverse?

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.

Hyperreality,

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.

apotheotic,

This is my biggest fear of beehaw moving - I want a safe place to be, while looking out into a wider sea of content (albeit through the filter of Beehaw’s defederation, which I really appreciate). When the trolls and the assholes get too much, I like to be able to retreat back to just Local feed setting and be safe again. If beehaw was to be a separate platform, I’d lose that.

Beehaw is a shining beacon in an ocean of content, good and bad. I’d love that beacon to remain, so more people can find safety here if they need it.

NaibofTabr, (edited )

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.

BolexForSoup,
BolexForSoup avatar

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

That has a nice ring to it, but honestly it doesn’t make any sense. You make it sound like if beehaw
leaves the fediverse nobody can browse them wherever they go or somehow the fediverse is barred from them. It is not an either/or situation.

HN exists and many here bounce between fediverse and HN without issue.

shani66,

By that logic the Internet shouldn’t have safe spaces, and i agree with that statement thanks. If you can’t handle something, go somewhere else. I don’t like nazi posting so I’m not on…parlor? Is that a thing or am i thinking of something else?

exocrinous,

Beehaw making itself invisible to those who need a safe space is good news for people who need a safe space. Fewer people lying to them that way

donuts,
donuts avatar

I feel like I've given my answer to this question regarding Beehaw once before...

But as I see it, the main driving force and overall source of value for services like Lemmy, Kbin, Mastodon, etc., is federation. That is to say, federation among a wide variety of different users and servers across the fediverse using protocols like ActivityPub is what sets this entire thing apart from legacy centralized and corporate social media, like Reddit or "X".

I was initially on Beehaw myself and I liked the mature and kind atmosphere, but I ended up splitting for Kbin due to issues with defederation (on top of being curious and interested in Kbin as an alternative software to lemmy). But whether we're talking about "Beehaw.org" or "Kbin.social", in my view the federation is a huge part of the appeal, and I wouldn't see myself continuing to use a server if it cut itself off from the rest of the network, regardless of whether they did it for "good reasons" or not.

Like, if Beehaw wants to be just a significantly smaller and more highly moderated centralized alternative to Reddit, that feels like a pretty weak pitch which, at best, might end up with a community roughly the size of a classic forum. I'm not really interested in that. I want the Fediverse to succeed as a decentralized, open, scalable, and community-moderated alternative to legacy social media. Frankly, my interest in Beehaw as a community hinges completely on it being a part of that movement or not.

I can understand how federation may have posed significant challenges towards your goal of detailed moderation and creating a safe and friendly space, but only in the sense that you were possibly not fully prepared for the level of exposure to a large number of federated users. But even so, if Beehaw is ever to grow into something bigger (which, to be honest, is not a given, especially if you set out on your own as just another disconnected and insular social media website), you will eventually have to deal with the harsh reality that the kind of moderation that you're interested in doing is going to be a significant challenge as your community scales, federated or not. (For example, you may be prepared to moderate content in English, but are you prepared to moderate content in other languages? How will you know when someone starts spreading disinformation and hate speech in Burmese?)

Finally, I think you might want to consider the general movement towards federated social media. Between ActivityPub and the Fediverse, Meta's interest in federating Threads, BlueSky being developed around federation to some extent, federation support in things like WordPress, and a number of other social media platforms tip-toeing their way into the idea, I personally feel that there is a pretty interesting paradigm shift happening right now. Some of that has to do with moderation, responsibility and government pressure on big tech, I think.

But nevertheless, social media is gradually moving towards federation, and I think that's a good thing for the internet as a whole. You nice people at Beehaw will really have to search yourselves to determine whether you see the value in federation (both in terms of connecting people, but also in terms of allowing various communities to self-moderate to some extent) or not.

I do hope you'll stay, even though it means facing the growing pains of moderation challenges sooner rather than later, because the fediverse is better with us all connected and communicating together. I'll be sticking with the fediverse with or without Beehaw, but I do wish you all luck in your goals should you decide to set out on your own.

rambaroo,

It’s over for beehaw already. Once they decided to ban everyone from the largest lemmy instance, it was over. They aren’t important to the fediverse, period, and never will be with their current leadership who have no idea what they actually want it to be, apart from their personal internet fiefdom.

The short amount of time I was there, it felt like a community built for the moderators and admins, not the users themselves. Frankly the fediverse is better off without them, so I hope they do leave.

Kwakigra,

I would not like it.

I understand the issues for the people running Beehaw and they are totally real and understandable. That being said you have to appreciate that Beehaw is setting an example as one of the most popular instances on the Fediverse. What y’all are doing is not just limited to what you directly control but is also influencing this new and developing sphere that is the Fediverse. I understand that some people are resentful of how Beehaw enforces the rules of its own community, and I understand how a barrage of that can be extremely demotivating and tiresome. I have also heard about the absolutely despicable content that some mods have had to deal with which is extremely traumatizing which ideally shouldn’t have to be experienced by anyone. I would understand anyone who would want to never have to deal with that again since that would probably be my reaction.

In terms of ideas, I really appreciate that Beehaw is making a firm stand in the interest of free expression without being bogged down by prejudice and economic interests. The success of Beehaw compared to other instances demonstrates that the project y’all are working on is desired not only by Beehaw denizens such as myself but also those from general instances. This is despite what I assume is a barrage of negativity, complaints, trolling, and legitimately criminal behavior by those who do not support the kind of place which Beehaw is. I know it’s a big and unfair ask to want you guys to continue experiencing the things that cause you to want to make you abandon the fediverse, and honestly I wouldn’t blame you if you do, but it is very clear to me that the existence of Beehaw as it is is a huge draw to the fediverse and is establishing norms which can’t be accommodated outside of what we have here. Reddit sure as hell can’t offer what I’ve been experiencing on the fediverse, and I think that Beehaw is a huge reason for why that is.

derbis,

Can you be more specific about the downsides?

I joined this instance because I was looking for a lemmy instance and to be on the fediverse. I mean I can still do that on a different instance, so if that’s the way you decide to go it isn’t the end of the world.

I guess the core group has its motivations that are not necessarily shared by every user, although presumably our ideals are aligned. This is the first I’m hearing that the association with Lemmy is incidental.

Whether I’d stick around or not, I’m not sure. One thing I like about the fediverse is that it presents a real shot at being a free-culture alternative to corporate social media, and I think losing federation with one of the most successful instances would be a loss for that movement.

If you do defederate, would you continue to use Lemmy as the software for the community? Being able to use the mobile apps is convenient and honestly that’s probably the thing that has me logging in as much as I do.

RymdLord,

I like the policy of “Be Nice” even when I get annoyed that I can’t down vote. Tho a ultimatum like this would make me switch to another server. Why? Well first of all Lemmy is supposed to be federated imagine if Google did this with gmail, it would not end well. Secondly even if I like content from Beehaw communities I do enjoy and contribute to other instances, and would not follow BeeHaw if it where to defederate. The reason I chose and have stayed on BeeHaw is that ultimately it was my choice to use this instance and follow the rules, defederation would not allow me the freedom to be anywhere but on BeeHaw, and that sounds like the walled garden that I left behind. And those platforms end up hurting people allot. I would hate for BeeHaw to end up like it, and would way less be there to see it happen.

TLDR: I want the freedom to chose the rules I want to abide by and would not support this. And would migrate to another instance if this where to go forward.

exocrinous,

If you want to be able to choose the rules of your instance, why are you on Beehaw? Beehaw doesn’t have any rules and its admins are explicitly and openly against having rules.

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Late Reply: This is going to sound harsh but it’s true. I wouldn’t miss it. If Beehaw disappeared tomorrow I probably wouldn’t even notice, and I’m sure that would be the case for many other people here. The problem is that because Beehaw has defederated so aggressively from the largest instances and shut its doors to new users, and people just moved on, or didn’t notice or care. I spent most of my first days on Lemmy.world and consequently didn’t see a majority of the content from Beehaw, but I did see many upset users who had to Migrate from Beehaw due to the defederations since most of the content and communities they wanted access to wasn’t available to them on Beehaw.

Since Beehaw didn’t (and still doesn’t) have community creation enabled it never really had niche communities like other instances did, it is rather forgettable because of that, what most people will remember it for though is the defederations and having to migrate accounts to not be cut off from the rest of the fediverse.

frauddogg,
@frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/c334c427-3924-43a7-ad66-7c6894100a50.gif

TrashGoblin,

I always got death-cult vibes from beehaw. I expected their flame-out to be a lot more dramatig than this, though.

Infamousblt,
@Infamousblt@hexbear.net avatar

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.

0xtero, (edited )

As a relatively new Beehaw user (I deliberately waited for the reddit exodus to subside before applying), I understand the reasoning. The “default” open nature of ActivityPub creates moderation challenges for a “well tended garden” - much more so than a more controlled space. I also understand the software (lemmy) itself is somewhat problematical, both politically and from technical/maintenance perspective.

I wouldn’t be against moving - and I’d follow. The Beehaw groups are active and contain lot of good quality discussions, I’d assume that wouldn’t change outside fediverse.

I’d be still free to access the fediverse through other kbin/lemmy instances if I wanted to participate and I wouldn’t close my Mastodon account just because Beehaw decided to move somewhere else, so I wouldn’t personally lose very much - and I would stand to gain a “safe haven” - a more closed discussion forum I could always turn to when the noise of the outside world gets to be too much.

For the sake of everyone moderating Beehaw and our communities, I’d completely understand. Fediverse is a very rowdy bar and as volunteer bartenders, it must be somewhat tiresome for you.

In the long term I’d worry about building a too small echo chamber without the required diversity for Quality Discussions and I’d also worry about “hiding” - it would be harder for fellow disenfranchised cretins to find us - and perhaps we’d lose good members. I know the Beehaw strategy priority is not centered around growth, but nevertheless, some kind of strategy would have to be devised to monitoring the long term health and diversity of the community.

Satiric_Weasel,

I would be sad, but I’d understand; and I would be grateful to all of the admins that made Beehaw possible on Lemmy; and hope Ai saw you all somewhere else out there on the web.

Clbull,

I abandoned Beehaw and went to Lemmy World because you made the decision to defederate after Reddit shat the bed.

So it wouldn’t make much of a difference to me. I only left my Beehaw account dormant because that instance gave me the impression of being like yet another Tildes, and I kinda wanted to be with the main Reddit exodus crowd.

Omega_Haxors,

the only thing of substance are links to your websites and discord

Ah okay so this is what this is about. Very creative way to peddle your shit.

albsen,

Beehaw is my favorite lemmy instance, its actually the only one with meaningful discussions and lively community. I’m grateful for your time and commitment towards a place where people are nice and have meaningful discussions. You the admins do all the work, you have to make the call. I will come with you but I’m not certain how it will go. If there are easy to use mobile apps and notifications I’ll be more likely to get notified about new content. I just haven’t seen any old school boards that tick all those boxes. So, if I have a vote (which I believe I dont) I vote to stay and rather help you improve the admin tools.

WeirdGoesPro,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

…its actually the only one with meaningful discussions and lively community.

I’m sorry, but that is just straight up not true. There are meaningful discussions happening all over the Fediverse, and quality content is spread across a lot of instances depending on your interests.

I notice your account is from Beehaw—perhaps you aren’t seeing the quality content elsewhere because they defedetated from just about everyone.

If anything, I feel that Beehaw’s emphasis on the vague requirement of “niceness”, combined with their aversion to any sort of debate leads to less quality and an increased echo chamber—colloquially known as a circle jerk. Isolating yourself from everything you feel is uncomfortable is just the other side of the coin of the no-holds-barred free speech that they seem to dislike. Both sides either want to be free from other people’s opinions, or free from the consequences of their own.

albsen,

I’m sorry if my subjective comment offended you. I do like the fediverse, and I did highlight that I’m happy to help improve lemmy instead of jumping to a different platform. Of course you’re always free to take a single line of my reply and build your argument out of it. Being able to admin an instance to ensure that people dont call each other names and ensuring a space where everyone wants to participate is a great goal to stand behind and not in the least a ya-sayers echo chamber. But of course any ability to admin may also be over used to create just that.

WeirdGoesPro,
@WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’m not offended, I just felt your comment had some inaccurate points and I was pushing back on that. No malice or offense intended beyond seeking a discussion.

Funkwonker, (edited )
@Funkwonker@lemmy.world avatar

Why’d you even post this if you can’t be bothered to interract at any point in the thread? Just leave bro.

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