ANNOUNCEMENT: the first-ever Beehaw Community Survey!

hello folks!

with our backlog cleared and many new people around, now's a good time to do our first-ever Beehaw Community Survey--the first of what will likely be(e) many to come. this survey should take no more than 5 or 10 minutes to fill out, so we strongly encourage you to do so when you are able to. you can find it at the following link:

Beehaw Community Survey

the survey is comprised of seven optional demographic questions to help us assess the overall identity of our community and three questions relating to Beehaw and the Fediverse. it also asks you about 17 possible communities we are considering and whether you would actively participate in them if made.

the survey will be open for approximately a week. we'll definitely close it before July 1, so please get your responses in before that date. it'll also be locally pinned for at least the next three days or so, so please mind that. thanks!

results will also be aggregated and posted on here in a summary sometime thereafter. no ETA on that though.

blindsight,

I just wanted to say that I feel very strongly that, should it be implement, the community be called WorkReform, not AntiWork.

In the spirit of Beehaw, I think AntiWork goes against the ethos of "Bee Kind" as it sets the entire community up to be adversarial to anyone who enjoys work/finds work meaningful. Work reform is a much more inclusive goal.

I had a hard time with that one since I would not join an anti work community, but I was fairly active on /r/WorkReform.

can,

Definitely agreed. "antiwork" carries too much baggage.

can,

Agreed! Antiwork carries too much baggage.

iamhazel,

100% agree!

average650,

I strongly agree.

Pot8o,

I agree with this too. There is nothing inherently wrong/bad about work. But the way employment is structured could do with some serious reforms.

rowinofwin,

Seconded, a positive mindset is what we are cultivating and that starts at the name. It is also clearer, we all know that reform is possible but some people interperet antiwork as full work abolishment, something way down the line of work reform.

Manticore, (edited )

The miscommunication there is in the definition of 'work'.

They don't want to abolish employment, labour, or community contribution. They want to abolish work - the idea of a labour system that is tantamount to indentured servitude, labour as an obligation, labour for labour's sake, labour at the expense of one's wellbeing and QoL.

Labour you enjoy or find meaningful isn't 'work' under that interpretation, and arguing for reforming 'work' like that is a soft-serve that ultimately ensures those kinds of labour continue to exist.

I agree the name itself is provocative, because the meaning of the word 'work' has come to refer to all labour as a whole. (Mostly because almost all labour these days is work, now.)

But their intent is not to abolish productivity, or that those who are productive and enjoy their labour are somehow wrong. It's about pushing for everybody to be able to choose labour that is meaningful to them, so they can have that too.

So while a given individual within the movement may have joined because they interpreted it that way, they are minorities, and not the movement's intended goal upon its founding.

I support language that is less likely to be misinterpreted by extremists, but that may not be feasible, and the movement itself is not against Beehaw's values of community health. The majority of those in the movement are heavily interested in the wellbeing of our labouring communities.

Maybe something like c/HealthyLabour, c/LabourRights, or c/LabourEthics?

BarryZuckerkorn,

They want to abolish work - the idea of a labour system that is tantamount to indentured servitude, labour as an obligation, labour for labour’s sake, labour at the expense of one’s wellbeing and QoL.

Seems confusing to substitute a non-standard definition of "work" into that movement. The standard definitions of "work" in any dictionary don't seem to carry an implicit meaning of indentured obligation, at least how I read them.

If anything, the word "labor" often carries those negative connotations as much, if not more, than the word "work." For example, someone who says "I labored for 3 years at that company" versus "I worked for 3 years at that company" seems to be giving additional, negative value judgment about that job and what it was like.

And I recognize that the movement itself has tried to narrow its focus on this particular definition of work versus labor, but I don't think it accurately describes the broader societal understanding of either term.

thepaperpilot,

I won't fight too hard against this, but I'd like to weigh in that I feel I'd fit more into a antiwork community than work reform. I legitimately believe we should abolish work (as opposed to labor), and work reform dilutes the cause.

But I understand the concerns with the baggage the term has and would sub to work reform if it was the one created - I can still sub to socialism and other leftist communities.

BobQuasit,
@BobQuasit@beehaw.org avatar

I want to abolish work, not reform it. Reforms always end up getting rolled back by the plutocrats.

Jitzilla,

What do you see at the difference between work and labor? To me they mean the same exact thing.

thepaperpilot,

Labor is the production of goods and services, work is when you sell your labor for a wage or salary. If you've ever heard the phrase "the means of production", it's referring to the idea of who gets the product of the labor - the workers, or someone/something else (e.g. a company). It's what enabled capitalism to coerce and exploit workers, preventing them from laboring on what they want to. Leftist ideologies advocate to help resolve this by having the workers collectively own the fruits of their labor, such as within a co-operative where the workers all collectively own the organization. This comment elsewhere in the thread also clarifies the distinction.

hakerdefo,

Can I make a wee suggestion?

It'll be nice if you guys can use something other than "Google Forms" for future surveys. Something a bit more privacy respecting than "Google Forms" will be a better choice for platform like Beehaw. A few suggestions,

EUSurvey
Nextcloud Forms
LiberaForms
OhMyForm
Form Tools

This is just a personal opinion expressed with a view to improve Beehaw experience. No offense intended.

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

we will investigate these but no promises we'll switch (beyond whether they have the features we need--which i'm not so worried about--ease of access is also a consideration we need to make with surveys. our audience is also not exclusively tech people and we are, bluntly, not nearly as absolutist with the need for privacy as many of the people on lemmy.)

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

oh, cost/resources are another consideration. our finances aren't exactly in a place where we can eat huge costs of any kind, so out of hand we're going to be a lot less willing to consider stuff with a big price tag (especially when we can't yet gauge how many surveys we'll be doing and on what schedule)

hakerdefo,

Again, I can't argue against this point. Money is a necessary evil to consider for sure 💰

hakerdefo,

Ease of access is for sure an important thing.

vinniep,

I was also a little turned around when I saw a Google form show up.

I think the long-term answer here is for a native poll feature right in the platform. There's a feature request for this on the Lemmy github project.

Until then, though, everything's just a temporary placeholder solution.

Lionir,

Note that for our survey, a poll would not be nearly complex enough.

vinniep,

Very fair point, unless the Poll feature is not only implemented, but suffers from an insane amount of feature creep as well.

Lionir,

Yeah, like, I don't want checkbox polling, free-forms and other stuff crammed in there - I would go insane 😰

iamhazel,

On the other hand I think it would be an awesome option but think they should be hidden behind an advanced editor.

hakerdefo,

Mastodon has this feature baked right in. It'll be great if this feature makes it way into Lemmy as well. 🤞

IcedCoffeeBitch,

I couldn't find Puerto Rico on the list, please consider adding it; I understand we are US territory but many of us consider ourselves our own country.

Lionir,

Added!

IcedCoffeeBitch,

Thank you! Submitted now

Cube6392,

Just want to give a quick shout out that the questions are exceptionally well worded for encouraging valuable feedback. It's super easy to ask “What communities are you interested in”, but “What communities would you contribute to” is a different, and more valuable question. This is one of the most well-thought-out surveys I've filled out for an online community in a while. Is one of the admins possibly a sociologist, demographer, or otherwise someone who writes surveys for a living? Or did you just write a really good-ass survey based on your experiences taking not so good surveys?

Lionir,

I can't personally say I'm any of those but I am in college so I'll eventually learn about how to make good surveys. I think something we took advantage of is peer review. A lot of the questions were refined by comments made by our community moderators!

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

This is one of the most well-thought-out surveys I’ve filled out for an online community in a while. Is one of the admins possibly a sociologist, demographer, or otherwise someone who writes surveys for a living? Or did you just write a really good-ass survey based on your experiences taking not so good surveys?

mixture of experience with surveys, lots of peer review, and lots of revising over the past week or so. we were literally revising questions up to the moment this was posted with the community mods to make sure our wording was clear and still communicated what we wanted it to

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/88e368b0-10be-48a3-805b-b792a9a79523.jpeg

I am not a fan either people, but remember to propose a solution when you complain.

It must be free and as easy as Google Forms...

  • Framaforms (limited to 1000 responses)
  • Office365 (wait... No)
  • SurveyMonkey (limited to 10 questions)
  • LimeSurvey (freemium)
  • AirTable (I don't know, never used it...)

There are dozens more.

Again, I feel you, but if your reluctance is based on digital privacy, the rabbit hole will drive you mad.

Lionir,

Personally speaking, I'm not opposed to paying money but LimeSurvey literally doesn't have a tier that would allow us to have everyone on the instance answer and it's ludicrously expensive. The closest they have is 10000 per year

The only realistic option for us would be to selfhost form software and personally, I don't feel like putting more weight on our sysadmins at the moment..

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I'm not saying anyone should use something else just because Google bad. When I survey my students I use our school's MS Forms thing. If I want about 100 answers I use Framaforms. If I had to survey a large group of people like this, I would go for Google.

And, wow, I had no idea that LimeSurvey charged so much.

hyazinthe,

Cryptpad would be a good option

Doombot1,

Would you guys consider creating any sort of houseplants community? Plantclinic community, and/or succulents community? If I’m being entirely honest those are the ones I miss the most, and the ones on other communities still aren’t very active/don’t exist (in the case of succulents, as far as I can tell!). /c/greenspace helps to fill the void a bit but doesn’t quite do it

TheGiantKorean,

Yes please!

GiantPacificOctopus,

I would also love to see this!!

ghostalmedia,

This is a great idea!

ellesper,

I would absolutely love to have a houseplant community to join here

kotatsuyaki,

Minor complaint - my country / region (Taiwan) is not listed in the "countries" dropdown list, and Kosovo is also missing. Consider asking for "country or region" instead of "country" and include states with limited recognition when asking nationality.

Lionir,

Added! They are sovereign states - they are countries.

kotatsuyaki,

That's real quick! Thanks for including my country :)

Lionir,

Pfft, 30mins is not that quick, no problem!

TheOtherJake,

I don't want anything to do with google, and I do not knowingly post personal data on their servers.

meoooow,

Thank you for pointing this out.

Helix,

Same, especially with questions about gender and sexuality. I'd have preferred a selfhosted LimeSurvey, Baserow.io or similar.

Phroon,

A bit of a meta comment/thought. Looking through the list of proposed communities, I see a few that were a “Reddit thing”, communities that would be like AskReddit, Ask Me Anything, and Today I Learned. In some sense, I wish for Beehaw to have its own identity. That it figure out its own way to do things. That might just be a differentiating choice of name for the same thing, but one that helps convey our values through the names’ connotations. Or it could be that we come up with our own ideas for communities that can cover a wide variety of topics.

In the text about our creed, Be(e) nice, I see a desire to be(e?) different. That Beehaw isn’t Reddit. I feel that should help guide the communities we create.

Emperor_Zombie,

Maybe "Cool things I learned" and "Open Forum"

nfld0001,
@nfld0001@beehaw.org avatar

That might just be a differentiating choice of name for the same thing, but one that helps convey our values through the names’ connotations. Or it could be that we come up with our own ideas for communities that can cover a wide variety of topics.

c/Q&A? c/trivia? Those were possibilities that came to mind for what you mentioned in particular 🤔.

Manticore, (edited )

I agree, I don't want Beehaw to simply replicate Reddit. It's not remotely large enough to yet, anyway. But Beehaw is already more similar to Reddit than its users are willing to admit - and some of these would be good ideas, and should just be broader.

AskReddit and AMA are essentially 'Chat'; and the topic of the thread is either the OP, or the commenters. Unless these kinds of threads start dominating Chat at the expense of others, it won't need a subgroup. We probably don't have enough notable users for an AMA to see traffic, and any notable users that want to do an AMA should just use Chat, which is also already essentially askBeehaw.

TIL is a niche version of "look at this cool thing I'm excited about!" and that we don't really have an umbrella for, which I think is a shame. An umbrella that encompasses 'today I learned', 'damn that's interesting'/'mildly interesting' etc sounds interesting, though I don't know what one would call it.

Phroon,

An umbrella that encompasses ‘today I learned’, ‘damn that’s interesting’/‘mildly interesting’ etc sounds interesting, though I don’t know what one would call it.

Perhaps just "Interesting", that seems to be a simultaneously descriptive and broad enough name.

SenorBolsa,

Obviously it wasn't on the survey but I figure I should at least mention what I'd like to see directly, I would really love to have some kind of automotive community here. I'd be happy to pitch in and help develop it, but I do not think I could be a full time moderator.

Having a friendly supportive place to talk about cars, driving (high performance or otherwise), projects, and grassroots motorsports would be awesome.

This is probably a much later addition I don't know how much interest there is here. Just putting it in the suggestion box.

Cris_Color,

I'd love for motorcycles to be included, as I love both

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

due to our general principle of broadness with communities we'd definitely do this to start if we made an automotive community

Seathru,

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/2adfc871-dd23-4ffb-bb97-98fffccf5d6d.jpeg

SenorBolsa,

If cagers and bikers can get along we might achieve world peace. 😂

Probably to start they would go together I'd imagine since Beehaw is quite small. Long term they really are wildly different worlds though I can appreciate both, I've driven/ridden everything from scooters to class 8 tractor trailers personally I'm down for anything with wheels and a motor/engine.

ffmike,
@ffmike@beehaw.org avatar

Keep your eyes open in the future...this is almost certainly not going to be the last round of community creation. The admins are being very deliberate about the process though.

SenorBolsa,

Yes and I really appreciate it, manageable growth is key to the success of this instance. If you don't voice your thoughts there's zero chance of being heard though and I was curious to gauge interest and thoughts about an automotive community here.

Seathru,

Yeah some kind of automotive/motorsports/powersports community would be nice. It's my area of expertise and I enjoy sharing knowledge and helping others; but I've also seen how those communities turn toxic with the quickness. I wouldn't want any part in trying to moderate that.

SenorBolsa,

Every community that's passionate about something has these issues, but with vehicles there's an extra layer I think as they are often seen as extensions of ones physical self and ego, consciously or not, so enthusiasts can take criticism of their vehicle very personally. Also you practically have to be an engineer to fully understand everything going on in a car, so misinformation abound, mostly due to games of telephone from some necessary simplification of a concept somewhere.

alfonsojon,

I also would really like an automotive community.

TheCalzoneMan,

Hooray Tabletop! I mentioned it in my sign-up, but I am really looking forward to having a dedicated space to talk about TTRPGs, mini-wargaming, and the like. Hopefully it gets added to the list.

l4sgc,

Do you think Tabletop would be the right place to discuss Dimension 20 or other actual-play content or would that be better categorized in something like entertainment?

TheCalzoneMan,

I don't see why it wouldn't go to Tabletop. If tags ever get added in, it would be better to have actual-play stuff on a tabletop-specific community, since we're the ones who will care specifically about that kind of medium.

Edit: forgot to be specific

s3rvant,

Yes! It's the one I'm most excited for.

Isildun,

Done. As a side thought, I wonder if it would have been interesting to include both a “would contribute to” and a “would be interested in reading” (or similar concept). Undoubtedly there are countless lurkers here as there are on any social media site. It could be interesting to see what people are interested in lurking vs contributing to.

As a personal example, I don’t think I could contribute well to worldwide news, but I think it’s important to consume it to keep up to date (and I assume Beehaw would have more interesting stories than traditional news media’s “front page”).

Although, as a counter to my own suggestion, I suppose there’s no point in having a community that people are interested in reading but no one is interested in contributing to.

valen,

I agree. I'm primarily a lurker, and had to view "contribute" as "would appreciate such and such a community".

As an aside, I remember someone asking on Reddit for all the lurkers to be more active and post a lot. I really don't think this user would like Reddit if suddenly the number of posts/comments increased by at least a factor of 10, most of which would be stuff like "I agree with this" instead of just upvoting.

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

Although, as a counter to my own suggestion, I suppose there’s no point in having a community that people are interested in reading but no one is interested in contributing to.

this is basically the reason we settled on for the phrasing. we're not worried about whether a community will have eyes--we're already at a point where that's a given with the about 11,000 users we have before lurkers--but eyes aren't necessarily contributions and who wants a bunch of dead sections mucking up a place?

jackgreenearth,

I would love to be able to fill this out, but unfortunately it is a Google Form

InevitableList,

You can respond "prefer not to say" to all the personal questions.

noodlejetski,

yeah, I try to avoid giving Google more data whenever I can

localhost,

I think it may be good idea to also add a separate general medicine-focused community.

Health communities on social media tend to gravitate towards wellness and less-than-evidence-based practices - which is fine on its own, but may not be what some would expect by the name alone.

Jitzilla,

YES. I loved r/nursing and r/medicine for their focus on evidence based medicine. I’m not interested in a facebook mommy group vibe.

Emperor_Zombie,

Retro is an interesting one. A lot of my Reddit subscriptions were related to Vintage collection communities.

UngodlyAudrey,
@UngodlyAudrey@beehaw.org avatar

I personally love delving into retro games and classic movies, so that community would be a natural fit for me!

psythrichor,

Same here. I'm pretty keen on this one!

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