Thinking about the direction of Beehaw

I think that if we defederated, Lemmy would be much worse off for it. I think we'd also be a lot slower, and I'd be checking it a lot less.

Beehaw brings something to Lemmy that Lemmy really needs. It's leftist, but it's also very compassion-focused, and we kind of lack that elsewhere. The rest of the otherwise kind of similar communities largely lack the spirit of getting along in good faith that I see here.

Like, what other community do you ever see people responding to hostility by reminding people where they are and it actually mattering? People seem to largely respect the space. Not to say it doesn't ever have a need for moderation, it clearly does and y'all do a great job, but with that moderation it manages to be an exemplary space.

It would be a shame for Lemmy to lose that positive influence and that good example. And it would leave the more lefty-leaning options kind of.. meh.

But it also really helps to bulk out the experience of using Beehaw. We don't get that many posts, so it's nice to be able to go to subscribed or all instead of just local. It'd definitely be a bummer to lose that.

Anyway, I think you're much closer to your goal than you might see while you're on the moderating and administrating end. You see all the nasty stuff up close, but we get to see the result. And compared to the rest of the internet, it's an oasis.

I'd prefer if you guys stayed in the fedi, but this is probably the 10th time you guys have asked this same question on if you should stay. If you have to keep asking, I think you know the answer. No need to ask an 11th time.

If Beehaw chooses to leave the fediverse and defederate everyone, I wish them all the best, but I know I personally will not be joining.

I've had enough of walled gardens and private spaces, I chose the fediverse because Reddit started forcing decisions I didn't like, like which apps I could use or how I interact with the communities I enjoy. The fediverse allows me the choice to choose what communities I want to subscribe to on my own terms, and that isn't something I want to let go of easily.

There are downsides, there is noise, but that's the role of hosting social media. It's inevitable that as a community grows with more people who enjoy it, that there will also be people who want to tear it down. To me, that's just a fact of the internet.

I'll be disappointed, Beehaw is what inspired me to set up my instance and my communities and nurture my tiny instance - but I still believe in the fediverse. Welcoming differing opinions - not shutting them out.

I think that's a great description, in part it's what drew me here with the idea that the discussions and topics are always from a kind and informational perspective, without the common "sneer tone" that can so often overtake conversations on the internet.

Personally my experience with users on Beehaw has been entirely kind, thoughtful, and full of knowledgeable people, whatever the topic may be. The few poor experiences I have had here were from outside instances, it's true, and I can't imagine just how much of that you all must have to deal with. But I have also had just as many incredibly thoughtful interactions from some federated instances as well, generally the (seemingly) smaller instances. I feel like maybe every 1 in 10 comments through the posts I go to read in All might have be negative or purposeful troll, but all the rest are at least coming from a perspective that I can understand even if I may not agree - but it's always worth engaging because it drives good thoughtful conversation.

I have an account on slrpnk that is federated with lemmy.world and it can be unbearable to use sometimes - the slrpnk community itself is wonderful, but lemmy.world dominates the All feed, and lemmy.world comments... it's a mix of dismissive and instigative. I feel like every 1 in 10 comments might be coming from a kind and thoughtful perspective. Comments are immediately downvoted, often times there's comments no more than a sentence long through a whole thread. Except for moderators, but there's just a tone that I can't quite place among reading the interactions that feels... maybe not entirely welcoming? However I also understand they have a lot going on there, and certainly some history I'm missing.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying I really, really value both the Beehaw community & mods and our set of instances, even if there may be a few that still have problems that I don't get to see as a regular user. But I do know that I value all of your comments enough to see what you have to say and get to know my internet friends - Chris, your determination for community is inspiring and you've got some cool hobbies! And the few times I have seen moderator intervention and extended discussion, I've yet to come across an example where I think any of you handled it poorly. (All of you) Your contributions here are more than mod team leaders when you need to be, you feel like community members through and through - which unfortunately feels rare for a mod team!

Regarding federation and instances - maybe the family analogy is something that can be adapted? Here on local we are the immediate family but the instances that I appreciate the most I still feel are cousins. I think many of them appreciate us as well. Unfortunately, I think the negative users overall will not be prevented from their bad habit by a sidebar and our philosophy. With that in mind I think federation with servers that focus on sharing knowledge is the most important.

From the recent post made on I think lemmy.ml regarding Beehaw's federation - the reception was terrible. It felt terrible to read. But looking through the comments, I would say over 80% of them at least had to be lemmy.world users who have never even interacted here - or if they did were soon defederated from and clearly salty about it, all of those getting ~30-50 upvotes. It was a literal circlejerk about our instance coming from a flawed or probably just intentionally wrong perspective. Information like a game of telephone. If it weren't so inflammatory it would have been funny, given my actual experiences here.

However, the rest of the comments though were from a wide, wide array of instances saying they would miss our presence, with it being about a 50/50 split from lemmy.ml itself. And each instance I happened to see that felt positively about us, I likewise had only ever had good interactions from members of those instances as well.

Luckily, I had already seen just how awful lemmy.world can really be, as I mentioned I'd created my slrpnk account just a few weeks ago which is actually where I saw that post, maybe just last week or so? Suffice to say, the reception from them was not surprising in the least because to me it seems clear the intent is to tear down, not lift up. You cannot share knowledge in a tear down community because no matter what, somehow your knowledge is wrong.

Users here just have a completely different intention and way of using and interacting with the internet. Users on other smaller instances feel like that intention is there too. We share knowledge with the intent of further gaining and growing our ideas and abilities and because it helps another member of our community. That is becoming more and more rare on the web and I really value our presence in the fediverse and I believe that there are others that do too.

Whatever the future may hold for our instance, I'll likely migrate with and keep it as part of my sites, but I do worry about the continued level of engagement over time. On the other hand, I realize I don't like the wider fediverse as much as I thought I did after my last month or so looking around on other accounts. (I definitely need to curate better, though). Anyway, I saw this post 14 minutes in and I only got distracted once so... Happy new year to all and I look forward to our next interaction!

I came to Beehaw wanting a replacement for orangesite™. However, I've since decided that I care a lot less about having a massive network and more about just having a positive community of strangers to talk to about my life and interests. In that respect I'd totally be open to a smaller platform. Whether that'd be Beehaw or somewhere else, I don't know. But Beehaw leaving the Fediverse wouldn't be the dealbreaker for me that I once though it would.

All that said, I'd definitely prefer Beehaw to stay in the Fediverse. While there are a lot of dorks out there in the wild, there are some communities that I'd really miss.

I think that 'Star Trek - The Next Generation' covered this very dilemma with (S2E18) Up The Long Ladder. In one hand you have stagnancy and in the other pure chaos. I don't envy you for having to tackle issues like this because there is no perfect solution, but I would encourage you to find a balance. Balance is a prerequisite to longevity.

You would not have enjoyed holiday dinners at my house. While my parents were good people, you can't pick your relatives. We had the infamous Uncle Tom and Aunt Janet, who would swallow anything and everything you had in the bathroom medicine cabinet, even if it landed them in the emergency room later. And Grandma, a devout catholic that spent every Sunday at church learning how to love thy neighbor, who would go on long cuss ridden tirades insulting and slurring on minorities. And then there was Uncle Pete, who was thrown out of Bob Evans on Easter Sunday for announcing to the entire dining room that 'He could puke better than this sausage gravy'. I do actually miss Uncle Pete. He did have a hell of a way of getting his point across, and that sausage gravy was totally bunk.

While thinking about it all still raises my blood pressure even 40 years later, those moments brought their behaviors from my subconscious to my conscious where I could take notice of it. It did empower me to actively NOT be like that. I saw first-hand several of my future potential selves and chose to take a higher road. I find a bit of comfort in that. I wonder if I wasn't exposed to those behaviors from a third person perspective, would I have been able to avoid them.

Oh, and sorry about dropping that bomb the other day. I was in a rare mood. I removed it as you rightfully requested of me. In my defense, I used the word appropriately, but I totally understand.

You seem like a decent enough fellow. Best of luck.

I feel like lots of thinking like this or adjacent to this is going on around the fediverse, and part of the problem we're all encountering is that many or even most of us don't really understand this "design space" of homely/kind/safe/wholesome/fulfilling online placed particularly well. And so we're either reaching for established models (reddit/twitter etc) or expecting too much of new technologies (decentralisation and federation).

In the case of holiday meals and beehaw, while reading your post, my immediate thought was how it's simultaneously a fantastic metaphor and an inapplicable one for social media. A holiday meal, I'd say, is defined by its rarity and specificity. Once a year, family members and close friends gather together for the purpose of being together. I don't see that mapping onto online social media ... like at all ... however desirable that demeanor and vibe is desirable.

And while being kind and open etc is obviously a good aim for a social media space, so long as it is social media, which means open ended discussions/topics, (relatively) open membership, relative anonymity, constant activity, and, let's be honest, some expectation of providing some form entertainment to lurkers ... the personal bonds and purpose of a holiday meal just can't exist. Which is a problem, IMO, that goes beyond ActivityPub, because the moment you make a social media space more closed or exclusive while trying to still be a form of social media, it will become quieter, duller and less compelling to users (for better or worse) and eventually fall into relative disuse and so seem to fail at social media.

If you then want to recast social media, you then, IMO, need to think a lot about formats, UIs, media types and framing and how people are presented and interact ... like to a large extent ... because this whole "sending text messages to each other in a public space" can only go so far (which is a big problem I personally have with the fediverse).

I say this not to dismiss your and Beehaw's goals ... but really just to say ... "that's great, but underestimating how hard this stuff can be would not serve you or beehaw well IMO".

Hope it goes well though and will be curious to see what happens to beehaw!

Except no one came here thinking it was thanksgiving, they wanted a community center potluck

I do hope we stay federated, while I get that moderation is a pain for you Admins and better tools need to be developed, I think you all have been doing a very good job. Nearly all my interactions with the wider fedeverse we interact with have been positive or neutral, and I think it would be rather dead and boring here if it was just us. It’s nice to have diverse subscription feed where I can find posts on more than just the few communities here, especially slrpnk, Bajhaj, lemmy.ca, and midwest.social

Walled gardens don’t have a long life expectancy, so… do whatever you’d like in what little time you have, I’d say. Not trying to stir a pot- just speaking from a purely observational perspective.

From my side of the screen I can say I believe there's a lot of untapped power in moderation tools. I know there's issues surrounding development but I hope these will be resolved with time.

For example I block several users and communities on a daily basis. There must be others who do this as well. It doesn't bother me at all. Perhaps we can tap into that. I've read about this moderation technique where you subscribe to the moderation of one or more other users that you trust. It's an interesting idea worth trying out.

The truth is that moderation is a complex topic in society and I feel we are a part of moving that forward. Just look at any popular social media platform and how badly it's managed there. Add to that that development is complex too and that any system design will tend to naturally align to certain biases.

Making a walled garden is a bit like leaving the table, and it'll rob many potential future users of finding us. So ya it is the wild west right now but maybe we together can be a voice of reason and compassion.

I, personally, believe that we all will come to a comfortable consensus moving forward

This is a somewhat uncomfortable ellipsis for me. Can you be more specific about the emerging consensus? Last time I asked this question it went ignored.

Where are these discussions happening? On the beehaw Lemmy or elsewhere?

I only saw one thread alluding to this posted by a beehaw admin on Lemmy.ml.

The behavioral expectations of Beehaw are a lot like those of tildes.net, where I’m also a member. Although I thoroughly enjoy the conversations there, I also long for other types of content, content available in the fediverse. And Beehaw is, for me, the perfect place to access that content. Beehaw has a great community that generates good content and conversations, but it also allows me to browse other stuff from ‘all’ and interact with different people. I enjoy reading what other people think, even if they have a way of communicating that doesn’t jive all that well with the rest of Beehaw.

What I can imagine is that moderating Beehaw within the context of the fediverse is a pain in the ass. The burden on the admin and moderator team must be a lot bigger than if Beehaw was on its own.

When the idea of beehaw leaving the fediverse comes up I see a few users from outside of beehaw get pretty upset about it. I wonder if this is some kind of FOMO reaction? Just food for thought.

Personally I think Beehaw needs other instances and the Fediverse needs Beehaw

I’m new to the fediverse and chose to join Beehaw because the community interactions feel positive like an active private forum that I’m on, but with the structural flexibility of a federated platform.

There is definitely a tone change between local communities and the outside federated feed, but I worry that secession and isolation will lead to community atrophy— it’s already a small instance and without the cross-pollination of outside users and content it may not have enough momentum to succeed

I have to be careful to not be an arsehole on the internet when I come to beehaw lol

Has anybody had a conversation about implementing non-federated communities or is that even a possibility with activitypub? I would love to have native beehaw communities that are only accessible by logged-in beehaw users, but still retain federation for some of my more niche communities that may not have a large enough audience here.

Although I could very easily just maintain my old account on a fediverse server alongside my beehaw account if beehaw ventures off into an entirely new direction.

When I read about the beehaw vision a few days ago, I fell in love, so I'm here for whatever y'all decide.

I would prefer if Beehaw remained federated, but, as it is, I understand that the options of software for a platform like Beehaw on the fediverse are lacking on many aspect and started something new requires time,knowledge, and money.

Beehaw would die if you defederated it. Don't do it. Beehaw also makes the fediverse a nicer place.

Running with your holiday meal analogy, it warrants adding that while we can't stop people from coming to the table, we are able to make them leave.

Of course the onus to this would be on the hosts of the meal, or in this case the admins and mods of Beehaw. I'm sure that's a difficult, unpleasant, and often thankless task.

@admin does Lemmy have any opt-in federation system? Like, only allow certain remote servers to connect? Maybe that would be a viable alternative

I don't use Lemmy so much anymore, I settled on mastodon after everything (it just had a much more mature ecosystem imo) but I still come back to beehaw to lurk because of the community. I think that moving to another app is the way, anyone with an account here likely has another anyways if they like federation since the biggest instances are defederated from here (blahaj was for me). Best wishes for the mods, and I'll probably still be here after whatever happens even if I'm not interacting a lot.

Is it possible to have some communities be exclusive to Beehaw users? I'm not advocating for cutting off the existing communities, rather adding in a few walled gardens? That would filter out anyone who doesn't want to bother explaining why they value what Beehaw is and include anyone curious enough to create a Beehaw profile to see what the less active but more Beehaw communities are like. Something like "The safest space" which is going to respectively attract and deter the people you would want.

As for having to deal with what y'all deal with at all, which the above would do nothing to diminish, I have thought for a while that y'all need more help. You guys are doing a ton of work and in my opinion a little too much work each. I don't want y'all to get burned out and not be able to continue at all. Maybe an appeal to the community that y'all can't continue like this without more help would encourage those with the ability to lighten the load?