2y ago

Does Beehaw benefit from federation?

I saw this discussion brought up on a different thread and I though I'd get some more opinions on the matter.

The Beehaw community guidelines describe a place that's meant to be safe, friendly and encourages people to discuss their ideas in good faith. For the most part I feel like this community lives up to that; users of this instance are generally thoughtful with their responses. However, I don't feel like that level of quality extends to the users who post from other instances. Responses from those users are more likely to pendantic, overly argumentative, and unhelpful.

Now I may just be an elitist fuck so I'd like to hear your opinions on this. Does Beehaw benefit from federation? Do the community guidelines even matter if they don't apply to many of the people who engage with this instance? Am I just looking for a reason to complain?

EDIT: This post isn't a request for Beehaw to defederate btw. I just wanted to discuss the negatives of federation and what we can do to alleviate them :)

94 comments

An increasing percentage of what I read is from federated instances. If Beehaw isolated itself I'd probably make an account elsewhere and hook into the fediverse from elsewhere, leaving Beehaw behind. Beehaw is great, but it's not enough of a community by itself.
- I agree, we are already defederated from big instance like LW. If beehaw isolates itself it would just be a forum with a few thousands more or less inactive people and would die.
  
  i don't think being a small forum is necessarily a bad thing. smaller places are easier to moderate, and they tend to be more chill. i've run another forum for about 10 years, and it's still going strong with only a few hundred active users at any given time. we very rarely have issues with people upsetting the flow. we've always managed to recover when that does happen.
  
  Are they defederated because it’s so big?

Responses from those users are more likely to pendantic, overly argumentative, and unhelpful.
I’ve noticed a small uptick in responses like that (which, admittedly, may just be confirmation bias).
I think it might be due to the large influx of reddit refugees (full disclosure: I’m one, too). It takes a while to get used to the fact that the “atmosphere” of fediverse instances is different. It takes time for people to realize that this isn’t a toxic environment that encourages assholes. They’ll just keep on being hyper-defensive, confrontational, and/or deliberate misinterpreters of things while they focus on irrelevant points. After all, that was the norm on reddit for years.
Good users grow out of that. Unfortunately, some users just don’t want to. We have to take the bad with the good, though. Defederating completely would make Beehaw much less interesting and fun. The community just isn’t big enough by itself.
TL;DR: Yes, Beehaw benefits from federation. Federation has its drawbacks, but they are massively outweighed by the advantages.
- I think there is a very toxic trait that ex-Redditors need to shake off: every response to a comment DOES NOT need to be a rebuttal.
  Agreeing is allowed, and I agree with you.
  
  Good addition, and also a good example, because that was so common I didn’t even recognize it as a problem. I’m still unlearning a lot.
  If a post/comment is sufficiently stupid, the stupidity is obvious and speaks for itself. I leave it alone. Of course, bigotry and hate speech can’t be tolerated and should be called out (plus reported, because Nazis and bigots can kiss my ass), but otherwise, I just ignore it and move on. In most cases, I think we help quite a bit by setting the tone and not arguing. As people see that negativity isn’t the norm, they’ll gradually change.
  
  I think the problem is that there is less often something to be said if you agree. Every now and then you might have something to add that fleshes out the idea or adds additional context, but generally if I totally agree with a comment I just upvote it.
  On the other hand, when you disagree with something your response will, by logical necessity, be different from the parent comment.
  So if you want to prioritize "adding something novel" there's a logical bias towards comments that disagree since only some percentage of agreement will tick that box.
  Otherwise you end up with a bunch of comments that literally or figuratively add up to "this".

I think we still have two "shields" protecting our ways in Beehaw:
the lack of downvotes. Perhaps people will downvote you from other instances. But you won't see those, so you will not care. I find that this removes a lot of negativity on its own.
when someone posts from another instance, you can see it in their name: so you can take what they say with a pinch of salt. "Oh, he is not from Beehaw; it is more normal for them to behave like that. No use to argue strongly against them".
As long as we have those, and as long as the federated instances moderate harmful content, it is OK for me to remain federated with them.
- Contrary to popular belief, there are actually three options. You can disagree with something by not upvoting it (instead of downvoting it). On beehaw, you can get an indicator of what the overall community thinks of a response by seeing whether or not it has a significant number of upvotes relative to the rest of the content around it.
  I find that anything that I would want to downvote should instead be reported anyway. I reserve downvotes on other platforms for posts/comments that are made in bad faith, which on Beehaw is often enough to report for anyway. On other platforms, I've seen downvotes used in exactly the way you describe, and it's led to at least me wanting to interact as minimally as possible knowing that as soon as I post something, some bot might just downvote it right away, immediately influencing the kinds of responses I get because apparently many people operate as part of a hivemind.
  
  Yeah, same. I went back to my facebook groups and instagram pages for a while when reddit went crappy, and it really highlighted how helpful downvotes were
  Downvotes are helpful if they are used properly (off-topic, hate speech, rediquitte, etc.), but I see people using it as a dislike button lately and that has made many discussion annoying and exhausting. Also, downvotes latently breed a hivemind which is like one of the worst parts of reddit.
  
  I think downvotes make it too easy to avoid discussion, I'd prefer if someone has a problem with something, they actually speak up and say something. Then that response getting lots of upvotes is a much better indicator of what the community feels.

Elitist in his ivory instance over here. (Kidding). But a little offense with me and my Taylor Swift community over here, other instances aren't bad by any means, and the more federation the more communities.
Nah I like what beehaw is doing, and defederation should always be the last line of defense. However the middle ground is good moderation and enforcement of the rules. Mods are overworked on beehaw, maybe it's time for others to stand up and offer to take on some of the mantle.
- I'm sure you Swifties are lovely people :')
  I don't think this is a moderation issue and I'll give you an example to highlight why. Someone recently posted to the gaming community asking for advice on a something very basic but easily overlooked. The highest rated comments were basically mocking the poster. Not direct insults or anything ban-worthy but they were unhelpful. I don't think that's the type of engagement that people who signed up for this instance would like to see here.
  
  Did you report the offending comments? Reply to them and ask them to be nice? We aren't running a panopticon here and the reality is that many people who register here, even when they explicitly say they will be nice, occasionally exhibit not nice behavior. I don't think defederating will solve the problem, but rather more aggressive reporting, more people stepping up to help moderate, and perhaps most importantly people nicely reminding each other to be nice and steering conversations in the right direction are the only levers we have at our disposal.
  
  I remember that thread. First time I saw a Beehaw post that didn't feel quite right. Top comment was a passive aggressive "oh so we're doing the whole ask before even trying thing now huh," like why do some people just feel the need to talk shit? And if there is a legitimate criticism it shouldn't be difficult to voice it in a constructive way - and if it is difficult for you then you shouldn't comment and further spread your negative feelings.
  
  As gaywallet already mentioned, please report comments you think to be mean, unhelpful, or in bad faith. We did get reports on some comments in that thread and took action. I personally am a fan of federating with other instances. We do definitely see outside users often being instigators, but not all users are like that, so being able to mod effectively is key for us
- maybe it’s time for others to stand up and offer to take on some of the mantle.
  As the fediverse matures, succession plans and processes are getting more and more important IMO. Burnout is real, so it's necessary for any modicum of sustainability. Plus, it's good to have an admin/mod team that's actually networked in with the users with organic channels of communication and induction, which is well facilitated by having an established process for recruiting and training from the user base.
  I have no idea where any instances are up to with this, but beehaw seems like the sort of place that would be interested in getting this sort of thing right as well as benefiting from it the most.
- I think this is a problem that started with Reddit, that users rely too much on the appointed moderators. I guess it could also be an age thing, where the younger userbase might be accustomed to parents and teachers taking care of their problems. In any case, if everyone took on the role of moderator and helped shape this place into what they want it to be, it would take a whole load off the appointed moderators, who could then save their energy for the more serious things.
- Irrelevant comment: there’s an insurance commercial (or something) where one of the outfits she wears is her circus ringmaster getup, top hat and all. That’s my favorite. It’s silly, but somehow she makes it work.
  
  It's one of her iconic looks, from the Red tour! Come and join us if you like! !taylorswift@poptalk.scrubbles.tech We're celebrating 1989 being announced today

I was merrily using Lemmy, and later on Kbin in addition to that, for many months.
But then in recent weeks the culture seemed to change: More aggressive, insulting, and rude posts, even over nothing; some of them first responses to posts, others over nothing particularly political, just pop culture opinions and the like. And way, way more downvotes. And that last one was particularly new to me personally.
I've always been a laughably polite person, even irl, according to folks who know me, and had been the same online unless someone was outrageously offensive and mean (though in recent years simply handled that by a process of mute > report > block, rather than waste energy). But in recent weeks I'd noticed way more downvotes coming my way on innocuous posts, which was a first for me. I'd even told folks who were unsure about joining Lemmy, "Ah, don't worry about the Marxist-Leninist reputation and the bad rap; I've never experienced any tankie stuff on there, and only ever had positive experiences - I mean, look, I've barely ever been downvoted, only ever received kind upvotes for what I've tried to ensure are thoughtful, positive contributions!"
Lately it's turned nasty, and negative. I joined Kbin and most discourse on there was either polluted by the same culture rising on Lemmy, or dominated by people mocking Beehaw for wanting no part of what many agree is a recent influx of bad habits from Reddit folks. This theory is particularly popular on Mastodon, where people pointed out the switch from Twitter to Mastodon was more politically motivated, whereas the Reddit exodus was more about convenience. I thought that was an interesting explanation for these more negative experiences of late.
I'm sorry if this is a long post that doesn't at first seem to address the actual question, haha! I guess I'm just trying to contribute my own personal perspective that is related to the topic - and demonstrates why I've recently arrived at Beehaw, as an online space that appeals to me, in contrast to those other aforementioned places.
- that's also what I like in beehaw and the thought I have about the last few weeks. I hope things settle down soon.
- I had almost forgotten about the bad reddit habits when I first made the transition to Lemmy due to being on mostly less popular subs, so I was kinda expecting a tildeverse.org experience when getting here.
  Sadly I got reminded of the fact this is a reddit exodus when people kept talking about spez here, and how reddit so shit now, and how Lemmy is superior and just the general sense of everyone patting each other on the back and you know, Lemmy circlejerk.
  I didn't join Lemmy just for it to become reddit again :c
- I've been seeing some of the more mocking, belittling, shouty replies here. And sadly they got upvoted too, which also made me second guess, are these kind of behaviors acceptable?
  I came to beehaw after the reddit API thingy, but I have barely replying with the users there for years because of how toxic the community could be. So, in essence I came here, because I'm searching for a safe space where people could be more warm and welcoming, and not just some race towards weird superiority complex.
  Sadly, similar thing is happening to mastodon too, people are more and more behaving as if it's twitter again, lots of shouting. I stopped posting there.
  I thought mastodon and beehaw would be a turning point, where internet does not go back to 4chan, usenet, reddit era, but into something of an actual community where people help each other, but I guess that's wrong.
  So yeah, if the hostility / toxicity replies keeps on going, I think I'd also leave beehaw altogether.
  Edit: Everytime when I post something like this on social media, I'm prepared for the replies to chase me out.
  
  I’ve been seeing some of the more mocking, belittling, shouty replies here. And sadly they got upvoted too, which also made me second guess, are these kind of behaviors acceptable?
  Just wanna say, if in doubt, do report and we'll take a look at it. We unfortunately can't read everything despite me trying at first until I realized that was not healthy for me. I hope you're doing okay 💜

Beehaw already isn't really federated since it has blocked lemmy.world, which is 10x the size of Beehaw now and will likely be more like 100x the size of Beehaw at some point.
I personally'd prefer if Beehaw was fully federated (especially with lemmy.world), but I think this weird half way point is bullshit. Fully defederating would be better than the current situation.
As for arguments/etc... I don't think the quality of discussion here is any better than Lemmy.world.
- I disagree, I have an account in both places and lemmy.world feels a lot more like reddit did than beehaw. I can hardly ever tolerate to use that account. And I left reddit because everyone was mean, not because of the API stuff.
- My sh.itjust.works acct is my main so from my point of view* beehaw already isn't federated. I have an acct here so I can always pop in for this kind of space so I don't really mind if we defederated. But I agree it might be time to consider how long the half measures are going to stay in place.

I'm on Kbin and subscribe to some Beehaw communities and enjoy interacting with them (in a good way I hope!). Generally for the fedi to work I think people need to forget about where people are posting from and deal with comments and users as they stand on a case by case basis
I think you kind of say this yourself:
For the most part I feel like this community lives up to that; users of this instance are generally thoughtful with their responses.
Basically things are generally working except for a few people who have just started using Fedi instances. Maybe discuss with them, report them or whatever but defederation when things are more or less working out seems a bit OTT to me

If Beehaw were to remove federation, then it would no longer be part of the Fediverse. I would be sad to see it go, but I am only interested in the Fediverse.

I think people who visit here have been pretty cool. Not any worse or inferior to people with accounts here.

I’ve found myself unsubscribing from beehaw communities that I had previously subbed to initially because I find they have a certain style and direction that isn’t balanced enough. Your message posed as a question more or less explains why I feel like that. Now I only see beehaw content when browsing ‘all’ because of it.
- Isn't balanced enough? How do you mean?
  
  Beehaw is dangerously close to group think that shouts down/deletes other viewpoints. There is a difficult to discern line between a view you don't agree with and what is labeled here as "close minded".
  I myself experienced that when I posed a opposing viewpoint regarding a search for non right wing podcasts. I can understand wanting a podcast without any mention of politics but to say I don't want to listen to X group because I don't agree isn't a positive way to take disagreement.
  I have noticed that beehaw tends to shout down people that disagree which is not beneficial. The more you shout down/ignore a group the louder they become. That is the main reason why I think, at least the US, is in the polarized political environment it is in now. We have lost our thought of empathy, discourse and evaluation of ideas different from our own.

To me, I see fewer and fewer beehaw posts as it gets quieter, and as other servers like pawb.social blossom. I'd like to see it refederate sooner rather than later, it kinda needs it in order to keep thriving.

@bijuice
Hey, from Fosstodon here. If I hadn't already created an account at fosstodon, I'd probably be at Beehaw. Yes, it does benefit from federation. Smaller-like minded communities are usually better at self policing than one large one that does it for them which is why I think the model works.

I am not even sure what elitist means in any real sense. Just an attempted jibe I guess. Ignore it.
Behaw benefiting from Federation, sure it does. I would not be here without it. As for trolling, I have not seen it. Maybe I look at different communities
Frankly what the threadiverse needs is more collaborative and granular admin and user mod tools. Reason I joined Beehaw is so trolls would get push back and blocked. Sad we lost lemmy.world and that lemmey.ml does not accept subscriptions though. Loosing st.itjust.works was a loss too.

Responses from those users are more likely to pendantic, overly argumentative, and unhelpful.
I can't always be sure for the first two for myself. I do try to be helpful though, which seems a little easier to judge. Now, when I find it difficult to judge how my own comments can be perceived, how is it possible to be sure about other people's posts and comments..
The rest of my thoughts are pretty much what @HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org said.

Hello from kbin, I was having this discussion with someone on another post about users views of the Reddit alternatives. I made a comment that I slightly prefer Raddle to the rest of the Fediverse because it is a closed community, largely for anarchists and queer folks. I've definitely noticed a creeping toxicity since I opened my account with kbin after moving from Reddit when everyone else did and, to prove my point, was reduced (down voted) by a conservative reactionary, judging by their posts.
Federation is a interesting and I wonder how things would be here if politics was less reactionary and more about discussion and consensus. Any instance benefits from federation through an increased user base but that necessarily comes with the impact of not being able to manage who is in that user base.

Just a thought. So far I've only had a bad experience with two people. One was unabashedly transphobic and was banned.
The other was overly argumentative and pendentic, and wouldn't let up. That made me think about inclusivity. What if this person has autism? Shouldn't we be extra patient with some people?
To be perfectly honest if I'd have to choose between meeting either of them irl I'd probably prefer the transphobe.
What do you think?
- As an autistic adult, it makes me incredibly sad that you would prefer to meet a transphobe. Occasionally (not on Beehaw as far as I know) I'm accused of being pedantic and argumentative online, but often the cause is a total misinterpretation of my tone and intent. I find it heartbreaking that hanging out with a transphobe is preferable to trying to understand an autistic person, and in all sincerity I hope you will explore the cause of your ableism so you can overcome it.
  
  (This might be somewhat on the spectrum pedantic, but...) I wouldn't call it "ableism". Autism is not a disability by itself, it's just a difference in communication; where neurotypicals focus on the "how" before the "what", people on the spectrum tend to focus on the "what" before the "how". That means, a neurotypical can easily sound like a pompous blob of nothing to someone neurodivergent, while someone neurodivergent can sound like a total asshole to a neurotypical, with neither of them particularly trying to. Meaning, autism is more of a "disability by comparison" in a world dominated by neurotypicals; if it were the other way around, we might be calling the "socio-emos" disabled, unable to focus on a single task without needing a break for some "casual chat".
  So I'm not really surprised that a neurotypical would rather meet another neurotypical, even a transphobe, rather than a neurodivergent tolerant person. It is indeed sad, but kind of expected, we just don't speak the same language.
  
  Hey friend, it didn't make only you sad. The viewpoint expressed was really not nice. Facing hardships in life because of your sexuality (which is not exactly a choice) seems like is not enough to be understanding towards other groups of people facing hardships in their life by having it be determined by things they didn't choose. In many cases it doesn't even seem enough to be a decent person.
  Having lived all my life close to people I love and are struggling with the most difficult disabilities caused by autism, I had to try to ignore the comment that made you sad.

When an online forum, social network, blog, etc. has a lot of users, it's easier that bad elements are present inside those communities. That's something that not only happens online, but in general. Compare a tiny village with 1.000 inhabitants, to a big city with 7.000.000 inhabitants. Where do you think there are more murderers, robbers, kidnappers...?
But defederation must not be the most useful resource to avoid those bad elements. You can't place a dome above that big city with 7.000.000 inhabitants to avoid those murderers from going to other places and starting murdering. Good laws and police officers can do really good to minimize the damage. In the same way, good admins and moderators can really improve how nice a server is.
It's true that when another server has bad policies or bad admins, we can't do their job from here, because that's not only our responsibility. If we do the hard work while they do nothing, it's obvious that defederation can be a good tool, until situation improves over there. But that's one thing, and another thing is complete and absolute defederation. Nobody deserves that, and, in the end, everything will be detrimental.
As time passes, people will realize that things in the fediverse are completely different to things on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram... and they'll adapt their bad behaviour, influenced by those trash places, to a more healthy one.

Now I may just be an elitist fuck
Sounds about right.
- Did this reply contribute anything meaningful to the discussion?
  
  Is generalizing large amount of people, just because they signed to another instance a good contribution to anything?

94 comments