this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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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.

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[–] 0xtero@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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.

[–] albsen@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

…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.

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[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Defederate from .world and aaaaallllll of your problems will go away. EDIT: you already did and that wasn't enough. Well time to pull the plug.

[–] American_Communist22@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Beehaw once made a meme specifically about me chasing them off Lemmy.ml

Good to see the final nail in the coffin for you fucks

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[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

You're smaller and weaker defederated. The fact that you chose to post this on lemmy.ml rather than beehaw clearly proves that.

[–] mjhelto@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

You pop in here and ask the community if we would be sad if you left? You're either phishing for a reason to leave by garnishing negative sentiment, further driving your "parishioners" to WANT defederation, or you are wanting to tarnish Lemmy as a platform, or both. Various sects of Christianity do this manipulative shit all the time. They force their flock to spread the word knowing full well they will face negativity -- no one likes to be solicited to -- and come crying to the church about their treatment, where the church comforts them and reinforces why only they can provide safety and warmth. It's cult tactics.

You don't want to know if you should defederate from the rest of us, you want to spread doubt in the platform and wall yourselves off to the world that doesn't conform to your views. You talk about negative aspects of Lemmy without offering any specifics and/or providing solutions to things you find problematic. To me, that's a red flag for someone wanting attention for a decision they already made. There's a sarcastic reply to that, I believe it's "bye Felicia."

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 3 points 11 months ago

I'm not sure I understand where you guys are planning to be moving on to- just a website? I will miss beehaw for sure, I appreciate the technology and gaming communities there which I follow. I've been blissfully oblivious to any toxicity either from beehaw or towards beehaw. But you must do what your instance prefers first and foremost.

[–] vinceman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 10 months ago

It'd be a shame imo but end of the day your choice.

[–] taanegl@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

Do what you need to do, but it'll mean less traffic on overall - meaning people who are actively pro-ActivityPub will be switching and using other accounts more. I would probably be out shopping for a different node at that point. But I also fully understand the reasons why one would want to defederate.

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

I disagree with you guys for a lot of reasons.

Diversity of thought and, well, your silly shit are important. No. I wouldn't do what you do myself. Yes. You should stay. Send a link and I'll donate.

The fediverse needs testing of both technical and social areas.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 2 points 10 months ago

The fact that you talk about users as "seeking refuge" means you think of your instance as much more than a social media platform.

So I would say that yes, maybe Lemmy is not what you actually need. It's designed to federate discussions between everyone using it, and that's a poor fit for a refugee center (so to speak).

[–] angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com 2 points 10 months ago

At least two communities I use are on Beehaw, but I wouldn't be super affected.

[–] nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago

I don’t give a single nacho

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

Indifferent

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago

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.

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