this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Asklemmy

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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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[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You cowards defed at the drop of a hat, just leave already snowflakes.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Sorry, I hadn't heard of your instance or seen any of your posts so I don't think I can answer.

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Personally I'd be sad to see Beehaw go. I enjoy several of your communities and I think the wider fediverse would be poorer for it. But you need to do what's best for you. Best wishes to you no matter what you decide โ˜ฎ๏ธ๐Ÿ’™๐Ÿ™‚

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Personally I think it would be unfortunate. I like some of the communities on beehaw I'm subscribed to, but I'm not sure I'd bother to switch over. Even right now, many posts I see don't get any interactions, others just a few and that's with users from other instances. I'd imagine starting over would kill many of these communities off almost entirely.

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Stop it, this is a bad idea.

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

bye bye we won't miss u

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

I would consider the users of Lemmy disenfranchised, whether they were the OGs or the refugees who did not want to be part of a corporate structure that is Reddit.

As for your goal of being nice, you can be a private instance with a very detail form with long list of questions that applies to your values. This will cut down new users joining and only those that are willing to go through the process of joining will show the commitment.

Having said that, having a closed door policy on the fediverse defeats the purpose of being on fediverse. If you truly only want, how you define disenfranchised, then fediverse may not be the right platform and you will always be left wondering.

[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I guess there is no need for further commentary on why the strict moderation of a "safe space"/walled garden cannot keep up with the growth of such an open space as activitypub.

So in response to the title, I would think this is fantastic news! You say your principle is "be nice", which I think is great and I wish it was the general norm, but from what I've seen and heard it would be more like "you better think like us, because we aggressively enforce political correctness and ideological censorship". It would be a pity to lose its users, but I simply hate to end up on beehaw by mistake and would be happier to see it disappear.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Can someone explain all the hate against Beehaw to me? I run a private instance, so I don't really keep up with Lemmy politics

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[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Decently new lemmy world user here, never heard of BeeHaw before. Don't think I'll miss it.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Don't know why you would ask here since it's a decision that should be made by your users for your users...

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I think it's good that they asked here. The way the fediverse is structured means there can be plenty of people who use an instance - posting to it, browsing posts from it, etc - without being registered with that instance. If Beehaw says they're contemplating leaving, only to be met with a "NO, DON'T GO" response from the rest of the fediverse, then that might give them reason to rethink their position. And if everyone just says "eh, whatever" or "yeah, go away" then it may reinforce their position.

Obviously the opinions of the people who've registered there should hold more weight, but I think putting the question to everyone is a good move.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

You will be missed. However, do your thing. I think you should first consider maybe adapt to your current situation and update your original goals. Evaluate your current goals instead of evaluating the tools to achieve past goals.

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

If Beehaw defederates, I will no longer think or care about Beehaw, since at the end of the day, the power of federation is by far the coolest thing in the fediverse; I am not interested in joining another Reddit clone! No hard feelings though, do what you think is right!

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

I'm on .world, so I'm already defeated and it wouldn't impact me currently. Before we became deferred, I thought some of the communities there were good and it was a loss (though understandable) when we became defederated.

All that being said, I've often thought and said that Beehaw's lofty goal of a troll and harassment free space on the Internet wasn't well suited to having Lemmy as an underlying platform. I'd rather see you relocate someplace where you have a better chance of achieving your goals.

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

I wouldn't leave. Starting from scratch again would spin off too many users. Beehaw already has some subs that are already somewhat anemic. The fediverse still needs users and high-quality discussions since facebook, reddit, and digg ravaged the many forums of old that used to exist.

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Beehaw right now:

image

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

I am a kbin user and I like to see the opinions expressed by beehaw users.

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago
  1. Also a Tildes.net user.
  2. Where would Beehaw go to?
  3. Sad that we're blocked for no reason. :-/
  4. If the Fediverse canโ€™t keep instances connected and aligned, then thereโ€™s not much hope for when Metaโ€™s Threads joins. It will be defederation deluxe.
  5. Maybe thatโ€™s their whole plan. ;-)
[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I joined because its federated and the people who run it. If beehaw defederates ill go somewhere else, albeit sadly.

Raddle.me is a good example. Because its not federated i just never go despite it being a fine community. Its not big enough to be its own thing worth visiting outside of it being federated content.

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

It would be sad. Thereโ€™s great communities and members in beehaw and they make great contributions to the fediverse. What would be the reason to leave? What goals does beehaw have that are limited by Lemmy?

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Sad, but your choice will be completely understandable, I wish #beehaw success anyways, I had mostly positive experience with it users.

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

Do you have a plan for recruiting new users? Lemmy already struggles there and it's one of the bigger platforms. If we move even further from the mainstream, I'm afraid we'd slowly wither away as people leave and aren't replaced.

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

When I first heard of beehaw I had really high hopes and was genuinely excited about the idea of a safe space for marginalised people, but when I saw this being framed as "be nice" without exception or nuance a bunch of red flags started waving, to paraphrase - "you can't be nice to everyone, because being nice to certain people is inherently cruel to others", and I was soon proven right in my concerns, with sprinkles on top - beehaw is a typical liberal (not leftist) space, where criticism of the status quo or swearing at bigots and bootlickers is seen as "not nice", but "polite" bigotry or even genocide denial are a-ok (those being the tankie-sympathising sprinkles I was referring to)..

Good luck to you I guess, but having already blocked your domain, you won't be missed, not by me anyway. ยฏ\(ใƒ„)/ยฏ

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[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

I hope you decide to stick around โค๏ธ

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm subscribed to a number of beehaw communities, so it would be a loss for me.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

I joined beehaw during the rexodus because it seemed like a good community and a good part of the fediverse. I started contributing monthly to keep the instance going.

I tend to browse All more than Local. If beehaw does defederate, I would likely find a new instance and contribute there instead. I don't mean this to sound threatening, but I'm not going to give money to something I don't use.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Never really tapped into beehaw because i am on lemmy.world, but seeing people from other instances say that you had some good content, i'd say stay and refederate with lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

After catching up on this issue some more, (since you already defederated my instance) I canโ€™t help but think about the whole pc principal season of South Park with all the mentions of safe space. https://youtu.be/sXQkXXBqj_U

With that said, yes ppl are toxic here for sure. Way too much negativity.

If youโ€™re eventually going to leave anyway the fewer users you take with you the better for lemmy and the fediverse. Going now would be less damaging in the long run to those vs growing more users and then leaving.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't see how the idea of being a safe space is compatible with being federated because the biggest opposition to safe spaces is the average person. Being federated with the average internet person is going to keep it from being a safe space, so federation is in direct opposition to your goal.

That isn't saying the goal of beehaw is wrong, just that the goal is not compatible with the average person.

Good luck out there, whatever path is chosen.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Well it sounds like a shittier version of Reddit.

Which is hard to do so congrats?

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

I'm not a Beehawizen but I've only had positive interactions. I'd check in if you moved the community off of lemmy, but I think the fediverse would be the poorer for it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

What is really so bad that you want to leave?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

I have little experience with them. Due to them defederated from lemmy.world. But it still will suck if Beehaw left the Fediverse. Because it's one less place to go to on the Fediverse.

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