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One of the things I like about beehaw is that it's relatively chill and normal. The instance description puts a lot of emphasis on the "safe space" concept which can lead to an initial worry that things be overly moderated or perhaps have blanket rules that are enforced without nuance. So far it's so relatively normal and the only real rules are dont be a jackass, have discussion in good faith, and dont tolerate intolerance.

I see a few people try and pull the "oh yeah well what if my opinion deviates blablabla" and the mods handle it pretty well, they dont insta delete, and when it gets to a point where the person is clearly acting in bad faith they just put that individual into a time out.

You derail the conversation into something that goes in the direction of nasty and it will be cut down.

My experience on Tildes was more that you risk being cut down based almost entirely on who marks something as malice or whether a thread you create causes too many people to engage in marking each others comments as malice.

There's a specific kind of toxic rationalism (primarily centered through a lens of privilege) which is present on that website, which has been pushing the minority voice off the website for some time. I speak from experience; I joined Tildes back when it started and used to participate a whole lot more. I was told in no uncertain terms by the creator of the website that I was not allowed to start meta-discussions about the community and problematic behavior that I saw that was pushing the minority voice off the website.

In a safe space, if things go bad, there will be plenty that have your back.

I really like this framing, thank you for sharing it. I think it captures a lot of what we were trying to say with our last philosophy post 💜

All I look for Is a willingness to speak to others in good faith and for there to be a referee intervention when that isn't respected. "Safe space" has been so twisted and ridiculed that it's hard to use it and not feel some of the inflection of entitlement that's been imparted to it. Safe for me is an end to needless hostility in conversation and being able to talk without someone else launching a curio cabinet of their favorite ad hominems at you. So far I've found beehaw to be a bit more in line with this than tildes, but both communities have a lot of room left to establish what they want to be.

Honestly, I'm just here to talk. If someone asks about how painful it was for me to come out, I'll give them an honest answer. If they wanna debate the correct orientation of toilet paper, I'll debate them. And if they tell a story about how they they carted (coughed and farted simultaneously) in someone's kitchen at a house party and immediately fled the party, I'll chuckle alongside them about it.

I like relaxed atmospheres, but I also don't need things so...black and white, ya know? Generally if found the safer spaces places to have some of the most degrading bigotry in the form of "ugh, look at what my mom just texted me, can you believe this?", which wore heavily on my spirits.

I like how this is basically r/Casualconversation on reddit. But even asklemmy has been remarkably relaxed.

Beehaw is cool. There's good discussions about things.

I am, however, personally opposed to the whole safe space trend. I do not care if some place is a 'safe space', and I'll play by the rules a place has. But some little part in me finds all these 'don't do x, don't be y, don't think of z' rules very off putting. I wasn't planning on doing any of these things, but the fact that these things get pushed to the forefront when you're registering or reading the rules of a place so much - it just rubs me the wrong way.

I look for good moderation with a general theme of "don't be a dick". Being a dick is intentional, not accidental. People can be heated and passionate and contrary, but that doesn't mean you have to choose to be a dick about it.

When someone is being a dick in an online space where there are more tools available than in real life, I want that moderation to keep things from getting out of hand via official functions from those in authority roles (warnings, temp bans) or community soft power (user intercession, social pressure).

Like some, I'm not thrilled with how prominent it feels the enforcement of rules is presented almost as a theme at either beehaw or tildes, but generally I'll accept enthusiastic enforcing of civil behavior over a free-for-all. It's easier - and less damaging to a community - to start with restrictions then loosen them over time as those social pressures help keep things on track and less official intervention is required.

It helps that both tildes and beehaw have stated pretty expectations pretty clearly which should help with both user and admin experiences overall - mostly. Most people are okay with rules they acknowledge and accept as long as they are enforced as expected.

The only trap that can happen with rule enforcement being prominent - and it happens in all sorts of community spaces - is if the rules become the central factor of the community. I think that's what ends up creating the feeling of elitism and frustration with participation in the community when how well someone is following the rules becomes an idealism. That can push people away because the "safe space" becomes a special club which you can't belong if you don't follow the letter of the law even if you follow the spirit of it. A good fediverse example recently is the alt-text wrist slapping on Mastodon with some folks pushing it as a tenant for "good" Mastodon users to adhere.

Either way, the fact there are so many more active options these days - with some helpful inertia from twitter and reddit kerfuffles - means folks should be able to find spaces they're happy to hang out in and can avoid dicks. And there's always the option to not participate at all. :)

I hope this is obvious, but it is impossible for an admin or mod to prevent people from being assholes at Beehaw. If someone chooses to be an asshole at Beehaw, then all we can do is intervene.

If you're looking for another pretty chill space, squabbles.io has been pretty decent so far.