Submitted 3 months ago by density@kbin.social to fediverse@lemmy.world
https://kbin.social/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/814701
in summer 2023, when I moved here from reddit, the lemmy instance beehaw.org was extremely divisive. they wanted to create a website according to certain rules rather than a free for all. some people were saying it would be the end of the threadiverse before it even began.
since that time, there have been various other intrinsic and extrinsic threats. I do not see much panicking about beehaw. did the threadiverse survive beehaw? or is this only a shell of what we might have had otherwise?
Was it really? How?
They are heavy-handed but are upfront about that fact, and their reason for it - wanting a safe space, since a lot of people go out of their way to make the rest of the internet as unwelcoming as they can. If that's not acceptable to you, you're just not in the target audience. If it's any sort of threat to the fediverse I am really not seeing how. If they want to be a bubble and deal with the "recruitment" issues that causes on an already miniscule platform, they absolutely can.
Reputation-wise for Lemmy instances and the FV in general, I would think we have significantly larger issues.
You are too dramatic. What happened is that many left beehaw (me included). You can see beehaw has a lot less activity now then it had last year.
You can see beehaw has a lot less activity now then it had last year.
Fediverse Observer and FediDB show a drop in active users, but the pattern of peak in July 2023 and then a slow regression isn’t unique to Beehaw, and is a pattern seen across the Threadiverse.
You left, but Beehaw being willing to give teeth to the concept of defederation is the reason I joined. I don’t think the decision hurt their user-count. It definitely helped distinguish their culture from the rest of the Fediverse.
I agree. I could see Beehaw survive longer than most other Lemmy instances, their community feeling is much stronger.
You left, but Beehaw being willing to give teeth to the concept of defederation is the reason I joined. I don’t think the decision hurt their user-count. It definitely helped distinguish their culture from the rest of the Fediverse.
Fair.
I liked the idea of Beehaw, but it ended up being rather like an HOA. You weren’t allowed to ever disagree, no matter how gently, because it “wasn’t nice.” They ironically tried to reduce bullying by bullying people.
Lemmy.ml is just as bad. I suggested Nicaragua wasn’t a democratic country. Holy shit!! I got downvoted to hell, pasted left and right. Given 24hr ban.
Then I got a 4-day ban cos I suggested “Tankies give socialists like me a bad name”. Fucking hell fire. I’m not going near any of their subs again.
I got downvoted to hell What’s wrong with downvoting? Ain’t it expected when the community allow downvotes?
Do you think everyone should agree with you always?
Then I got a 4-day ban cos I suggested “Tankies give socialists like me a bad name”. Fucking hell fire. I’m not going near any of their subs again.
I am curious, what current of socialism do you subscribe to?
I had an account that got banned from .ml for telling the kids that their meme responses to everything are childish.
They also remove any and all comments that even politely suggest that their instance is in danger of becoming comparable to Hexbear/Lemmygrad.
Rilers gonna get riled. I’ve only seen Beehaw mentioned recently as a nice, drama-free space.
Some people in this thread say Beehaw defederated almost or entirely from the rest of the threading/fediverse; just a glimpse of their instance federation and block lists show that isn’t the case. If you or your instance has been blocked by one that pretty much only requires users to be nice — I think that warrants some introspection on your part rather than dismissing them.
I’m completely for social sites that set an ettiquette standard and stick to it. And I’m getting too old for bored teenagers’ edgelord hot takes, so in principle I should probably be in the target group for Beehaw.
That said, looking through the recent local posts on the instance… it doesn’t look terribly interesting either. Not that I look for aggravation or confrontation in a forum, but I guess the people who sign up for a “nice” one, in this case at least, are fairly normie, and don’t have much interesting to say?
Meh. Their admins are human like any other. One of their main subs banned me for saying that as an Asian, I didn’t have any opinion or strong feelings on the holocaust.
You don’t have strong feelings about millions of people dying?
That’s got nothing to do with your race. That’s just really shit.
Probably died down because they de-federated nearly everyone.
I stopped hearing discussions about it long ago. I suppose the thing died down.
One thing I will never understand is their endless complaint about moderation tools. They had/have a decent amount of donation, why they didn’t just put a bounty on the features they needed in github and encourage contributions in that space (if not contributing directly)? It feels like it was sterile criticism when they had/have the means to actually work on the solution.
Lemmy’s code isn’t that easy to get it, otherwise there would be much more contributors to it.
The third biggest contributor after the two main devs has 59 commits.
And that’s fair enough. However, putting a bounty on the feature is definitely a big incentive that might have caused those features to be implemented by someone else and/or prioritized.
I don’t see how a single instance doing something against the grain would be the end of the whole fediverse, considering how the system works.
And all they want is a place free from bigotry. Which is noble, but pretty naive. Even if you went to extreme lengths of vetting users before letting them post, you’re still gonna get an asshole who slips through just to cause trouble.
A few will still slip through, but fewer, presumably. Which is the whole point. Content moderation does have an impact on content and in turn the user experience.
I don’t care for beehaw but I don’t see why it’s any different from any other non-federated general discussion forum.
They aren’t helping the fediverse grow but they aren’t actively harming it either. It’s a live or let live thing. Being able to choose who you federate with is part of the fediverse
I have an account with beehaw. It's my favorite place on the internet. I think most of us are happy with the way it has panned out. Some discussion here and there of potentially leaving activitypub altogether. If it happens, I will follow. If it doesn't I will stay. Beehaw is too special for those of us it speaks to and works for. I don't see it dying anytime soon, that's for sure.
Care to elaborate a bit on what it is that makes you like it so much?
It's nice to know that the odds of encountering bots, trolls, and bigots are incredibly low. Yes, there is less content, but it's the only place I don't have to scroll passed vitriol and misinformation regularly. It's wonderful.
Yeah, my time on Beehaw is almost always pleasant. I really love seeing people arguing in the comments of a post and inevitably after a few exchanges they go out of their way to de-escalate tensions and recognize each other as people. Real conversations, real differing of opinions, but maintaining respect for people.
I’m surprised they’re still on 0.18.4. They made that big post complaining about moderation actions not federating, then the 0.18.5 hotfix came out and the only change was that fix, and they never updated anyways?
I have never seen anything valuable and/or good coming from that instance. Only trolling or hate. So I put it on my instance ignore list.
Their chat communities occasionally have some decent stuff
Haven’t heard much about them lately, which I just learned through this post is because they defederated from everyone else. Anything I’ve read about them is that they want a certain type of community, but beyond that they’re really vague. I honestly just avoided signing up for their instance because they seemed kind of uptight and I’d rather be in a place that is welcoming to more people with diverse interests.
Lol. I hadn’t even thought of that random instance until this post.
I imagine most people are like me. They forgot this instance existed.
Lemmy users mainly have a positive view on Beehaw.
Umm what? Most of the comments there are telling them to get lost? Seems like them defederating for every little reason rubbed the rest of the fediverse the wrong way
Might have a bit to do with the regular admin posts where they talk about leaving Lemmy all together.
Beehaw still exists? I guess I don’t ever really see any communities hosted there pop up on All. Or maybe I’m just not noticing.
Beehaw defederated from a lot of other major instances.
Seems like they shot themselves in the foot.
Unless their goal was to create an echo chamber of about 15 people, and if so, they’ve been very successful.
Walled gardens don’t have a long shelf-life on the internet. They’re fading away.
Tell that to metafilter, or hackernews? Sometimes a nice little garden with a wall to help transport you away from the hustle and bustle of life is exactly what you need.
We shouldn’t aim to build the Fediverse into a walled garden but there is nothing wrong with small walled gardens interspersed along the periphery of the Fediverse. It is a good thing. Let them be their own place.
I think this is a really good point. It’s a shame that they don’t want to Federate with some of the larger instances, but that’s the whole point of the fediverse. If you Federate with who you want to Federate with, and you have control over your own moderation and red lines. It’s virtually impossible to have meaningful conversation among a broad group without someone getting offended. So you might choose to let people occasionally be offended, or you might choose to create a safe space for a limited group.
It’s a philosophical question with no single right answer. The fediverse doesn’t have to be all things to all people, which is exactly why it can be all things to all people. Corporate social media has to have one set of rules for everyone, and the system for deciding and enforcing the rules is generally just about money
sorry but that's like the dumbest thing anyone ever said. have you heard of intagram facebook tiktok linkedin grindr tindr and every other APP
None of those are walled gardens kiddo. Look at how Behaw is run and compare.
Not the same.
See, here’s how Beehaw affects the rest of the Fediverse:
It doesn’t. Nobody cares about Beehaw except Beehaw. And we’ll all go on for a few more months without thinking about them at all until someone mentions them again.
can someone please explain how one site existing causes other sites to fail? that’s not generally how it works.
The point of the fediverse is the federation. It’s like going to a public meet up, and getting a handful of people to join your private meet up. They used the fediverse to help them grow, and once they were self sufficient they cut the rest of the community off.
Beehaw was here long before the fediverse was popular and long before the reddit disaster that send people rushing to lemmy. Before reddit happened, they were one of the few active and successful lemmy instances that wasn’t basically just a lone admin hosting a personal instance.
They didn’t “use the fediverse to help them grow”. They helped the fediverse grow when hardly anyone else was around.
Federation is just a protocol or a shared language so that other activitypub-federated services can act as a user on that instance. Most activitypub software include the ability to block instances for any particular reason. Further, most activitypub software include the ability to host private instances. Nothing about this is against how federation or the fediverse works. It could be considered a dick move, but I think that refers more to federetiquette than the fediverse itself.
it's like going to a party and then just hanging out in the kitchen. or spending the whole night out on the porch smokin cigs.
madness
Nobody’s been riled up. You need to go to Reddit for that :)
They are irrelevant.
I don’t really care. It was I think the first instance I learned about (must’ve been the most popular at the time) and I applied for an account there, but by the time it got approved I had already started posting on lemmy.world, so here I am.
they wanted to create a website according to certain rules rather than a free for all.
Let’s stick to facts, OK? They claimed defederating from lemmy.world and such was a temporary measure because of the lack of moderation tools and because LW allows anyone to sign up, opening the flood gates for bots, and those sites would of course be unbanned when changes were made. Changes were made. LW and others are still banned. BH were lying from the beginning. Good riddance.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 months ago
I think that the “controversy” simply died down. Simply because there was no controversy on first place - just a conflict of interests, where you can see both sides being reasonable but ultimately wanting mutually incompatible things.
sab@kbin.social 3 months ago
I think a lot of the "conflict" was based on people expecting the threadiverse to be user owned Reddit, without understanding how the Fediverse operates. As people start understanding the nature of how this place works, one would expect them to also calm down a bit about different communities having different moderation strategies.
Then again, it's the internet. Some people are not exactly keen to understand.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 months ago
This, too. And additionally, perhaps some entitlement? Like, from my impression a lot of people were expecting Beehaw to conform to what they want (access to the comms and users from there), regardless of that going against Beehaw’s goals.
otter@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
To add on, a lot of the discussions I saw were about highlighting what the differences were and discussing what the pros and cons were, so that users could make informed decisions about the instance they picked during the migration.
That’s generally a good thing, as long as you don’t harass others for what they want. There’s a lot of different ways to do the fediverse