this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
224 points (80.4% liked)

Asklemmy

43962 readers
1550 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] 0xtero@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 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.