Like many of you, I woke up this morning to discover that our instance, along with lemmy.world, had been unexpectedly added to the beehaw block list. Although this development initially caught me off guard, the administrators at beehaw made an announcement shedding light on their decision.
The primary concern raised was our instance’s policy of open registration. Given my belief that the fediverse is still navigating its early stages, I believe that for it to mature, gain traction, and encourage adoption, it is crucial for instances to offer an uncomplicated and direct route for newcomers to join and participate. This was one of the reason I decided to launch this instance. However, I do acknowledge that this inclusive approach brings its unique challenges, including the potential for toxicity and trolls. Despite these hurdles, I maintain the conviction that our collective strength as a community can overcome these issues.
After this happened, the beehaw admins and I had a good chat about their decision. While our stances on registration policies might diverge, we realized that our ultimate goals are aligned: we both strive to foster communities that thrive in an atmosphere of safety and respect, where users can passionately engage in discussions and feel a sense of belonging.
Although the probability of an immediate reversal are slim given the current circumstances, I believe we have managed to identify common ground. It’s evident that, even in separation, we can unite to contribute positively to the broader fediverse community.
In the coming weeks or months, we plan to collaborate with other lemmy instance administrators to suggest enhancements and modifications to the lemmy project. Primarily, our proposals will concentrate on devising tools and features that empower us, as instance administrators, to moderate our platforms effectively.
In the meantime, while I understand may not be ideal for everyone, users who choose to participate on the beehaw instance will be required to register a separate account on their instance.
Thank you all for continuing to make this community great!
Defederating both sh.itjust.works and lemmy.world was such an asinine decision that I honestly hope Beehaw just dies. They are doing a disservice to the entire lemmy community. They just siloed their users. They did not poll them for that decision. I hope most of their users leave them.
I would also be for removing Beehaw from join-lemmy.org. They are using lemmy software, indeed, but they are not really using the lemmy community, not the most of it at least. Someone who joins Beehaw may notice that the community is significantly smaller than they had hoped and go back to other alternatives, which is obviously a bad outcome. We need users.
I’m all for them running their instance however they want. It’s not what I want and that just means I’ll be avoiding them.
Like OP said, the long term goals of both instances are aligned.
Federation and defederation are just part of how the fediverse works. Don’t think of the fediverse as a reddit-like network that should always stick together and grow as one userbase. Rather, the focus should be on growing smaller communities that put their interests and users first (just like Beehaw did), while exchanging information with other communities where it benefits them both. If one instance doesn’t work for a particular user, they can always leave and join another one. That’s the beauty of it.
This. We don’t all need to be one big happy family… Federated does not mean a single site decentralized. It also doesn’t mean isolated.
There’s a million flavors of in between they the fediverse let’s us explore, and hopefully instances will rise and fall as we find what builds the best communities. Some will over-moderate, some will be totally unrestricted, some will be safe spaces and echo chambers who carefully manage what users are exposed to, some will vet their users carefully, and most will probably be open to whatever their users ask for
The goal is that instances become all sorts of different places, and users can freely move if they like somewhere else better
I’d just like to say that I appreciate your stance on open registration and making things as uncomplicated as possible. I signed up for a Beehaw account before this even happened, but I did find having to explain myself and justify my presence a little confusing. I also signed up for a discuss.tchncs.de account and I was so confused and thought their website was broken because once I clicked sign up, it didn’t do anything. Just span around in a circle. It wasn’t until I checked my email that I realised it wanted me to confirm my email. Here, things did just work. No complications, just entered my name, email and password, clicked sign up, and I was done! I guess you could say… shit just works on sh.itjust.works
I really get where they are coming from and it’s an unfortunate aspect of things that when you try to be open it can allow for so many negative consequences. However I will say for my own part I tried signing up for beehaw initially and my application was never approved. I am not a bot or a toxic person so I still need a community even if beehaw won’t accept my application for reasons I can’t understand.
I’ve tried joining a few times but it always just hangs. I think there might be something wrong with registration.
That’s a bummer. I get it (somewhat), but I’m not really fan of that type of gatekeeping by beehaw. On the positive side, it makes me really appreciate this instance/community and makes me want to interact more on here instead. So I’m looking forward to that.
Yeah. They value heavy moderation as a way to sanitize their community. Fine if that’s what they want but this has quickly taught me that instance isn’t for me. Too authoritarian in my view.
I’m impressed with how The Dude seems to be handling things here.
I’m not really seeing it as gatekeeping. It’s a small mod team that woke up this week to a big chunk of reddit knocking on the door.
It strikes me as reasonable to want to pause for a minute and see what the actual new user numbers will look like on the other side of the blackout.
That is understandable. But there is also the other side: When people joined Beehaw, it was under the assumption that they would be joining the lemmy community, the fediverse. Now, they unilaterally decided to silo themselves, without polling their users, without giving any heads up and without requesting more moderators… Lets not kid ourselves, we need users, the more the better. Sure, we do not need the alt-righters and the nazis and all, but we need users. We need more content in the communities. Beehaw had a significant user base, the third biggest in the Lemmy-verse I think. They just decided to block the biggest (lemmy.world). That essentially broke the userbase in 2. That is a disservice to the whole “unreddit” movement. Absolutely pathetic in my view.
I honestly hope Beehaw users leave Beehaw and join us in Lemmy (as in community, not software). I would also agree with removing Beehaw from join-lemmy. They are using Lemmy software, but they are not really using the Lemmy community. At the very least, there should be a notice regarding that in join-lemmy.
Now, I was unaware that this was a unilateral decision, without input from their users, which renders my comment sorta moot.
You’ve changed my mind. Δ
I hear ya. I don’t know the first thing about what goes into running a big instance like that, so I’m willing to keep an open mind. But I really like this instance for its open approach. It fits with my understanding of how the fediverse would work, especially when some of the bigger instances were (at least initially) encouraging people to not all sign up on the same instance to balance the load of new users. By defederating, it kind of negates that aspect. People are going to need to sign up on multiple instances or just go straight to the big ones to ensure access to those communities.
But with everything being so new, I get it. It’ll be interesting to see how things evolve as the fediverse grows/ages. I do hope the block list gets reconsidered soon enough though.
@Wit changed my mind with their comment. I wasn’t thinking about it from the users’ side.
Wrong person haha, I think you meant @wit :)
Ok I just realized that @ tags don’t display the user’s instance unless you click on them and that’s super confusing, why in the world did they design it like that
Brief explanation of how defederation works.
Basically Beehaw and all its communities and users are now blocking everyone from this server. We can’t post to their communities and they can’t see anything that we post on third party communities either.
However, this server has not defederated Beehaw. Therefore, we can still see their users commenting on third party communities, and we can even reply to them, they just won’t see our reply, although neutral parties will.
Both Beehaw and sh.itjust.works are still able to contribute significant activity to Lemmy as a whole, just not directly to each other for now. Let’s all be diligent on reporting and banning trolls quickly so we can maintain the collegial atmosphere here.
i joined the fediverse to shitpost, but more importantly to create a new community.
beehaw’s actions are VERY bad for the fediverse. for any social network to succeed it needs USERS. and when you have an entrenched giant, you need all the help you can get. federation is great but it also means a more spread out community which makes it hard for any one instance to succeed. what beehaw is doing is just chopping the legs off the fediverse right when it’s finding its footing.
also to an outsider, the fediverse is already confusing enough. now we can to deal with the whole “oh you can join this server and not that” and “if you join here, you can see them but they can’t see you” nonsense. closed registrations turn away people, this sort of chaos also turns away people.
i’m personally blocking all beehaw servers. i appreciate moderation is hard, and sad that trolls are coming in so early. but moderation is a solvable problem. instead of opening applications for more mods, they decided to go the cowardly route.
I get that we need more users. But allowing the communities who were here first to get torn apart is not how you do that. The beehaw users have already shown the ability to grow communities from scratch. That’s exactly the kind of people we want here.
But they also need to be given space to build those communities. This is essentially the core concept of Lemmy, that federation allows you to have large high activity communities coexisting in peace with small niche communities. You get to have both things on the same platform, because instances that come into conflict can defederate without having any impact on the network as a whole.
There are many bigger reasons that the platform is confusing, the beehaw situation doesn’t even move the needle. If anything, I think the defederation has helped many people start to understand how cool the federated structure can be.
I understand you’re frustrated they couldn’t just moderate the problem away, but seriously man, don’t be so dramatic. Beehaw is cutting the legs off the fediverse? Bro if the fediverse fails it won’t be due to the actions of beehaw, I can tell you that much.
This might be good for some folks to read here to get a better feel of what Beehaw positions themselves as and their thinking:
(What is Beehaw?)[https://beehaw.org/post/107014]
(Behaw is a community)[https://beehaw.org/post/140733]
(A few thoughts on Beehaw’s design)[https://beehaw.org/post/439918]Edit: My assumption is that the links will open in your browser. If this isn’t the case maybe I can stick these posts in a pastebin or something, lemmy know ;)
I’m personally disappointed but don’t fault them. MY thinking is along The Dude’s - ease of participation is key, with all of the risks that entails - but that’s why I’m here rather than elsewhere.
Something I don’t think a lot of people quite get yet - this is the DIY web. Different people take different approaches to community building, some very carefully and meticulously, and others not so much. And that’s good - cool, even, IMO. Clashes are going to happen, but that’s ok.
So you can pick another instance, or spin your own, but I’d rather people come from a place of participation rather than consumption on Lemmy writ large. One of the bigger instances defederated from us? Well shit, guess we’re gonna have to make some content ourselves.
Post often, comment often, call fellow sh.it.heads (and other folks too) out if they’re acting like shitheads. Be a positive presence in the Fediverse. Make some friends. The rest will sort itself out in time.
What I don’t understand is why we can’t see me posts and comments read only on Beehaw. I can see it by going to their (public) website, why can’t I see it from here?
Love this. There is absolutely no need to feel hate towards each other, I can definitely see both sides of the argument as valid concerns. Each instance has their own way of curating a community, but as long as the end goal is the same and communications are open, we all win. For now let’s just focus on making this instance a better place to be, the day we all reunite as one will come eventually.
I know I’m kind of late to this party, but it seems to be a good time to take a moment to say, if no one else has, that there are apps out there like Jerboa, that allow you to keep track of multiple Lemmy accounts quite easily. :)
Just downloaded Jebora yesterday and I’m really liking it. I initially tried the lemmy.ml website as my first steps into the fediverse, but was sort of confused on how it all linked together. Jebora was a big help for me in finding instances to follow and just generally making my user experience better overall.
So I second this recommendation.
https://github.com/dessalines/jerboa
Link for the lazy
It’s also on the app store.
Same with the iOS app.
Play Store link for the lazy.
The Beehaw moderator just release an update that is interesting and very good-willed. But I’m confused. I had no problem commenting in Nature and Gardening which is on the Beehaw instance. I thought this wasn’t possible as a sh.itjust.works user?
You can comment there and I probably can see it. They can’t because they’re not pulling sh.itjust.works data.
That makes sense! Is there a place we can see instances that we defederated, if any? I was trying to find Container Gardening which is in instance “I use arch linux FYI” but haven’t had any luck.
https://sh.itjust.works/instances shows instances .works is connected to, but I’m not sure of a way to find other instances that blocked this one. Although if they blocked us, then they didn’t deserve us anyways :^)
It is possible, but Beehaw users won’t see your comment (I may be wrong, this is still a bit complicated for me as well).
In fact, no one outside of your instance will be able to see it, because everyone else’s version is in sync with beehaw, which doesn’t get your comments.
Fuck em, I applied to several different servers and it took days to get accepted. Open registration is necessary
I do acknowledge that this inclusive approach brings its unique challenges, including the potential for toxicity and trolls.
Annnnnnd there it is.
It’s almost as if they’re getting the result they were looking for. People saying they disagree with their choice are exactly the people they’re trying to avoid lol.
I was enjoying their tech and news communities, fuck me right? So toxic 🙄
I’m happy to see that the first 2 lemmy instances I’ve joined are run by nice people. Sometimes it feels like there’s a shortage of nice, but not today.
Hey @[email protected]! I think we may be on the same side of the fence with a lot of this. I just got my server online, but I’m self hosting with a couple old Dell R720xds and R730xds so I’ve got you matched in the hardware department at least :-)
Hopefully in this for the long haul and want to help collaborate with other communities and contribute to the development as much as I’m able.
Oh, so the person who posted their tiny penis on the feminism community actually admitted to it? Fascinating. They do know their post lasted like two minutes, right? I was more impressed with Beehaw’s moderation team acting so fast than I was with their quick shot.
this happened? >_>
@anthoniix pooky trolled some fiminatzis, beehaw had a midlifechrisis and then unfederated. that’s it really. why that took a 5 page magnus opus i don’t know.
wait is that what happened? beehaw defederated over one user/post?
There would have been more and there were probably more such posts. These kind of safe spaces inevitably attract trolls looking for the wrong kind of attention.
Yup that’s probably the case. But I’m a bit surprised if they were that quick and drastic over a single post. The way they made it sound was as if there was a ton of people engaging in a way they didn’t approve. not that there was just one troll.
I find their reaction understandable. In my experience, even one bad post can cause dramatic shifts in user demographics, so if you don’t take a heavy-handed approach it can really end up having lasting negative effects on the server.
Yeah it’s understandable given their goal. I’m just surprised is all.
I think flexible federation is likely a good thing, and means we can have separate meta-communities with different basic attitudes, so people can be in the kind of spaces they want. My first experience of the fediverse was mastodon, and while the format wasn’t really my thing, I loved the amount of individual control it gave users over what they could see.
I wonder if there could be some kind of system to make this simpler, chunkier and less-drama, though.
What if there were:
- different individual policies that instances could subscribe to
- coalitions based on adoption of specific policy bundles, and allow-lists based on them.
- coalition-curated deny-lists of non-compliant instances.
A little bit Schengen area, a little bit NATO.
Ferinstance I can see some instances only wanting to talk to others with curated signup, curated community-creation, no-NSFW, specific political leanings etc - and I can see some instances not wanting those things. Some people may want very safe spaces, others may want in-your-face free speech. Both are reasonable (imho), and there’s no reason both sides can’t have what they want, without it having to be a big deal.
Possibly this could be layered, I haven’t worked out the mechanics yet - but even if you have groups around rules ABCDE, AB, ACE, BCD, etc - it would still help set and stabilise people’s expectations, and help them reach consensus, preferably with a bigger granularity than single servers - and reduce the number of nasty surprises down the track.
I don’t like the idea of coalitions at all. To me it feels like the coalitions would become very “us vs them”, i.e. you must defederate all instances that allow any topic in this list or we will defederate you. It leaves no neutral ground, creates echo chambers, and deepens the political divide that plagues our society.
IMO it’s better if
- Lemmy allows individual users to block all communities from an instance or all users from an instance, sort of like defederation but per-user.
- Instances have the rule that “when you interact with other instances/communities, you must follow all their rules, or we will suspend your cross-instance posting rights for X days”.
Then instances can act like neutral infrastructure/identity providers and each user can decide exactly how they want to interact with the fediverse without causing fragmentation.
Then you will need to follow users around other places that they interact. You just get more work creep at the end of it all.
I’ve made some suggestions on my Lemmy.ml alt in the original defederation announce thread. Taking a look at the API, it should be possible to make a bot that addresses at least some of the concerns.
This is something I looked at as well and an option. It does require someone to volunteer their time and make the tool. Sounds like a fun project but I’m already stretched pretty thin so it would have to be someone else.
Serious question: What is the alternative to open registration? Invite-only? What is the expectation?
Seems a bit kneejerk to defederate, that’s employing the nuclear option as the first step. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for dialog.
Manual admin approval for every signup.
That does not seem sustainable.
Why? What would you even check?
It’s not like you can interview the person and check their ID, etc. - it’s just meaningless bureaucracy that stifles growth.
From what I understand, it’s ‘did this human read what we’re about here and respond in a way that demonstrates they know what they’re signing onto’?
At minimum, it weeds out folks who don’t take the time to write a couple sentences, and kinda acts like a crappy lock on a door. If someone’s determined to start some nonsense, it’s not hard to get in and try. But a lot of folks will try the door once, see it doesn’t open right away, and fuck off. They don’t want growth for growth’s sake, so the fact that this stifles growth to a degree isn’t a concern.
But yeah, I agree it doesn’t scale very well.
