Does Beehaw benefit from federation?

bijuice@beehaw.org to Chat@beehaw.org – 75 points –

I saw this discussion brought up on a different thread and I though I'd get some more opinions on the matter.

The Beehaw community guidelines describe a place that's meant to be safe, friendly and encourages people to discuss their ideas in good faith. For the most part I feel like this community lives up to that; users of this instance are generally thoughtful with their responses. However, I don't feel like that level of quality extends to the users who post from other instances. Responses from those users are more likely to pendantic, overly argumentative, and unhelpful.

Now I may just be an elitist fuck so I'd like to hear your opinions on this. Does Beehaw benefit from federation? Do the community guidelines even matter if they don't apply to many of the people who engage with this instance? Am I just looking for a reason to complain?

EDIT: This post isn't a request for Beehaw to defederate btw. I just wanted to discuss the negatives of federation and what we can do to alleviate them :)

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I think we still have two "shields" protecting our ways in Beehaw:

  • the lack of downvotes. Perhaps people will downvote you from other instances. But you won't see those, so you will not care. I find that this removes a lot of negativity on its own.
  • when someone posts from another instance, you can see it in their name: so you can take what they say with a pinch of salt. "Oh, he is not from Beehaw; it is more normal for them to behave like that. No use to argue strongly against them".

As long as we have those, and as long as the federated instances moderate harmful content, it is OK for me to remain federated with them.

Just out of curiosity, what makes you think downvotes not being here removes negativity? I do think it can be a double edged sword. If someone makes multiple accounts to downvote someone to harass them it can be frustrating, but on the flip side I've found it to be a really good indicator of what the overall community thinks of the response and it can be telling and helpful. I'm just really curious to get a different perspective on it, I think it could help me because I feel frustrated in not having the downvotes. /gen

Contrary to popular belief, there are actually three options. You can disagree with something by not upvoting it (instead of downvoting it). On beehaw, you can get an indicator of what the overall community thinks of a response by seeing whether or not it has a significant number of upvotes relative to the rest of the content around it.

I find that anything that I would want to downvote should instead be reported anyway. I reserve downvotes on other platforms for posts/comments that are made in bad faith, which on Beehaw is often enough to report for anyway. On other platforms, I've seen downvotes used in exactly the way you describe, and it's led to at least me wanting to interact as minimally as possible knowing that as soon as I post something, some bot might just downvote it right away, immediately influencing the kinds of responses I get because apparently many people operate as part of a hivemind.

Omg you're totally right! Lol thank you I will keep an eye out for the fluctuations. Wow. It's been a lovely day on here. I haven't gotten yelled at once. People on Reddit seem to be out for blood these days I'm glad to leave it behind.

I'm getting Poe's Law'd hard with this one. I'll take it at face value and just say thanks for the positive discussion :)

I was being sincere I really do think that you have a good point there and I do appreciate it. :) /gen

Thanks! I think I've been trained by other platforms to expect some kind of defensive response almost every time I post something. It's something I've been trying to unlearn.

I definitely understand that feeling and text can be really hard to interpret. When I read your first reply I finished the first sentence and braced myself because I was immediately preparing for it to be accusatory or something and I was so pleasantly surprised. Good luck out there and stay safe. /gen

Yeah, same. I went back to my facebook groups and instagram pages for a while when reddit went crappy, and it really highlighted how helpful downvotes were

Downvotes are helpful if they are used properly (off-topic, hate speech, rediquitte, etc.), but I see people using it as a dislike button lately and that has made many discussion annoying and exhausting. Also, downvotes latently breed a hivemind which is like one of the worst parts of reddit.

I absolutely agree with all of this. It's really tough because so many are abusing the system at this point. I'm hoping in a place set up the way beehaw is that it will be less necessary to have downvotes. I'm new here so I guess I will just have to gauge how I feel as I go. Fingers crossed!

I think downvotes make it too easy to avoid discussion, I'd prefer if someone has a problem with something, they actually speak up and say something. Then that response getting lots of upvotes is a much better indicator of what the community feels.

I agree with this. It's hortible to get downvotes when you can't work out what you did wrong. Discussion is much better.