welcome, new Beehaw users and lurkers. an FAQ and introduction to Beehaw

alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgmod to Beehaw Support@beehaw.org – 243 points –

hey folks. here's a new FAQ on the community, since the currently pinned thread is a bit haphazard and crammed now, and we've had more time to go over stuff.

What is Beehaw?

in summary, we're a community that wants to cultivate a sense of real belonging to something, to foster meaningful conversations, and to ensure everyone feels valued and respected in a way that isn't the case with other social media out there. we've thought and written a lot about this. if you'd like more than that summary, we strongly encourage you to read the following essays, which explain how this community is run, what we prioritize in running it, and why we've designed it this way generally:

you can also read more on our Docs website

This sounds very cool! How do I join?

you can register here.

you don't need to write a whole essay, however: please answer the question fully, and try to engage with at least some of the content above/on the sidebar before you register.

this is not personal, but we've grown a lot and are primarily interested in users who really care for the philosophy of our community. if you don't answer the question fully, you will likely get denied or caught in registration limbo when we have a backlog of users.

How long should I expect to wait to be approved?

now that we have email working: anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours. you should get notified if you've used an email to sign up either way. make sure to check your spam folder to be safe this may be an issue for some users. if you did not use an email to sign up, try logging in after about 24 hours, and then again after 48 hours.

if we receive an influx of users you may get caught in registration limbo by failing to answer the questions, and it may take longer to get back to you than the 48 hours listed here.

if you have issues with anything, please report them in the following thread!

I'm in! How can I keep Beehaw running, or otherwise contribute?

our instance is 100% user-funded. you can one-time donate or become a monthly donor here. you can donate anonymously both ways. as far as we're aware cryptocurrency is accepted by OpenCollective, it's just more laborious and you'll probably have to contact them to clear it.

if you have volunteer labor or advice you're willing to give us on how to keep the site running smoothly, we also generally appreciate that. our Matrix and Discord communities are the best way to offer that stuff to us.

How do I help keep the community running smoothly?

be considerate! think about the things you say and how you want to say them; be kind and charitable; don't assume the worst of people; but above all: Be(e) nice!

it might seem trite, but genuinely we've found there is no better distillation of what we want to accomplish here than that ethos. if something makes you feel like that ethos is being violated, err on the side of caution and report it (on desktop it's the flag button in the three dot menu on any post). it can't hurt. so far though we've found most people kind of know what we mean, and we're hopeful you'll be able to pick up on that too.

as for non-moderation ways you can keep things running: contribute to discussions! share stuff you find interesting! contribute your expertise and help out folks when they ask for it! it's okay—and very understandable—to lurk based on the toxicity commonplace on other social media, but we really do try to make this space as welcoming as possible to everyone here and we hope you'll find it a safer place to come out of your online shell.

What else should I know?

we always take feedback. while we can't promise any changes, you can provide thoughts and comments on just about anything on the site in Beehaw Support, or on Discord or Matrix (where we maintain real-time chat). we try to get a sense of what the community wants and needs all the time, so we'll frequently be asking for input from you to help inform our decisions.

downvotes are disabled on this instance and will probably always be. we find them unproductive. communities cannot be made by users on here. we do take feedback on what gets made and when to make communities, as a part of the above point. you can always find a running list of communities we have at this link, or under the Communities button on desktop.

we are all volunteers, and this is not a job for us. we would like to not have it be one, so we can just be members of the community with all of you. please help keep it that way!

in the very, very long term, we aspire to become a co-op or similar, as a part of fulfilling our ethos.

as with the last thread, feel free to sound off on other questions you have. i, other mods, and community members will try to get to them as able.

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Just wanted to take the opportunity to say that I actually kind of appreciate the sign-up process needing approval? I'm aware there's no quick and easy way to prevent bots and bad actors from tarnishing otherwise comfy spaces, but even just having to apply kinda makes Beehaw feel a bit safer? c:

it's a very good filter, yes--honestly now that the "denials didn't previously get emails" issue is resolved rudimentarily on our end, we can probably handle up to a few hundred applications a day

I really like the policy of no downvotes. Honestly, even on Reddit I think downvoting had long ceased to serve any useful purpose, and turned into a harmful tool. Anything that truly is bad content can just be reported instead.

I’m coming around to like the policy, too. I was skeptical for a while before joining, but I think I figured out why I had that skepticism.

I think I’m used to larger communities/platforms not having a reliable moderation, and I’ve seen dislikes and downvotes as a directly user controlled means for a place to self-police its content. That’s not to say I’d think moderation would act in bad faith; I’ve had occasional points when I found myself in a moderator role, and I’ve always had the impression that we were trying our best. It’s more that I’d think larger platforms like YouTube and busy communities lend its moderation force to being spread too thin and having to make judgements quickly and with less nuance. Downvotes definitely can, and have, been used in bad faith by users, but I think I felt like their intended use case made their issues a necessary evil.

I think Beehaw is actively striving to be different in that way. I don’t think that means I should say this place is invulnerable to something like Mod Decay or Apathy—I’d think something as potentially impactful like this warrants a degree of vigilance. But the vibe I get so far is encouraging. I think that if Beehaw’s moderation stays the course, I’ll continue to see the downvotes absence not just as a non-issue here, but a benefit to how we do things.

I think no downvotes for something like Beehaw is great. But for anything that tries to push "open" above "moderated", downvoting is critical. Otherwise you get bad-faith contributors that are propped up.

Hi bees! Great to be here with you guys.

Thank you very much for your efforts. I am happy to be here and am very excited to see how this platform will develop!

The vibe around here is great, thanks for the approval! Very happy to be here 🎉

Thanks for approving me! I was looking for an art community on Lemmy as a replacement of Reddit and as far as I know, Beehaw has the biggest art community on Lemmy!

Very happy to be here (thanks for the approval)... l have been looking around and reading through and it looks very awesome and curated content. Very happy to be part of this community :)

Guys, I love the intent here!

What’s the best way to help?

What’s the best way to help?

donations are probably best if you have the money (here) but failing that moral support is always appreciated

Hi everyone. This is an interesting place. I like that good behaving is part of the community philosophy. I can also understand why the creating a community is not allowed. Overall I have the feeling this is a place of quality.

However, disabling the down vote button leaves me with an uncomfortable taste in the mouth. I understand why this is done. This is my first post here, so I will see myself how its going to work out and decide at later time if this is a good idea or not. At least down voting unpopular opinions is such a bad thing in other communities, which would be solved here. And it still is self regulating, where top or hot comments have the most likes and comments. While writing my own comment here, I start to like disabling the dislike button.

Oh and thank god there is a Preview mode (like Github). I just wish there would be a realtime preview mode on the side.

Happy to be here and I think I am going to stay.

I joined back in April (then forgot about it...) so should I consider myself an early adoptor? Anyways, I'll spend some time familiarising myself again.

I don’t have the authority, but I’ll say it anyway—yes, you may use that title to describe yourself.

Sincerely, One of the riffraff from Rexxit

Happy to be here and enjoying the positive vibe

Hi everyone, and a thank you to the admins for approving me! Really love the feel of this place so far, there are some interesting discussions taking place. I'm almost a middle-aged geezer, and the Lemmies feel more like late 1990s/early 2000s mailing lists or forums than anything else -- I really miss those. I hope that I can contribute to the positive atmosphere and discussion quality!

Absolutely didn't mind the sign up process considering the idealogy of Beehaw at it's core. It's necessary to filter out, at the very least, the people who can't even behave for one simple "Why I want to join" message.

I do wonder what the plan is for growth, though? I can't imagine it'll be feasible to screen every sign up in a future where Beehaw continues to grow so quickly.

Thanks for all you're doing folks!

I do wonder what the plan is for growth, though? I can’t imagine it’ll be feasible to screen every sign up in a future where Beehaw continues to grow so quickly.

late to this but:

  1. we all sort of rotate in and out of approvals, so it's been pretty feasible to this point;
  2. the tide has ebbed from its peak and other instances are really taking the pressure off of us, so we can definitely keep up better now;
  3. worst case, we can just ignore all applications (or shut them off, if there's a toggle, not totally certain).

the big problem is actually the ones we don't approve, which are stuck in limbo as noted. we have about 5,000 of those and counting to get back to and we're working on how best to do that.

(we're also discussing how to scale on the fediverse side of things, but that's really preliminary)

I like how transparent y'all are about this stuff, definitely the breath of fresh air people have been looking for. Thanks for the answer!

Thanks for having me! I'll do my best to engage and not just lurk/read most of the time lol! There's some great content so far and I'm liking the move from Reddit even with the learning curve. I'll donate when I can and if I can help more, I'll do my best to do so.

Hi guys, new here, how does this: "communities cannot be made by users on here. we do take feedback on what gets made and when to make communities" work in practice? is there a space to request a thing be created? Like for example i like to talk about wrassling shows but there's only a sports community.

Is there a wrasslin community? I can't seem to find one

Where can I see a list of all communities in here? I'm on the Jerboa app.

thank you to admins, this has been a a great experience, really has helped with finding a new place after reddit. The community here has been incredibly welcoming. I appreciate all the transparency and dedication.

Happy to finally be(e) here! It was worth the wait for approval. 😊 I've been watching how the Beehaw team and community has been responding and taking action during this tumultuous period and I'm absolutely impressed. Looking forward to being an active member of this community.

Thank you all for your efforts! I really like the intent of the community here. I hope we can all flourish together :)

Thanks for approving my account, I like the feel of the place and look forward to becoming more active as I get more familiar with things. One question... While I was waiting for my account to be approved I opened an account on the startrek.website lemmy instance with the same user name. Is this going to cause any problems?

One question… While I was waiting for my account to be approved I opened an account on the startrek.website lemmy instance with the same user name. Is this going to cause any problems?

nope (although you'll probably see some things on one that you won't on the other; i'm sure startrek.website federates with slightly different instances than we do)

"You don't need to write a whole essay" Yea, sorry for that. I got carried away.

Honestly, I like the lengthy ones! It's usually a sign the answer will be good because unfortunately, a lot of people just don't care to write much and it makes it much harder to decide if that person is a good fit for Beehaw.

For example, writing "Leaving Reddit." does not tell me anything and I feel kinda bad because I can't accept that person into Beehaw.

I love you guys so much 🥲🩷

I am really happy that this space here exists and I can be here. I already created an account at another instance, but noticed that the people there are already trying to create a new Reddit, including the downsides. So having a more controlled instance focused on being nice to each other sounds really wonderful.

Hello:) Thanks for letting me know about this space. Looking forward to exploring.

Thanks a lot for letting me join. 🙂 Looking forward to being part of interesting communities on this platform.

Hi everyone and thanks Beehaw for the easy registration. I've been on Reddit for a very long time and while I'm not very seriously attached to it in any meaningful way, it does make me extremely sad to see the direction it's going now. I found so many niche communities that I could spend my time in that were such a fun part of my day. I don't have many IRL friends and don't really have any online friends, but interacting with the strangers in the subs I carefully curated over the years was so enjoyable. I hope I can find something similar here.

Excited to be here and to contribute to the collective good!

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be part of the community!

Major long term lurker from Reddit here, like 10+ years lurking. Lemmy / Beehaw actually gets me to post however and I love it! Not sure where the motivation has come from. A desire for a proper community perhaps? I've watched Reddit go through highs and lows over the years but weirdly I feel like I belong here. Hello and welcome to all other Lemmy / Beehaw users! :D

I think lots of us are feeling almost the same :) I hope we can sustain this feeling on time and create more close and human interactions on the internet.

Thanks for letting me be here! I look forward into seeing the community grow.

Thank you for adding me! Genuinely excited to watch these communities grow.

Hello! Thanks for adding me! I'm excited to get engaged!

Hello and thanks for letting me join the community.

Thank you for having me. This community seems great!

Hey there! I'm a lurker mostly but I hope I'll be tempted to participate as well since I like the intent!

OK - just checking in - picked up on Beehaw from Lemmy a couple of days ago and what a breath of fresh air!

To that end I've just wiped and deleted my two accounts at the R place after ten and a bit years. It turned into a pile of toxic garbage - bots and trolls in all of the subs I was in.

Hopefully this will different.

I always had mixed feelings about downvoting. On YouTube, dislikes were very useful, on Reddit I feel downvotes are just used to bring down dissenting opinions, regardless of their merit, so in a community like this it makes sense to disable them.

I agree with you. It's disheartening to ask a legitimate question and get negative votes and zero comments.

I applied 26 hours ago and never heard anything back. I get an eternal spinner if I try to log on. Does that mean my answers were not up to snuff and I'm not approved? I hope that's not the case. At least the fediverse means I can still enjoy the content of beehaw.

There's a very big back log of applications (I think they said 5000+ or so) and only a handful of people that are able to review them right now. Your application is probably fine!

Yes, it took a few days for my approval notice to arrive. I needed to exercise a little patience. I am very glad to be here now, it is nice to be part of a genuine community!

Huzzah I'm in. And right as I learn of the defederation with lemmy world lol

Hey thanks and glad to be here. It feels like a breath of fresh air after so long on Reddit.

Just have to start commenting again!

Many thanks. I know a lot of work must be going into the community at the moment. I'm deeply appreciative and am excited to be here.

Perhaps a stupid question, but as a new member what should I expect from de-federation? I completely understand and agree with the rationale for splitting off for now, but would this mean if I wanted to browse something on another instance, I'd need to make a separate Lemmy account?

Thank you to all of you who put the work in to make Beehaw what it is ❤️

The co-op / democratic governance idea sounds fascinating. I'm Finnish and we're big on co-ops (or were, at any rate), and I'd definitely love to see that particular ethos spread to site governance.

Oh and random hosting tech question, do you have an autoscaling setup at the moment?

It is not autoscaling. We had to scramble a lot in the first 48 hours after API changes were finalized to ensure we had hardware to support all the users and fine tune some settings for lemmy. Luckily we have some wonderfully tech literate people with time on their hands who've chipped in to help.

Thanks for having me! I hope to contribute as much as i can to meaningful discussions and help as many people as i can :)

I just finished reading the piece on beehaw as a community and how you try to manage disagreements or things that are inappropriately said shortly after being approved today.

It really moved me and made me feel a sense of community already. I really hope the moderation strategy works out with the growth of the instance, because it seems like moderating at that level would get exhausting very quickly. Anyways, I'm glad to be here and excited to see what the future will bring :)

Thanks for the add here! Excited to try the space out and see how the community feels and runs. I mostly lurk but really enjoy passively participating in discourse.

On a side note - is there a good android app anyone would recommend? I tried downloading Jerboa but it keeps crashing on open.

Thanks for the add! I'm looking forward to being part of the community.

How do downvotes work from other instances? Are they just not counted if you're viewing from an instance that disables downvotes?

thank you for having me! looking forward to being part of this community.

I can't create an account on Beehaw, I'm posting from infosec.pub.

When I try to create an account or to login, I just get a spinny, and it leaves me hanging there.

What do I need to do to create an account?

I also got the spinny. I think it was a timeout issue with the form. I copied my essay, refreshed, and pasted it in and it worked fine.

Generally what this means is your registration application hasn't been reviewed yet - it just takes some time for a human to look at it and approve/deny.

I'm so glad to have found a reddit alternative that I actually want to use. I just joined yesterday, but I'm really liking it so far. And I love the general air of friendliness y'all seem to have cultivated here!

Hi, quick question: Would you consider adding a community for content creators/streamers? Having a small positive community like this is ideal for small creators.

If no, could you recommend where I should try to foster such a community?

Thank you for your time

Sorry if I missed something obvious, but where are the details/links to matrix/discord?

Thanks for the add! Looking forward to seeing the community grow and flourish more.

Really fast registration approval, it's nice to see an admin who cares for their community. Still kinda lost with Lemmy but so far so good and I look forward to interacting with everyone.

Brand new user here. Big thanks to those that stood up this community. I was approved within minutes! I was shocked. I am excited to be a small part of this friendly project.

So I've started to get familiar with some of the other instances that show up in my "all" feed. Lemmy.ml, lemmy.world are the main two. But what is blahaj.zone? I see that one quite a bit but no one has ever talked about it.

I believe it's an explicitly queer space

Ah ok cool, thank you!

Yeah for some context, the blahaj is a toy that IKEA sells. Its colors remind people of the trans pride flag, so it's become a queer symbol in its own right. blahaj.zone is a calckey(?) microblog community that now also offers a lemmy instance subdomain

Thanks for approving me! Looking forward to investigating more.

Jerboa shows a lot of promise as an app. Curious to see if any of the major 3PA developers take a swing at the Fedi the way the Twitter ones did.

Question about “front page” of Beehaw: who makes the logic for Active, Hot, New etc - is this part of Beehaw, or common functionality provided by Lemmy?

I do miss something more like “Best” I think from Apollo, and to see more new threads. I’ve subscribed to a number of communities over the last few days, but every time I go to beehaw.org to see the latest (yeah, a pattern from Reddit that might not fit that well here), after a few days now I see mostly the same threads, or at least the same as yesterday and the day before.

Would it be more up to the functionality in an app to provide a more customized front page, set a default sorting, hide posts I’ve already read etc, or is this functionality we can suggest for the instance to implement?

Question about “front page” of Beehaw: who makes the logic for Active, Hot, New etc - is this part of Beehaw, or common functionality provided by Lemmy?

provided by Lemmy--if you're curious they describe the formula for both here. the distinction between them according to the documents is:

  • Active (default): Calculates a rank based on the score and time of the latest comment, with decay over time
  • Hot: Like active, but uses time when the post was published

unfortunately this is a pretty technical part of the site so i'm not sure this is in our wheelhouse to even think about, much less contribute to--however you can definitely see if there's support or the technical know-how for alternative sorts over on lemmy.ml or Github.

This and the other related posts have such a great vibe. The consideration and thought that was clearly put into how things are set up here is something that I really appreciate.

Thanks for accepting me here, sadly Reddit is going the Digg route and this seems like a good, up and coming alternative.

I believe bees are sacred and worthy of worship and any site that elevates them is one I can support!

✊🐝🐝🐝

Not sure I agree with the downvoting. Its essential to identify false claims and information as well as hold posters accountable.

That's a good aspirational summary of how downvoting should be used, but in practice it's used as "I don't like this," not "this is against the core of what the site stands for," or "this is factually incorrect."

i couldn't sign up using a 3 letter username i just got the spinny button problem. at least for me it seems to be broken in firefox on linux, signing up in another browser worked. other instances running 0.17.4-rc.1 work however.

weew i'm in

ok so the problem was that my password was too long - make sure your password is less or equal to 60 characters long

That's such a funny requirement. Mine is 48, randomly generated by my password manager, and here I thought it was long

So, I was looking into a thread on lemmy.ml with some community recommendations for reddit refugees, and it seems there isn't a standard way to link communities in an instance-agnostic way?

For a start, it doesn't seem like the posting interface automatically recognizes community links (so if I write /c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml, it automatically becomes a link to that community), so it seems you need to manually format the text as a link. So in order to have /c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml, you need to write [/c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml](/c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml). Is it correct, or is there some straightforward trick I'm missing?

Moreover, it seems like not all communities are accessible from beehaw? Like https://lemmy.ml/c/nomanssky clearly exists, but accessing it from here as /c/nomanssky@lemmy.ml returns an error. Can someone clarify what's happening?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was wondering how downvoting works across instances.

So, when I go to a community from another instance, I still don't have access to the downvote button. Is that a bug? It's not a big deal either way, but I was also wondering if someone from another instance comes here, can they downvote us?

So, when I go to a community from another instance, I still don’t have access to the downvote button. Is that a bug? It’s not a big deal either way, but I was also wondering if someone from another instance comes here, can they downvote us?

as far as i'm aware if you're on an instance where downvotes are disabled, it globally disables them for you (since you have to access other federated communities through your own). but downvotes from other places do nothing here even if they're enabled on those other places and even if people can see the downvote button.

I figured that was why I couldn't downvote on other instances, thanks for clearing that up! Honestly, I'm fine with that. I think not having the option actually makes me less aggressive lol.

And that's good to know that others can't just come here and downvote everyone. Again, thanks for clearing this up for me, I appreciate it!

I've been trying to sign up for the last 5 days or so.. My first application went through but then I guess I got stuck in limbo because it never let me sign in, now every time i attempt to re apply it just spins and spins.. Definitely a bummer.

If you're trying to sign up for a new account with the same username, the infinite spinner might be indicative of that your account was created. Now you can't create a new account by the same name as it's already taken. Looking [here] it does appear that a user named @TooL does indeed exist. I wish the login page, signup page, gave more verbose errors, but that's a technical Lemmy problem not a beehaw problem

Glad to be part of the community! Have some issue logging in on mobile, but desktop works fine.

What client? I'm new here too and when I first tried Jerboa on my phone it wouldn't let me login after the first time. It started working again after I deleted and re-added my account and has been working consistently ever since.

I was using Lemmy. I’m currently using Wefwef since I love how it emulates Apollo’s UI, and that was my favorite Reddit client to use. I also use Mlem, but since it’s still in beta, it’s got some bugs. Such as right now Mlem shows that I’m logged in, but nothing appears on my feed

Hi all. Noob here and a bit dumb. Is there a way I can view a list of the "subreddits" like I can on Reddit? It's hard to know what sort of communities I am interested and want to subscribe to if I can't find a list of them anywhere to browse. Also, what do you call "subreddits" on Lemmy? Thanks!

this should be possible through the communities button. you can tab between the local list of communities and All, which is a list comprised of all the communities on instances we federate with.

I'm a bit confused on lemmy instances. I thought I saw that you can join an instance with an account you've made on another one? For example, some people will have "theirname@beehaw.org" on other instances. How does that work exactly? You can't just sign in?

You need to access the post through your own instance. In the sidebar of a community, it will have an adress to that community that you can copy paste in the search function of your instance> apparently I was wrong about it being in the sidebar, but the address is formulated like !anime@lemmy.ml in which anime is the community and lemmy.ml the instance

edit: apparently I was wrong about it always being in the sidebar, but the address is formulated like !anime@lemmy.ml in which anime is the community and lemmy.ml the instance

our instance is 100% user-funded. you can one-time donate or become a monthly donor here.

Can the details of costs vs donations be published? It would be good to be able to see what everything costs to run, what the donations are, where is it being spent etc

There's a financials post here: https://beehaw.org/post/416496

And near the bottom of this page you can see the donations made, the money actually spent, and their current balance: https://opencollective.com/beehaw

Thank you! That’s a very clear breakdown. Really appreciate how transparent the beehaw team is. The running costs are less than I would have expected and it’s reassuring that there’s already a good pot of money so (at least at the moment) beehaw is sustainable

I honestly didn't notice that downvotes were disabled on this. I love yall. Reddit gave me so much anxiety with downvotes, ugh.

I initially balked at the idea when I read about it here but then realized how toxic it can be. I thought about and realized that the short burst of enjoyment I got out of downvoting especially hateful, bigoted, stupid etc. comments was not really very healthy. The original concept of downvoting in Reddit was supposed to be about downvoting content that didn't contribute to the conversation rather than content you didn't like. But in practice, the people who post constant negativity and hate aren't deterred by the downvoted anyway, often enjoy farming for the downvotes, and end up getting promoted anyway through the "controversial" sorting alrgorithm.

Hello all,

After years on social media (going back to MySpace days) I still don't have the hang of it. I have been on FB since 2004. I tried Twitter in 2006 for about 8 months. I also did the Identi.ca thing too back when. Reddit from the early days and Lemmy since the first few months after it appeared. Mastodon was the first I really enjoyed and now that I have been lurking here in Beehaw with my Lemmy.ml account I am happy to switch over.

I really miss the days of MySpace. It was such a simpler time. I loved customizing my page, curating the music playlists, etc. I truly miss the late 90s early 00s Internet.

How does moderation work in subs? When I report something does it go to the mod of that sub or the admins of the instance?

it goes to both the mods and the admins; if you report something off-site, it goes to both the instance you're from and the instance you're reporting something on.

I’m curious how Beehaw and other instances are protected against spam and other types of automated abuse. When someone eventually tries to flood the community with “how I made $100,000 in one week working from home: spammy-link-yall.com,” is it handled manually or are there protections in place?

When someone eventually tries to flood the community with “how I made $100,000 in one week working from home: spammy-link-yall.com,” is it handled manually or are there protections in place?

as of now: manually. in the future i'm sure it can be automated but since we need to approve people's accounts before they can post that alone has basically rendered spam and self-promotion stuff like that a non-issue. genuinely can't remember when we last had to deal with it, even from a federated instance.

Is there a way to message the mods/admin without messaging them directly (individually)? Can't seem to find the option.

Only curious because for some reason, my account got labeled "bot account" next to my comments and I have no idea why. Maybe because I posted from Jerboa or something? It's weird.

Not a bot, beteedubs. (Yes, yes, that's what a bot would say, I know.)

Stealth edit: Yeah, even this comment. Am I like not fully approved or something?

Only curious because for some reason, my account got labeled “bot account” next to my comments and I have no idea why. Maybe because I posted from Jerboa or something? It’s weird.

i think this is a setting you can flip and you may have accidentally flipped it? we don't have any ability to do that as far as i'm aware, but it's a toggle in user settings:

Question about how this whole thing works: downvotes are disabled in this instance, does that mean that being a member of Beehaw means I can't downvote, or does that mean that posts and comments within the Beehaw instance can't be downvoted?

At the moment, it means that you can't downvote anywhere using your Beehaw account.

You say "at the moment" - does that imply that it's an open question being considered? I've thought about it both ways and can understand the pros and cons either way. Initially I thought it would be inherently "unfair" in instances where other people were downvoting, but then I considered that the whole point was to try to encourage people to reflect on why they didn't like the content and respond accordingly.

Thanks for setting up this instance! I really like the fediverse model, just wish I understood how it worked better.

So it took some scrolling because search maybe isn't optimized yet. But now I'm looking at your beehaw comment on a beehaw post that I'm viewing on kbin from a kbin account. Yet I think you'll see this reply on Beehaw.