are people still all riled up about beehaw?
density@kbin.social to 
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?
I think that the "controversy" 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.
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.
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.
Hello guys, just wanted to chime in and say that it's good to see you three explain things in a calm manner in this thread. Nice to see you around.
To add on:
Most of the discussions I saw were highlighting the differences and discussing what the pros and cons were, so that users could make an informed decision when picking the instance to migrate to.
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
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.
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.
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.
Ended up with a bunch of Karens policing each other, so I think that's a win for all.
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.
What's wrong with downvoting? Ain't it expected when the community allow downvotes?
Do you think everyone should agree with you always?
I am curious, what current of socialism do you subscribe to?
No of course not but I subscribe to the original Reddiquette philosophy. Downvotes arne't for disagreement. They were originally a form of user-moderation to stop spam. Unfortunately about a decade ago after the Digg exodus the users of Reddit forgot that original usage and so you'd end up being downvoted and not knowing why. It doesn't foster debate or discussion. It's a cheap way to snipe someone down without being responsible or engaging them.
I never, ever downvote unless it's obvious link spam. If I feel strongly enough I tell the person they're wrong and why. That's what I believe in.
Libertarian Socialism. In the UK the closest parties/groups would be Black Rose Labour and/or Jeremy Corbyn's Labour. The countries closest to my beliefs are Denmark, Iceland and Norway.
However, the people on Lemmy.ml took further offence when I suggested DPRK wasn't a democratic country and they trotted out a list of articles on how democratic it really was. Then I was given a bunch of Stalin emojis of him pulling heart shapes with his hands.
I'm not a fan of autocratic dictatorships and I was dog-piled and taunted with a bunch of Stalinist and DPRK memes. Because apparently you're not truly left-wing unless you worship Stalin and Kim.
I would have been happy to debate these points with them but unfortunately my reticence of autocratic dictatorships was considered far worse than what was directed at me in response.
That's actually very nice, I agree with you. TIL.
Very true, and that's why I'm more and more inclined to use an instance without downvotes. With the report button available, downvotes just seem like a shortcut for hivemind.
A: Nordic systems like that are by definition not a form of economic socialism.
B: Gonna make an assumption that you using Tankie was likely referencing some authoritarian policy and just grouping them all under 'tankie' as a generic insult like most .world liberals. Leninists or other ML flavors are not tankies.
I don't necessarily agree with down voting just for the inaccuracies of A. The boring 'tankie' this and 'tankie' that from the libs is getting REAL old though. They can't even borrow an insult correctly. I have no issues with memes and banning people for that as those people clearly have no intention of serious conversation.
It's exhausting to the point that you were likely dismissed the moment that happened. I know it's bad for spreading ideas and I don't really like it. That said, explaining the real definition and real points of debate for the 100th time when really only every 10th person had an honest desire to learn/share is trying to say the least.
As an authoritarian leaning Leninists I will gladly tell you why Anarchism and Libertarian Socialism inevitably fail though if you want.
I see, Anarchism. I like it, mainly Kropotkin. Although I disagree with some points IRL mainly of my daily comrades are anarchists. I am what you would call a tankie even though I despise tankies.
I understand, and I think this shouldn't happen. A Marxist should be open to honest debate. On my view DPKR is way more democratic than say USA. I don't like this apologetic view of Stalin too. But I don't subscribe to Imperialistic propaganda neither. I think somewhat I am priveleged living outside the axis North America x West Europe, those places have suffered with A LOT of propaganda, and it is hard to see it from inside.
DPKR isn't a dictatorship though. Kim alone holds less power in his country than Biden for instance. Also he was elected. DPKR have some sort of direct democracy that most western world doesn't even dream about.
These people really gives socialism a bad name after all. I agree with you.
lol people like you really exist
@cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world see? there are idiots from all sides.
That's why some people tend to become reactive and aloof.
So I want to start off with recognizing that western media love to blow up American propaganda about how "batshit crazy" Kim Jong-un is. In reality I think development of nukes is to some degree quite sensible as a defensive measurement for DPRK, especially given their stated goal to develop socialism without external involvement.
Formally DPRK looks quite democratic with power derived from the working people's assembly. However, I do not see how formalism really matters if it does not conform with praxis. Having officials elected for life from the same bloodline is to me a big red flag in this regard. The same with things like the assembly only being actually assembled for a few days of the year and statisics regarding voter participation and such.
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.
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.
EDIT: Adding to the above. From their opencollective page, they are in +6k$. Even 1000$ on a feature and I think plenty of people will want to contribute. Considering that they were complaining about a handful of features, I don't see how it was not feasible. That will both give back to the developers and get them where they are. Win-win...?
Lemmy's code isn't that easy to get into, otherwise there would be much more contributors to it.
The third biggest contributor after the two main devs has 59 commits.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/graphs/contributors?from=2019-02-10&to=2024-02-06&type=c
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 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 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 a assholes who slip 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'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 even put a comment on their post to let them know the hotfix for their issue. There's no database changes, it's the simplest update.
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.
Probably died down because they de-federated nearly everyone.
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 or any opinion about millions of innocent people dying?
You don't think it's bad?
That's got nothing to do with your race. That's just really shit.
I don't have any strong feelings or opinions about the holocaust in particular, as opposed to any of the other multiple genocides and atrocities humanity has committed over the ages, or even just the assorted hundreds of millions of deaths from war, famine, disease, etc. They all suck, but I see no reason to get more emotional about one specific event than any of the others.
I get that it's especially sensitive for many people because they feel connected to the event via personal, family or national ties. None of those apply to me. How strongly do YOU feel about the Crusades, which were very much an attempted genocide? Chances are, you don't, because it's just not culturally relevant.
The crusades were atrocities in my opinion. Straight up racism made manifest under the guise of religion.
Yep. So was the holocaust. But at least for me, it's an intellectual outrage, nothing that works up my emotions. Apparently to some people, that's unacceptable.
Right well that would be an opinion. Do you really not see how your comment may have come off as nasty?
Possibly. Is that on the level of getting permabanned, though?
100% it makes you sound like a complete POS to be honest.
If you can read about the Holocaust and not feel any emotion that does seem pretty fucked up.
I said no STRONG emotion, go back to my post 2 levels up. Like, I'm not about to sit there and start crying, I'm just not an emotional guy. Is that now a crime?
actually what you said was
it's not a crime. but you know lemmy isn't a court of law right? you sound like an asshole.
whether it deserves a ban I guess that depends on the context.
You also said no opinion. It being bad is an opinion. So saying you have no opinion sounds harsh.
If someone is of Asian decent from any country Japan invaded, their ancestors experienced equally bad atrocities that are largely ignored by the global community.
Yeah but I wouldn't say I have no opinion about them. It's super fucked up and horrifying.
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.
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 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. It’s going to be hard to replace Reddit and being too uptight about who joins just kind of seems like a recipe not to have enough people to have an active community.
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.
That is exactly their goal. They openly state it, and I respect them for that.
Federating with others was never really what they wanted. It's a semi-private discussion space with strict rules.
Initially they were not so upfront about it. Things changed as they experienced more of the fediverse.
Walled gardens don’t have a long shelf-life on the internet. They’re fading away.
Tell that to metafilter, or hackernews? Or a multitude of other smaller niche communities that chug along perfectly happy (Yes there are less now than there used to be but that is mainly because of the insanely aggressive way Discord is being pushed on communities all over the internet and destroying their foundations). 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.
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
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 sent 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
Lemmy users mainly have a positive view on Beehaw.
https://lemmy.ml/post/9896745
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.
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.
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.