They chose to defederate from large instances with open registration. They believe it's allowing users to troll them.
IMO, this is kinda dumb. As any instance with open registration would be able to do what they want to prevent. Also, anyone can create their own instance and do this, they don't even need a server. It's just a bad idea.
I taught English in Japan (JET) for one year, and at the end I said what a lot of people say: I'd love to visit, but I'm never going to work here again.
The work culture in Japan is fucked. The fact that the amount of time you spend at work, not your actual output, determines how "productive" you are is so fucking stupid. I worked my contract hours and I was seen as lazy. Despite the fact that everything I was asked to do was always done and done well, the fact that I didn't come in 2 hours early and nap at my desk meant I was lazy. Add onto that the fact that I only got a (generous for Japan) 15 days of nenkyuu (paid days off), which you can't actually use because what happens if you get sick. Sick leave exists, but does it? Does it really? The one time I tried to use it, I was told "it'd be better for everyone if you didn't", and then had to use my nenkyuu anyway.
And that was me working a pretty privileged position! If I was coming from Vietnam to work in a retirement home, I'm sure the working conditions would be far worse with the threat of deportation looming over my head. Immigration is a band aid at best. As soon as immigrants have the opportunity to move somewhere better, they will of course take that.
In contrast, I now live in the Netherlands, which shockingly has some of the least generous child benefits in the EU. And yet, we get about 100€/month from the government in support, plus about 50% the cost of childcare paid for. My wife gets 4 months of maternity leave at full pay (I only get 5 days which is super fucked), with up to 3 years at 60% pay with a guarantee of her job being there when she gets back. We each have 25+ days off a year, which are actually used for days off, if the kid gets sick, we can use sick leave to care for it, and sick leave is unlimited. Also, healthcare for children is 100% paid by the government. And with all of that, we're barely in a position to be able to consider having children.
No, this is a bad idea. If an instance defederates, they no longer get the "true" version of posts in other instances.
This idea of defederation is an extreme step. It really is like a nuke, and it really is supposed to be used in extreme circumstances (for example, a nazi instance should be defederated asap). The issue is that this extreme action is being used incorrectly.
They're using extreme actions when a bot could just as easily accomplish the same task without needing to nearly break lemmy. It shows that the admins of that instance really don't understand what defederation is or what it actually does.
I came up with a list of examples to explain this, but I can't see to add them to the post. I'm having a really hard time posting today. So here they are in a comment. I think this helps show exactly what's going on.
If this still doesn't make sense, then try the following examples. I hope being able to see defederation in action makes this a little more clear.
We're going to use gaming@beehaw.org as an example of what happens to beehaw communities
Here are three links:
The first link is the beehaw gaming community as hosted on beehaw. All of these are sorted by new, because it makes it very obvious when defederation went into effect. You can see that there are several new posts.
The second link is the beehaw gaming community as hosted on lemmy.world. You can see that all the posts before defederation (5 hours ago at time of writing) are the same as the beehaw one. But now, none of new posts are visible. We no longer get updates from the "true" version on beehaw. There are some new posts there, but all are posted by lemmy.world users. And the posts from lemmy.world users are not visible on beehaw.
The final link is to the beehaw gaming community as hosted on lemmy.ml. This is identical to the beehaw.org community, as the "true" version is on beehaw.org, the one that gets updated on other communities is the "true" version.
We'll use the lemmyworld base community as an example:
https://beehaw.org/c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/data_type/Post/sort/New/page/1
https://lemmy.world/c/lemmyworld/data_type/Post/sort/New/page/1
https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world/data_type/Post/sort/New/page/1
The first post is the version of this community as hosted on beehaw.org. You can see from 5 hours ago, there are no more posts. That's because they no longer receive the "true" version of this community. Someone on there could still post, but then it would only be visible to other people on beehaw.org.
The second shows it as hosted on lemmy.world. We can see all the posts. The last link shows it as hosted on lemmy.ml, and we can see it's the same as the lemmy.world version. The "true" version is on lemmy.world, so lemmy.ml keeps up with the updated version.
Finally, we have the example of communities that are on instances that have not been defederated by beehaw.org.
https://beehaw.org/c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml/data_type/Post/sort/New/page/1
https://lemmy.world/c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml/data_type/Post/sort/New/page/1
We can see all three of these versions look pretty similar. That's because for the most part they are. We are identical with lemmy.ml, as lemmy.ml hosts the "true" version, and we get all updates from the "true" version. Beehaw.org will not get posts/comments from us, so beehaw actually doesn't have the most "true" version of this community.
I found this one really entertaining:
This is the same post hosted on three different instances. Since the community is on lemmy.ml, the "true" version of this post is the lemmy.ml one.
It was posted by a beehaw.org user AFTER defederation, but it's still visible to lemmy.world users, since the community it was posted to is lemmy.ml, not beehaw.org. We can comment on it, and those comments are sent to the "true" version on lemmy.ml (and then shared to the wider fediverse). However, comments from lemmy.world are NOT sent to the version of this post on beehaw.org.
When I found this example, there were only two comments on this post, both from lemmy.world users. So the poster did not get an initial response because of defederation.
Oh I completely agree, there's nothing wrong with wanting well-moderated communities. But their way of going about doing it makes absolutely no sense.
There's a positive here:
Everyone can just leave beehaw. I already saw a few comments from users that left beehaw after the admins there made poor decisions. Unlike reddit where if the admins make horrible decisions you can't really leave, here the admins are bound similarly to how moderators were on reddit.
If the mods fuck up too much, people just create their own sub. Seattle had like 4 different subs due to moderator bullshit. Beehaw will probably not survive, and that's ok. But lemmy as a whole will be perfectly fine!
I explained this in my post: https://lemmy.world/post/149743
Those communities still exist on this instance, they just aren't synced. You can see new posts from only lemmy.world users. Any posts/comments you make are not shared within the wider lemmyverse.
Effectively that community is a zombie community on this instance. Just unsub from that community, it's useless to you unless behave decides to refederate.
Think of it this way, defederation makes the user experience worse for users of the instance that did the defederation.
If your instance defederates others, you're the one having to contend with broken comments, missing posts, etc. Basically everything outside our own instance becomes worse when your instances is the one doing the defederation. This is not a bug, it's a feature. Defederation is extreme, it's not meant to be used this way.
The best thing to do is to just ignore this action by beehaw. Their users will likely leave due to this happening. Unsub from their communities, because they're useless to you now.
My NFL team last year gave up its franchise quarterback, and the subreddit basically only talked about the former QB for the entire preseason, and then still talked about it for half the season. Then it died down. And before the protest, he wasn't really talked about all that much.
Reddit is still fresh in people's minds. It will go away. In the early days of reddit a LOT of people talked about digg, but within a few months it just wasn't mentioned much anymore.
A lot of people here spent years on our ex-platform. It's going to take some time to get that out of our system. In the meantime, enjoy the shadenfreude!
Maybe I’m misunderstanding something, but how is it “worse for them”?
It cuts off beehaw from the wider lemmyverse. Since their users can not interact with lemmy.world posts and have limited capacity to interact with lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works users on other posts.
I understand they want a highly cultivated community, there's nothing wrong with doing that. The issue is that they way they've gone about doing it is by making the experience far worse for their users. Several people have already said they've made alternate accounts on other instances because of this.
Effectively, instead of created a sanctuary, they've created a prison. They wanted a walled garden for their users. But instead of allowing their users to interact with the wider fediverse, they lock them in.
In your opinion, how should they have acted to achieve that goal when according to them, they are not able to moderate that much content at the moment in a way they want to?
Blocked all users from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works from posting in their communities. Either that, or just use a bot to remove all comments from users from lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works.
Effectively that action would create their walled garden on their instance without preventing their users from interacting with the wider fediverse.
Defederation is not meant as a means of moderator action, and that's how it's being used.
We really shouldn't. That wouldn't actually solve any issues. It just means that the versions of posts we're looking at on other instances aren't "true".
Beehaw is defederating incorrectly. The best thing to do is to abandon them (considering the size of lemmy.world, that's what's likely to happen). It should not be common practice to retaliate with more defederation.
There’s a lot of instances that could defederate from. 2 is not a huge number so far.
They defederated from 300 some instances. And it's kinda ridiculous to use the number of instances instead of the number of users. They defederated from 2 of the top 4 instances in terms of number of users.
It’s definitely a temporary, broad axe to cutting an apple type solution to their troll problem
Two things:
It doesn't actually address their troll problem, since anyone can create a new instance and post to their communities.
It has the knock on affect of their users not being able to interact with a huge chunk of the wider fediverse
That second point is the main criticism I have for them. I don't think they fully understood the consequences of their actions. They're using an extreme admin-level action for community moderation. That's now how this was intended to be used.
Why would anyone stay on an instance that can't interact with a huge chunk of the fediverse? Only the most passionate beehaw-ers will stay there. Most will likely leave to more accessible pastures.
Just fyi, when posting links to communities, you should just use the "/c/" without the link to the instance. Like this: /c/mechanicalkeyboards@lemmy.ml
This is similar to how those links were done on reddit (/r/). The problem with your link is that it is instance specific, which is really helpful for anyone in your instance, but anyone in a different instance will be thrown out of their instance if they click it (they'll be unable to subscribe).
They’re trying to intentionally cultivate a culture over there rather than to moderate over an evolving one, and at the moment its too much work for them with the high volume of users.
Sure, but the way they went about doing it was the wrong way to do it.
They've effectively locked their users into ONLY accessing their walled garden.
I think what they wanted to do was block lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works users from posting in their communities, which would be possible with a pretty simple bot. Instead, they're largely preventing their own users from accessing other communities, which based on their post was not their intention. And because of those effects, it's likely going to result in their users leaving for instances with more access.
If that's the point, then there's nothing wrong with what they did.
But like someone else commented, why are they hosting a lemmy instance? What they want is a curated forum...
Try looking at this comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/205763
The examples make it much clearer I think.
Defederation is not a replacement for good moderation.
EXACTLY! That's why this action annoys me so much. It would be like an admin on reddit using an admin action to moderate a subreddit.
Just explaining how this affects the users here, that's it. I just said why I personally think this is a mistake.
Yep. It's almost like they didn't fully understand what they were doing...
There are other, less heavy handed ways of accomplishing the same thing
This action doesn't actually do what they want it to do, since anyone can create a new instance and post,
This action does more to make the experience of their users worse
So yes, admins choosing to defederate another instance despite not understanding what that actually does and what the consequences of that action are is, as I said, dumb.
If lemmy.world wants to be federated to beehaw they should respect the rules of the community they are visiting.
I think your understanding of federation is flawed. Like I wrote in my post, this action does more harm to beehaw than it does to lemmy.world. I don't care about beehaw. For that matter, I don't care about lemmy.world.
I wrote this post to help explain why people could still see posts/comments from beehaw users, in an attempt to explain what was going on. A lot of people were confused as to what defederation means. And given the resulting effects, I think the beehaw admins are similarly confused.
I do care about lemmy, and I don't like that large instance owners are using actions they don't understand. A division like this between 3 of the 4 largest instances can be damaging to the adoption of lemmy as a whole. It would be one thing if this was justified or even made sense, but it didn't.
They're throwing a tantrum because some instances have open registration and they don't like that. They're trying to govern how other instances are run. Like I said, they are using admin tools for moderation purposes, which is not how this is supposed to work. And doing so is could be damaging to lemmy as a whole. Luckily, the beehaw users that like their prison are sticking to it, those that don't are leaving, and the lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works users are just not interacting with the beehaw communities.
Lemmy is working as intended. Once again, I don't care what beehaw does. I personally think this is a bad move as it doesn't do what the admins over there want to do. But I'm not personally offended. This whole post was an explanation for the users here who were confused.
You obviously got called out for disregarding the rules of other instances
I obviously didn't. I like how you just assuming I'm some internet asshole. All I did was write out an explanation for the users of this instance because there was a lot of confusion about what defederation means. Maybe stop being a jerk and making assumptions?
I never said beehaw wasn't allowed to do what they're doing, of course they are. You're the one making that assumption. I said that this will result in more damage to beehaw than to lemmy.world, and it will do more damage still to lemmy as a whole.
If you look in your subscribed communities, any community that is followed by "@beehaw.org" is from beehaw. If it has no "@" sign it's here on lemmy.world. Otherwise, you can see exactly which instance hosts it.
walled garden
More like a prision
Yeah I did. That's why I think they don't fully understand what defederation entails. It doesn't accomplish the goals they set out in their decision post, and does have a whole bunch of knock on effects (for their own users) that they don't address at all.
They want their instance to be a tight-knit safespace, and it is pretty hard to accomplish when there are only several admins dealing with an insane wave of newcomers
They could do that by blocking all users from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works. What they've done is prevent their users from interacting with the broader fediverse, which is not at all what they intended to do based on their post.
That's not at all what's happening though.
Anyone can create an instance. So using your example, it's kind of like reddit banning anyone posting from 4chan, but literally anyone could create their own "chan" to post to reddit. If they only whitelisted instances then that would at least make some sense.
It shouldn’t be beehaw’s job to moderate another instance that just lets everyone in.
But that's exactly what they're trying to do.
I think the admins of Beehaw think they've effectively banned lemmy.world users from their instance, which is largely what they did. And if they chose to do that, then that's their decision. But they didn't choose to do that, they did something far more drastic.
Defederation prevents beehaw users from interacting with lemmy.world users ANYWHERE on lemmy. Effectively, beehaw admins are deciding what their users can see elsewhere on lemmy, which in my view is wrong. Effectively, in order to access most of lemmy, beehaw users will need a second account on another instance. And if you're going to have a second account, why have the first?
The problem is that defederation is not an act of moderators. This is an admin level action being used in service of a moderator level problem. This is not how defederation is meant to be used, and given how the admins of that instance describe their reasoning, I don't think they fully understand the implications of their decision.
Like I told the other dude, I don't care what beehaw does. I was just explaining the consequences of this action for the users on this instance. Why are you even here? You aren't in this instance.
I think this action is bad for the adoption of lemmy, that's why I don't like it. Beyond that, the beehaw admins can do what they like. If they want to nuke their walled garden/prison, that's their prerogative. I'm just saying what a bad idea I think it is.
Yes.
Luckily .world/.ml/.works alternatives are all starting to become available.
That's not how any of this works...
Communities (as you put, sublemmy) can't be individually federated, only instances can be. And needing another account is a sign that you are looking at a post on the wrong instance, not a sign that an instance is not federated. In fact, finding out an instance is not federated can be pretty difficult unless you check the list of instances that are defederated on another instance.
That's not a universal link, so you ended up on a different instance. A much simpler and easy explanation than what you came up with.
The beehaw communities won't be able to have posts from sh.itjust.works and from lemmy.world, those communities will suffer as a huge chunk of contributors were just blocked.
Why would lemmy.ml users want to stay in communities that were just shot in the foot by their admins?
Maybe read my post on lemmy.world (or another lemmy instance) that all of these are comments on before you make a bunch of assumptions.
sorry, I had to do a lot of editing in order to get it to post this morning.
Including instances that are also defederated.
Basically, beehaw has decided we can no longer access the "true" version of communities on beehaw. So the versions hosted here on lemmy.world are still visible to lemmy.world users, but that doesn't update the "true" version, and also doesn't update other versions hosted on other defederated instances.
It will be interesting to check beehaw communities hosted on defederated instances in a few days. Because the version on lemmy.world will be very different from the version on sh.itjust.works which will be different still from the "true" version.
surely I can do that without both of them needing to give me permission via federation?
So there are whitelist only instances (which honestly is what beehaw should be doing), so if you hosted your own instance, you would need to be whitelisted in order to interact with beehaw communities/users. Otherwise, federation is pretty much a default
Like if I want to set up my own instance and pull posts from lemmy.world and beehaw.org, surely I can do that without both of them needing to give me permission via federation?
Ok, so this requires some understanding of the ActivityPub protocol, and my understand of this edge case is admittedly a bit fuzzy. You can still access that information, you could do it right now just by going to https://beehaw.org, and if you have some mechanism to pull that data, you could still get that data if you wanted to. But critically, that wouldn't use ActivityPub.
With ActivityPub, your instance would send a request to the community on beehaw to follow the community. The beehaw instance would then send updates to your instance, where they would be stored as a copy. Beehaw keeps the "true" version, as the community is hosted on their instance, but you have your own copy. If beehaw defederates you (or is whitelist only and never federates you), then you can't send that request (rather, you can send the request, but beehaw won't listen). So beehaw will not send updates via ActivityPub.
This post initially had a series of examples to explain this. But I can't seem to add them. You can see them in the comment here: https://lemmy.world/comment/205763
I think that will help explain what is going on. Let me know if it helps!
I was a mod on an advice sub on reddit, this is a terrible idea.
It was enough work as a mod to sift through things that actually needed to be reported. For advice, downvotes are needed to express when something is genuinely bad advice. It can't be up to mods to sift through every single comment, that'd be impossible.
You're talking about the Netherlands? It's 5 days fully paid.
I can take several months if I want it, but I have to take a 30% pay cut, which we can't afford. Paternity leave in the Netherlands sucks.
but things should normalize after that.
There's a greater likelihood that the content creators are the ones moving. Most of the reddit power users likely used third party apps. Most of the reddit power users are also the ones who wrote most of the comments worth reading.
So if on june 1 most of the reddit power users flee, reddit's enshitification will have reached a terminal stage. Eventually, reddit will stop having things worth reading, and the lurkers will all move over.
I think we're in for a long decline of reddit a la facebook. However unlike facebook, there isn't a market of old people/foreign markets that can fill their user numbers.
Not me but my partner.
She was working as a research assistant in a lab for several years. She asked her boss if she could be promoted to a research associate, which was one level above her. She already been doing the job of a researcher (3 levels above her). Her boss said that they were in a hiring freeze and that it wouldn't be possible, but maybe in 2-3 YEARS she might be up for a promotion. Her boss wanted everyone to get the most they possibly could out of their current position before promotion. What my partner heard was that even if she eventually got the promotion to the next level, it might be 5-7 years after that promotion until the next promotion.
I've never seen her so angry when she came home. She immediately started applying to new jobs in a different field. She also stopped doing work above her pay grade, to which her boss actually tried to retaliate against her. Within 2 months, she moved onto a new job that is 75% WFM, pays more, has a better culture and is in a field where she can much more easily move upward.
Her former company has started layoffs.