DarbyDear

Thank you for reaching out and being open to collaboration! I'm not an admin or mod, just a member of Beehaw, but I wish you continued success and luck with your endeavors running lemmy.world!

I agree. Beehaw has a different goal (which is thoroughly explained in the stickied FAQ post), and it is not to be a Reddit replacement. I'm actually a fan of the environment and goal here - I've actually found myself responding to posts from a week or two ago because I actually wanted to contribute, whereas I wouldn't bother on a Reddit post more than a couple of hours old because it would just get drowned out by a flood of low-effort content.

There's also the criticism that I've seen multiple times about "having to write an essay to be allowed in" when 1) I wrote maybe 3 sentences total for all of the questions, 2) it's kind of a bare minimum vibe check to make sure you aren't going to raise hell, and 3) even setting all that aside, anyone from an instance that is federated with Beehaw can interact with us so it's not like they're missing out on anything. It's literally people being upset at nothing if they really are interested in participating in the community in any way. They just resent the smallest of obstacles (which aren't even obstacles since, again, you can still interact as a member of another instance). It just reeks of bad faith arguments that can be discarded out of hand.

Thank you for the transparency! I definitely understand the original decision to defederate (especially looking at the troll's post, which was linked to in The Dude's side of things), but I also look forward to better, more granular moderation and administration controls to come out so that refederation can happen.

I would also like to give kudos to the admin team and users over at sh.itjust.works - there's some good discussion going on over there in the thread linked here. I love that, despite the fundamental difference in views on how an instance should be run, it seems to be respectful on the whole. Even the people that firmly disagree with Beehaw's vision essentially leave it at "I think it can be done better, and want to demonstrate how." I think that's perfect, and encapsulates the benefit that Lemmy has over centralized platforms. There is also no support for the troll that triggered this situation to begin with.

This is my thought as well. I signed up for Beehaw specifically because I loved the idea of a chill place where I don't have to worry about the typical Internet joys of bots and trolls, and where people can have actual discussions. If I want to see other Reddit-like content like low-effort memes, that's where federation comes in, because I can go elsewhere to see it. Meanwhile, others are free to hang out in my home instance if they like the vibes (also due to federation) as long as they don't try making a mess of the place. If they do... Well, they get kicked out the only way available for now.

What's really funny about this image is that the implication is that Beehaw mods are trying to keep us from seeing content from other instances, when they've said in multiple ways that 1) if you don't agree with the decision, you can go elsewhere, and 2) it's about keeping trolls from spamming up Beehaw, not preventing Beehaw members from venturing outside of the instance. I don't even know why people think Beehaw's admin/mod team cares at all about where it's users go beyond making sure they're not trolls trying to infiltrate. They're providing a free service where they're trying to build a community, not create an Orwellian dystopia where all thought is policed. If anything, mods here have been way more tolerant of dissenting voices than I've seen elsewhere as long as those voices are civil and not actively promoting bigotry/harm.

I hadn't even considered the quantity of ads on those sites... Any time I accidentally find one, it's a long column of text that starts off with a bunch of filler roughly related to whatever I was searching for, maybe a couple of lines with an answer (right or wrong is a different matter), then breaks down into a bunch of self-contradicting nonsense. I just don't see the ads because of uBlock Origin, so I never see how bad they are. AI generated sites are completely aggravating.

I wonder if his angle is to be taken in by North Korea in the hopes of being used as a poster child for North Korean propaganda. Considering he was on his way to getting flown back to the states for further disciplinary action after getting out of a Korean prison, he might assume that's his best bet for a decent life since he might be assuming North Korea will pamper him so that they can use him to talk about how terrible the U.S. And South Korea are.

Back when I was in Korea, people that wound up in a Korean jail usually didn't get shipped back to the states; it was more likely they'd be stripped of rank, locked down to the military base, and put on permanent detail for the rest of their time there (think "spending any free time scrubbing toilets and picking up trash around the base).

Things like serious assaults on local nationals could land someone a flight back though, so it's very possible that whatever he did was bad enough that he thinks his life would be over if he went back to the states, so I guess that might be his play. How it's going to pan out for him is another matter though - he may be treated well by the North Korean government (from what I've heard they tend to pamper their foreign mouthpieces to keep them placated and compliant), or he may wind up a bargaining chip for foreign aid from the U.S. depending on how low their resources are.

Mind you, I'm hardly an expert on the relations and current situation in North Korea, just a guy that was stationed over in South Korea for a few years in a non-intelligence capacity, so take all of this as idle speculation.

I don't know why people can't be bothered to click the "register" button to see for themselves. I've spent more time writing each individual post I've made on Beehaw than I did the questions for registration. Granted, I also read all of the literature discussing the philosophy and goals of Beehaw beforehand and had the answers in my mind by the time I saw the questions, but it was really just a line or two per prompt. Basically the bare minimum of user vetting. Imagine my surprise when I see people talk about it like we were asked for an in-depth literary analysis of the themes behind "Great Expectations" and how they can be translated to the modern world.

Completely agree! Beehaw fills the time left open by my dropping Reddit, but it isn't a replacement for Reddit in my mind. Instead, I see it as it's own thing, primarily centered around socializing, and that's reflected in the fact that I've already posted here in a couple of weeks than I did in my decade or so of using Reddit. It's a lot more interaction and active use instead of passive consumption and lurking, and I really like that. Seeing all the people trying to file bug reports for Lemmy/Jerboa and making demands in Beehaw Support bugs me since (as far as I'm concerned) the admins have already gone above and beyond what I think they're responsible for, and I appreciate every bit of it.

My week is going well, all things considered. I'm in the New England area and all the surrounding areas are suffering from flooding, but my town is unscathed at the moment. The ducks are pretty happy with all of the rain, the chickens not so much, and I'm annoyed that the shipping container our friends gave us for a duck coop can't be painted to protect it from the moisture, but I'm overall thankful that the government response has been pretty quick and everyone we know is safe and sound so far.

Congrats on the internet upgrade! I live in a rural area as well, but I (unfortunately) had to cave and get Starlink since the only other option is blazing-fast 5Mbps DSL, which unfortunately won't cut it for my remote work. There's a multiple-municipality fiber co-op getting established at the moment though, and I'm hoping that we'll be connected with them by the end of the year. About the same price, but way faster speeds and way lower latency (and no reliance on Musk), so I'll be switching as soon as I find out it's an option!

Exactly - the best way I can think to describe it is that I no longer feel like I'm going to be locked out of discussion because I took too long to actually read what the conversation was about. For me personally, that turned into me becoming a terminal lurker, but others wind up skimming headlines or pieces of longer comments and trying to rush to respond. In the latter case, that wound up translating into shallower, briefer discussion points in an effort to keep up and try to be seen. Overall, it seems like Beehaw is steering more towards longer-form, slower discussions (as demonstrated by the long posts written by the various admins and mods). I won't say this is an objectively good or bad thing, it's a matter of personal preference, but it's definitely more my speed since I try to be deliberate with what I post and tend to take a while to digest what I'm reading and try to form a more substantial response. I do definitely see why that wouldn't be what people might be looking for though - it's kind of the difference between quick-witted banter or more meandering navel-gazing (for lack of better descriptions).

My understanding is that this is the plan - the only reason for defederation is because that is the only tool available at this time, and the admins for Beehaw find it most important to continue pursuing their goal to form a community rather than replacing Reddit or growing for the sake of growth.

My understanding is that there's a single setting for "allow downvotes" and, if that's set to false, it disallows down voting everywhere for users that are a part of that instance. Incidentally, that also means that users from other instances can down vote stuff on Beehaw, but it has no visible effect for Beehaw members (mentioning this because it was a source of confusion in a separate post where down votes were discussed).

I can't speak for the admins about if this will change if the option becomes available, but at least for now, there are a lot of things where there just isn't a way to fine-tune settings at the moment in Lemmy and this is one of them unfortunately.

Just letting you know that, even if you weren't looking for it, you're seen and felt. Some of the things you talk about really hit close to home for me - I'm stuck working to support the life I actually want. I bought a house not long ago in the middle of the country, which is exactly what I want now even though I wanted a swanky place in the city when I was younger. No time or energy for the things I love, and not enough money to drop out of my job and just enjoy life with my family and animals. I wish I had a secret to tell, but if I ever figure it out I'll try to remember to pass it on to you. For now, I'm going to keep grinding.

On a tangentially-related note, do you have any of your music available online that you can link to? I love music, just never kept up with learning to play and create it, so I just try to appreciate it wherever I can find it until things change enough that I can settle a bit and pick up making it.

Count me in the "support" column. Beehaw has always been very open about what it is and isn't, and all of the people who are bringing up how freedom of speech is more important than anything can find some level of explanation in Gaywallet's post/essay "Beehaw is a community". Beehaw admins/mods don't have the tools to moderate more even-handedly, so the decision to defederate for now and re-assess when more resources are available makes perfect sense to me. I'm also in the camp of "smaller and higher quality is more important than growth at any cost." This is how you can have a community where dissenting voices are allowed, such as how I've seen opinions I personally disagree with allowed to be discussed in more detail than they probably would be elsewhere. I also saw a post by someone that I believe was from one of these instances (it was either deleted or isn't viewable due to the defederation), and it was pretty clear that they were purely operating in bad faith - essentially saying that the users here are silenced and oppressed by heavy-handed moderation. For context, they also made a post elsewhere that shared information that essentially boiled down to "North Korea actually isn't bad, it's all imperialist propaganda!"

In the end, the federated nature of Lemmy means I can just create another account elsewhere if I feel the need to interact with the defederated instances. Jerboa (my main way of using Lemmy) makes it pretty quick and easy to add multiple accounts, so it really wouldn't be much of a hassle.

Good luck getting the coop finished! I still need to finish the coops and run for our chickens and ducks - they're currently living in our woodshed at night and free-ranging during the day until those are done. Just a heads up in case you aren't aware already - if your guinea(s) is/are male, it might start getting aggressive when it hits around a year old, so try to prepare accordingly. Ours got very mean towards any chickens other than the two Brahmas it had bonded with and was actually harming the others. Not a guarantee that it will happen, but it might be good to have a separate space for the sake of your flock if it does. For now though, enjoy the babies; it never gets old having little peepers scrambling around and being chaos!

Yeah, I respect yours as well - I think this is just a difference in opinion about what the core focus of the fediverse should be. For me, it's that there are more granular instances that aren't beholden to others and can determine for themselves what they want their corner of the system to be while still having a connection to others.

If I understand you properly, you seem to be more of the mind that the fediverse is meant to be focused more on robustness and taking control out of one central authority, and the welfare of the system as a whole is tied to the aggregate strength of its instances.

Please correct me if I'm wrong and you would like to though, and thank you for the discussion either way! I mostly wanted to be an example of someone that doesn't think that's what the purpose is since you had mentioned there will be folks that disagree. In the end there is no right or wrong stance, just opinions on what's more important.

For the record, that XKCD is exactly what I was thinking about when I mentioned the community collision issue!

I think you've hit on a good point - you want enough users for there to be engagement, but you also don't want so many users that people feel like they're a face in a sea of people that gets crowded out. What the appropriate number of people is depends on the culture and aim of the site more than being a static number to reach. Beehaw, for example, is trying to focus on creating a sense of community and connection rather than growth at all costs. That means Beehaw's "critical mass" is going to be lower than something like Reddit, where it's more of a free-for-all that seems to be trying to appeal by being a "loud" public square type space. Meanwhile, the tiny forum in the corner of the internet about a niche subject is going to have an even smaller goal because it's safe for users to assume that there won't be as many people and, if they're seeking out a forum for a niche subject, it's also safe to assume there won't be as many lurkers.

From an admitted non-expert, the way I understand it is this: A roguelike is turn based, procedurally generated to some extent, has some form of time/turn crunch tied to a carried resource (food/hunger is pretty common), and has leveling involved as part of the core gameplay loop. The idea being that you try to balance out luck (with the items/equipment you find, enemies that spawn, how well you're doing in a particular combat, etc) with skill (knowledge of the game systems, knowing how to build, knowing when to cut your losses and run, when you have enough resources to gain some levels, etc.). There is also perma-death: Once you die, your run is over and you have to start fresh.

A roguelite involves some of these aspects, but plays things much looser. Typically there's some level of perma-death in that a run is over when you die, but there's also a meta-currency to allow for progress/power upgrades between runs (like increasing starting health per run by using items that have a chance to drop during a run). They are often not turn-based, and don't necessarily have the same time crunch. The similarities lie in the fundamental idea: balance luck introduced by randomization/procedural generation and skill from game mastery, and if you fail then you have to start a new run. Different folks will have different criteria for the two terms (I saw a purist say that it's not a real roguelike if it has anything other than ASCII graphics), but that's how I summarize them.

I've mentioned my thoughts on this a few times now, but you've summed my opinions up nicely! I tend toward longer, overly-drawn-out comments and replies, so it was kind of pointless for me to comment on stuff on Reddit. It went entirely against what was promoted by the culture on Reddit, which developed as a result of turning comments into a popularity contest. If you didn't have a gimmick (ShittyMorph, poem_for_your_sprog, shittywatercolor, etc.) then you were basically stuck using jokes, references, and acerbic jabs to try to get attention (as evidenced by karma). Even downvote farmers fell into this pattern, they just did the opposite of what the typical person would do, which resulted in even more toxicity.

Yeah, I've been there. It's just so aggravating, but I try to find comfort in knowing that at least I wasted a small bit of their precious bandwidth!

This picture illustrates the difference between the different dragon and dragon-adjacent creatures! My partner is also pretty adamant about this subject, so I've wound up developing the same pedantry.

Not trying to be a jerk or anything, but it's generally not a great idea to give advice on someone's situation when you haven't gotten a full grasp on the background and relevant information, especially when it comes to mental/emotional stuff. For example, you're correct that the general politics in the U.K. is more left-leaning than the U.S. but that's not necessarily the case for trans rights - it's picked up the moniker "TERF island" in some places. Elsewhere in this post, OP mentioned that their partner has been assaulted for wearing nail polish. Where they live could very well be the equivalent of the deeply-conservative part of Florida when it comes to feelings towards the trans community specifically.

I definitely see your point, but I'm going to speak as one of the ones that would argue that it goes against the concept of decentralized communication 😉

I can appreciate that you think that there is a responsibility to the fediverse as a whole, but I feel like that responsibility comes second to the goals and intentions of the instance in question. As you suggested, Beehaw didn't request to become the go-to instance for gaming/tech/news. My idea of the fediverse response would be that, since Beehaw's technology community is defederated, then those instances should either spin up their own or go to another instance's. That may turn into a different instance's technology community becoming the de facto one, but that's a consequence that Beehaw has to accept with the decision to defederate.

I will say that this bumps into the issue of community collision - that is, communities with the same name and/or subject across multiple instances, and I admittedly don't have a good solution in mind for that right now. As it stands, I'm actually interested to see how all of this pans out - this is the sort of issue that only comes to light when a specific set of circumstances is met, and I think some precedents are going to be set throughout this process. It is also likely going to be a significant push for the improvement of moderation and administrative tools since that's the major limiting factor here, so I think this whole situation is an overall positive for the development of the fediverse as a whole.

Massively impressive and talented cover! I'm personally not a fan of the way the bends "bounce" (I don't know the right term - the way the bends repeatedly go up and down in pitch), but that's entirely a matter of personal preference since it's a fundamental technique when playing this instrument. I do think it's really neat how the bends were kind of used to replace the shredding from the original song though; super creative and not something I would have ever thought of. I may not put this in my personal playlist, but I loved seeing it and respect the concept and execution. Thanks for sharing!

A beeing

It only winds up being suicide by border guard if someone is trying to escape, not so much so if someone is trying to get in. Not too many people want to go to North Korea if they can help it.

Although titles and classifications can feel restricting and gatekeep-y, I think it's also important to acknowledge their value when it comes to relating and communicating with other people that might be in the same situation. Even in this post, there are people who have mentioned going through the bi-cycle. It can be a lot less scary and confusing for someone dealing with it if they go online, say "is it normal to flip between what genders you're attracted to?" and then getting a veritable chorus of people saying that it's not only normal, but also has a name.

Of course, then you might also wind up stuck wondering if you really are bisexual because you've never had that experience (which I've also seen and tried to help someone through), so it's definitely a double-edged sword... In the end, gender and sexuality are messy and hardly ever as easy as some crowds want to claim, but that's a realization that I think each individual needs to get to themselves. Trying to force it on others just threatens defensiveness and shutting down communication.

I like this one quite a lot more, thank you for sharing it! I think it also helped me realize what it was about version 1 that put me off: It wasn't what I'm going to call the "ping pong note bending," because that was still pretty clearly present here, it was the way it was used for what felt like every sustained note instead of as an accent like it is in version 2. Rather than being the majority of the notes, those bends feel more like they're being used to wrap up musical phrases in version 2, so it flows together more cleanly to my ear.

I did a small write-up off my understanding here, but that's coming from someone that's only dabbled in both and I may have missed some stuff.

Yeah, I don't know if it's how I would approach the situation if I had more dev resources, but as a (primarily) 2-person outfit, I can see why they took that route. It's really easy to fall into the trap of "mark it as obsolete and create a tech debt item to remove it completely," then never have time to go back for it. Next thing you know, you finally address it a year or two later and find out that you broke someone's workflow

If you and your partner enjoy RPG's, I highly recommend Divinity: Original Sin (and Divinity: Original Sin 2, though we haven't finished that one yet). Very story-driven, the tactical combat is a blast when you get into strategizing and collaborating, and there are all sorts of non-combat shenanigans you can get up to as well (the second even more so than the first).

This was the moment that cemented my choice to move away from Reddit. My plan initially was to see how the blackouts would play out, but this showed even more clearly than the initial thread about Apollo's woes with Reddit just how garbage the decision-making at Reddit is.

To answer your question about if they removed websocket support (a couple of days late, so you might already have the answer), it looks like that's exactly what happened.