Asklemmy

43952 readers

860 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

232

How would you feel if Beehaw left the Fediverse? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago by suspended@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

279 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am one of the admins of Beehaw and I'm trying to get some feedback on our potential move.

Let's start out with a little Beehaw history before judgements are passed, please.

A handful of us were beta testing Tildes when we decided to have discussions on a Discord server.

We decided that our 'Northern Star' or guiding principle would culminate as 'Be Nice' with purposefully vague/flexible interpretations. Our overall goal is to provide a safe space to disenfranchised persons.

We talked for a little over a year and some of our members became impatient. Then someone stepped in to suggest a couple of platforms that we could consider getting started with.

One of those platforms was Lemmy. None of us knew, at that time, anything about ActivityPub.

During the Reddit exodus (surrounding the API outcry and blackout), our instance exploded. We were, initially, crippled by the mass amounts of users seeking refuge.

Thankfully, someone stepped in and volunteered hundreds of hours of work to stabilize our instance and refine it further.

After many hours of talks, it became clear to us that our overall goal could be achieved outside of Lemmy/ActivityPub.

Right now, we feel that Lemmy and ActivityPub have downsides that are limiting us from achieving that goal.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] GrundlButter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 10 months ago

I would say it's probably the philosophy of the fediverse that limits them. There is a spectrum of opinions on every subject, including strong opinions and dangerous ones, sometimes both at the same time.

Having a safe space requires either control or exclusivity in my opinion. The fediverse affords you little control of instances outside your own besides outright defederation and banning of external users. Though arguably that lack of external control is one of the benefits of the fediverse as well. However, if their goal is a safe place for those they feel are disenfranchised and marginalized, they might be right that this isn't the tool for the job. Though, adopting a different platform or strategy might limit their reach. I think that is their dilemma.

Aside from beehaw... The lack of a central control structure within the fediverse is fascinating to me. It's reminiscent of the old internet, where everything was ran as its own little web island, and yet it has many of the benefits of the mainstream "mass market" internet of today. Over time, it will be an interesting experiment to study and be a part of.