this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.


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There is a lot of discussion happening in the background of our project here. We could not anticipate all of the challenges that we were going to face a few years ago. One of the reasons for this was because we had no idea what our choice of a platform would bring.

Specifically, we chose Lemmy as the software that we would use to launch our endeavor to attempt a safe space for marginalized persons online.

In the first year or so, this choice was completely successful for a very small number of users. And then we all experienced an enormous influx of users when Reddit announced/implemented their shutting down of third party apps.

Since then there has been a huge number of people that have joined the Beehaw project. This tsunami of users initiated technical problems, and otherwise, that we could not foresee.

Thankfully and fortunately, we have had a couple of incredibly knowledgeable persons that have swooped in to ’save the day’ and keep this site running.

Unfortunately, these persons will NOT be able to continue to support the Beehaw project much further. They have life commitments and other factors, including careers and family life, that will prevent them from contributing to our project in an ongoing fashion.

All that being said, Lemmy (the software that Beehaw runs on) development is incredibly slow and is riddled with problems that makes administration/moderation very painful.

Therefore, we are left with some options that may feel uncomfortable to us. For example, we may want to consider leaving the Fediverse for another software platform that does NOT include ActivityPub. To explain, Fediverse/ActivityPub are very positive concepts on the foundational level. However, the Beehaw project is struggling to include this because most of our moderation/content/ethos is being jeopardized from OTHER federated instances (i.e. it, mostly, is NOT coming from within our own Beehaw registered user base).

The aforementioned persons, that have ’swooped in to save the day’, have been discussing/working with us to come up with the best solutions that would enable the Beehaw project to continue while NOT needing incredibly experienced/technically adept persons around.

Right now, we are testing alternative software platforms and evaluating them based on everything that we want Beehaw to become in the future.

Thank you all for your continued support of the Beehaw project and entrusting us to make this happen.

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[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 13 points 1 year ago

I'll follow if it's time to go. I understand. Thank you.

[–] GunnarRunnar@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

Honestly, I wholeheartedly support this move. For a couple of (obviously subjective) reasons:

  • Lemmy/kbin isn't ready. If Beehaw staff were able to fork their own version of the base code with their moderation etc. design preferences in mind, this would be another thing -- though even then it might not be enough to be worth it with the headache of fediverse moderation.

  • Closed system/community is more personal, hence more productive and less noisy. At least before it outgrows itself.

What I'd hope but is also more work and potentially creates conflicts, is that the new platform provides good moderation logging etc. Which I think is key feature to ensure trust and self policing.

[–] negativenull@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think moderation grows exponentially with numbers of instances. A single comment may need moderation on each distinct instance. The more instances, the more moderation needs for that comment.

That seems unsustainable. I understand the conundrum.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Comments/posts get moderated at the community level, any instance subscribing to it, will also receive the moderation notification to update its cache, so it doesn't need to be moderated again. In theory, an instance "could" ignore moderation actions for a community it's subscribed to, but that makes little sense.

A problem comes when a community decides not to remove a comment/post, then it gets spread to all instances that subscribe to that community. Only in that case federated instances need to apply additional moderation.

Federated instances subscribed to a community would have the option to either block the user, the comment, the post, the community, or the whole instance (defederate). Fine grained options like blocking a single user's every comment on a post, or on a community, or on an instance... or blocking every post by any user from an instance that they send to a community, or... etc. would be additional options... but Lemmy is lacking most of them.

So moderation isn't inhrently an exponential problem, but right now is limited to a blunt tool that mostly relies on the good faith of everyone for things to work... and it's been shown over and over that there are people acting in bad faith.

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[–] Irv@midwest.social 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

Is a forum site a possibility? I honestly miss internet forums. It does kind of sound like what you're looking for beehaw to be.

[–] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Beehaw without federating would be essentially that, of course other software options are available.

[–] MJBrune@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

The Reddit style ranking system is a bit silly for a forum with lower activity. In fact it could make marginalized peoples feel more marginalized if their past simply gets buried.

[–] Pseu@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

And Beehaw doesn't have a huge amount of activity, so the prioritization provided by a Reddit-style ranking system is less useful. I think going to a typical forum/messageboard system just makes sense.

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[–] loops@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure what it is really, but postmill exists. Another of my favourite post-reddit sites uses it; raddle.me.

[–] spaduf@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

It's a shame how much of Lemmy's recent downturn appears to stem from slow and misprioritized development. At this point significant instances are dropping like flies and users are leaving in droves. I do not have high hopes for the future of this platform.

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[–] mattomattic@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Possibly something like LemmyBB could be an answer. Stay on Fediverse and get to isolate ( I think).

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[–] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Makes sense. Beehaw was always its own community first, federation seemed to be some extra stuff on top of that. Staying on lemmy with less federation or even a few forum software makes sense for the goals of the project.

You’d lose the people who wanted different, but I don’t think being a major social hub for everybody was ever the intent.

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Every single part of Beehaw seems ill-suited to the fediverse. I joined (like many) after Reddit shit the bed by banning 3rd-party apps. I wrote a thoughtful (mandatory) application essay and... silence. Never heard back. Later, I reacted to a particularly bad take in a Beehaw thread and was told that I wasn't "being nice" like the rules required... Bitch, I'm not even a part of the your "community"! You chose to federate with the rest of us! I guess what I'm trying to say is byeeeeeeeee! Go start your own little puritan community somewhere I don't have to encounter it...

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[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 10 points 1 year ago

I can understand, but this would not be fun at first. I subscribe to a number of beehaw communities because they are the the biggest in their niche like technology. The beehaw communities are often even bigger than the same communities on instances like lemmy.ml.

[–] gaytswiftfan@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

Wherever it leads I'll follow !

[–] sparklepower@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

I appreciate the transparency and willingness to discuss with the community.

I was a rexxitor in July, trying out different online communities after deleting my account there. I was very affected by the lack of moderation on Reddit, and subsequently every other platform that I've tried since then.

It's pretty clear to me that safety is an issue that affects all humans who use the internet. A sense of safety and security allows our minds the freedom to create. If Beehaw can find a sustainable way to keep us feeling safe to express ourselves, the people will come. The content will come, I can guarantee it.

Ultimately, the decision is up to the leadership here and I trust and respect that. I have no clue about any of this stuff. I just want to find a place where I can post my art and hopefully? maybe? not have to endure hate.

[–] Rentlar@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

I'm a big proponent of federation and the Lemmyverse. While it would be sad for me to see Beehaw leave ActivityPub, I've always said that the admin team should do what they think is best for themselves and Beehaw and I will respect such decisions.

I probably wouldn't make a new account on another service because that would require a new app on my phone, but I'm OK with that if the idea of Beehaw prospers in another space.

@PenguinCoder @admin If I may suggest something on Lemmy as a stopgap measure, Beehaw can enlist the help of one of the AutoMod programs of Lemmy, so that any comment not on an approved user or instance list are removed on the specific "safe-space" communities. It might take some testing/tinkering but this may give you some of the granularity in moderation that has been requested.

[–] trailing9@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Which features would you need to continue staying federated, possibly limited to white-listed instances?

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just a few thoughts.

  • Is there a way to configure lemmy to have some private Beehaw only communities and some public ones too. Maybe this is some code changes, but one would not think that this would be crazy hard. Might need to have some user preference settings too about restricting what us in the site feed too.

  • Would there be a way of running two instances. One federated and one not or the one not only federated with beehaw.

  • How serious is the adim time issue and the skills gap issue. Maybe worth thinking about what your issues are and what would need to happen to fill them. More people, hiring things out, etc.

  • I agree too, you guys have to decide personnally your priorities. Not having clear personal limits can eat you up. So do that as well.

[–] comicallycluttered@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I understand some of the negative reception to this, especially from users of other instances, but I also understand the reasoning here.

Don't know if ditching ActivityPub entirely is a great idea, but I do get why. Perhaps a whitelist on another ActivityPub service would be a better option, although I'm struggling to think of any (other than kbin) which exist in this kind of form.

So, my only curiosity is which alternative platforms?

There aren't many in this particular form (social news/link aggregation), as far as I'm aware. Most others are traditional forums, microblogging, and general social networks.

And moving to something new, potentially in alpha/beta, with an equally or just as small dev team may end up just being a horizontal jump out of the frying pan and into the fire, with eventually similar issues when it comes to tools and capabilities of the platform.

Basically, are we looking at something new entirely in terms of UX or something familiar? And are we looking at something centralized or using some other federated service?

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