There are a lot of tanky posts coming from lemmy.ml. Their whole purpose seems to be to troll and spread their bullshit far and wide. They are nearly as bad as the alt-right. They argue in bad faith and celebrate authoritarian oppression. The beehaw mods might want to consider defederating.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions. I’ll bring this up to the other Beehaw admins and share this thread with them.
I defederated months ago for exactly why you described. Night and day difference in how enjoyable Lemmy can be.
Like, yes, capitalism is failing us. But jumping into every comment thread and shutting down every conversation that’s not advocating for the complete and utter destruction of the current economic model is exhausting. And that’s the least toxic reason I chose to block that instance.
At first, I did miss some big FOSS communities that were there, but over time, similar communities elsewhere became more active. Good riddance.
Indeed. I enjoyed the asklemmy community over there, but lately there have been some “questions” posted that clearly have an agenda. Basically begging the question. I’m not saying I’m some free-market, anti-regulation libertarian. Far from it. But like you said, not every post has to be about that, and that we can discuss other things other than the downfall of capitalism. So I unsubscribed from that community, and even considered leaving Lemmy altogether since I feel like those types of posts/comments are so pervasive lately.
if you were not aware, you can block the instance without de-federation
Blocking the hexbear.net lemmy.ml & lemmygrad.ml will make Lemmy a much better day to day experience
Beehaw’s still on 0.18.4 and from a post I saw a while back, isn’t planning to go beyond that. So user-level instance blocking isn’t an option there, unfortunately.
Instance blocking also only blocks posts; you’ll still see the users from there in the comments. So it’s nice, but doesn’t go quite far enough; you still have to block obnoxious accounts manually/individually.
As someone who made an account there when first coming to the fediverse I can say man, what a bunch of assholes.
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I’m considering leaving the fediverse altogether
I’ve had moments where I considered it too, because of all the tankies and propaganda, but I’m still here because I really want to see it succeed.
Unfortunately, I won’t even admit to anyone that I use it, let alone recommend it. I think from a rational outside perspective, the unfiltered Fediverse is an extremist echochamber. Some of the things that get said and heavily upvoted are wild.
I’ve had death threats multiple times from Hexbear users, and I’ve abandoned an account because Lemmy.ml users followed me around and downvoted everything I posted (which was mostly memes at the time).
We can’t expect people to deal with all of that when there’s already a relatively steep learning curve when joining. There’s no corporation running the show to fight propaganda, we have to deal with it, or the Fediverse is at risk of going the way of Voat.
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It’s not the promoting of communism that makes them suck; it’s the promotion of authoritarian ideals disguised as communism.
Might as well take this opportunity to point out that beehaw is still defederated from sh.itjust.works. I thought it was a bizarre decision at the time and the fact that it hasn’t been reassessed after all this time is even more baffling. Beehaw and SJW are two of the best moderated instances on Lemmy, and yet we aren’t federated with each other.
You can view the original announcement from beehaw here and the reaction from SJW here.
You’ll also note that beehaw has since refederated with lemmy.world.I have been informed that beehaw is still defederated from lemmy.world, my mistake.
Nearly a year later, it’s obvious that the decisions of beehaw admins during that critical period of time when redditors were first trying Lemmy were highly disruptive towards the development of the platform as a whole. The first level of disruption came from the direct fragmentation of communities caused by that defederation decision.
The second and more devastating impact was the impact on the perceptions of new users, who were given a manifestation of their worst fears about Lemmy and it’s federated structure. Many potential users were turned off Lemmy because they didn’t like the fact that they could suddenly be blocked off from major communities on other servers due to arbitrary admin decisions, and beehaw essentially provided the perfect example of that at a critical growth phase.
At the time that they defederated SJW, Beehaw was more that 3 times larger, at about 12k total/3k monthly users. Now, SJW is more than 5 times larger than Beehaw, which has dwindled to just 450 monthly users.
With regard to lemmy.ml, I think the main issue is that beehaw has disabled downvotes. The tankies are significantly outnumbered on Lemmy as a whole and a combination of downvoting and active moderation from other admins effectively minimizes the problem for most other major servers. But because beehaw doesn’t allow downvotes, has dwindled to a small userbase, and has isolated itself from other non-extremist servers (SJW), you have been left much more exposed to the tankie propaganda, with your only recourse being the nuclear option of defederation.
Obviously, my point is that beehaw admins should accept that they made a mistake and refederate with sh.itjust.works. I would also recommend upgrading to the latest version of Lemmy, because it at least gives users the option of instance blocking. I understand that you intend to move to Sublinks or another platform in the future, but in the meantime you are neglecting your users by allowing the current implementation on Lemmy to languish.
I don’t mean this to be an attack on the beehaw admins, because I think they have done a number of great things for Lemmy and the fediverse and I believe that our objectives are generally aligned. But I feel that I must express these frustrations, because as I have just explained, the actions of the beehaw admins also have direct consequences on fediverse users from other servers.
I think that beehaw admins, not dissimilarly to hexbear admins, tend to disregard how their actions impact the fediverse as a whole and focus solely on the proximate impact on their own userbase. This is a faulty mindset, because the fediverse is the ecosystem which we all share, and that ecosystem needs to be protected and maintained in order for all of the different organisms (instances) residing therein to thrive. Without our connection to the fediverse, all of our instances would simply wither away.
Obviously, my point is that beehaw admins should accept that they made a mistake and refederate with sh.itjust.works. I would also recommend upgrading to the latest version of Lemmy, because it at least gives users the option of instance blocking. I understand that you intend to move to Sublinks or another platform in the future, but in the meantime you are neglecting your users by allowing the current implementation on Lemmy to languish.
unless we’re compelled to, it is exceedingly unlikely we will upgrade. we are fully committed to moving off the platform so it just makes no sense to prioritize Lemmy updates.
with respect to refederation: we already polled that with both SJW and LW months ago and were given a very definitive no, do not refederate from our userbase. only 11% and 17% of our users were in favor of refederation respectively, and majorities were fine with continued defederation from both. our defederation policy was also strongly supported. (i believe this is the first time these numbers have been posted because they were so definitively in favor of the status quo.)
At the time that they defederated SJW, Beehaw was more that 3 times larger, at about 12k total/3k monthly users. Now, SJW is more than 5 times larger than Beehaw, which has dwindled to just 450 monthly users.
we’re not and have never been in this for numbers so this is immaterial to us–we’ve been quite public that we’d be fine having a community of a few dozen people, because that’s what we were before the Reddit fiasco. in any case: please understand that we are not responsible for the health of the Lemmy ecosystem. and even if we were (which we reject categorically) we have definitively been told to leave the platform because of our disagreements with the Lemmy developers. bettering this platform is no longer a priority for us in any way–and it is the general opinion of the team that we wasted a lot of time prioritizing that given the developer antipathy toward us. you can read more on that here if you’d like.
My understanding is that a lot of the reasons for defederation stemmed from a fundamental lack of sufficient moderator tools. Tools that have not appeared and the lack of which has prompted Beehaw to consider moving to a different ActivityPub supporting platform in the fediverse.
Here is my view/reaction as a Beehaw user. I am not an admin or mod, just a regular user. I don’t want this to seem like an attack, but know ahead of time that I disagree with a lot of what you said.
Nearly a year later, it’s obvious that the decisions of beehaw admins during that critical period of time when redditors were first trying Lemmy were highly disruptive towards the development of the platform as a whole.
How so? It is not obvious to me, and some examples would be great.
The first level of disruption came from the direct fragmentation of communities caused by that defederation decision.
As a personal opinion, the communities Beehaw defederated from are communities I don’t want to interact with. This is not a net negative for me.
The second and more devastating impact was the impact on the perceptions of new users, who were given a manifestation of their worst fears about Lemmy and it’s federated structure. Many potential users were turned off Lemmy because they didn’t like the fact that they could suddenly be blocked off from major communities on other servers due to arbitrary admin decisions, and beehaw essentially provided the perfect example of that at a critical growth phase.
Do you have evidence of this? It is a pretty bold claim and if it is so impactful, there should be evidence. As side note, Beehaw’s goals (from a user perspective mind you, I am not speaking for the admins or mods) are not exponential user growth, but quality community. If users are turned off by the fact Beehaw is pro defederation with communities that are a large source of trolls or hate (not saying SJW is one of those), then Beehaw isn’t the right community anyhow.
With regard to lemmy.ml, I think the main issue is that beehaw has disabled downvotes. The tankies are significantly outnumbered on Lemmy as a whole and a combination of downvoting and active moderation from other admins effectively minimizes the problem for most other major servers.
I like the removal of the downvote. It makes for a more positive community, and because Beehaw has an active mod/admin team we don’t tend to have issues that are not taken care of fairly quickly.
The tankies are significantly outnumbered on Lemmy as a whole and a combination of downvoting and active moderation from other admins effectively minimizes the problem for most other major servers.
To me, the issue is that this relies on a lot of other large communities to moderate users, and more often than not that is more difficult than it sounds for the good ones, or non-existent in the crappy ones. Especially with the Lemmy devs resistant to adding good moderation tools.
But because beehaw doesn’t allow downvotes, has dwindled to a small userbase, and has isolated itself from other non-extremist servers (SJW),
Again, Beehaw’s focus is quality over quantity. Honestly this felt like it was meant to be an insult, but in the grand scheme of things doesn’t have much relevance to me
you have been left much more exposed to the tankie propaganda, with your only recourse being the nuclear option of defederation.
Defederation is the most extreme, but if so much bad stuff is coming from a single source that is not properly moderated, it seems like the most logical to me. I think this goes back to a lack of moderation tools and poor moderation in other instances, not to Beehaw’s relatively smaller user base or defederation from other instances.
Obviously, my point is that beehaw admins should accept that they made a mistake and refederate with sh.itjust.works.
Does sh.itjust.works still have open sign ups? Then I don’t think a mistake was made nor should the admins refederate.
I would also recommend upgrading to the latest version of Lemmy, because it at least gives users the option of instance blocking. I understand that you intend to move to Sublinks or another platform in the future, but in the meantime you are neglecting your users by allowing the current implementation on Lemmy to languish.
I am not privy to the inner workings of Beehaw, but I know they are focusing on moving to a new platform, so this seems like it would be a lot of wasted effort for the small team that is Beehaw.
I think that beehaw admins, not dissimilarly to hexbear admins, tend to disregard how their actions impact the fediverse as a whole and focus solely on the proximate impact on their own userbase.
This is a difference of philosophy (at least for Beehaw, hexbear is a different story/issue). Beehaw’s focus on it’s userbase is why I am here in the first place. The greater fediverse isn’t my concern, and it is not the admins responsibility.
This is a faulty mindset, because the fediverse is the ecosystem which we all share, and that ecosystem needs to be protected and maintained in order for all of the different organisms (instances) residing therein to thrive. Without our connection to the fediverse, all of our instances would simply wither away.
I think when Beehaw moves platforms, things may change. Better tools might allow for a more open relationship. That being said, Lemmy has been hostile to Beehaw (when they tried to reach out the Lemmy devs to petition for better mod tools, they were told in no uncertain terms they were welcome to GTFO). I know Lemmy isn’t the whole fediverse, but putting in a bunch of effort on a platform Beehaw is leaving seems silly.
Again, these are just my thoughts as a Beehaw user, but to me the issues you bring up are not issues for me at all, and in a lot of cases are actual boons.
