The issue is that I'm questioning if it even makes sense to try to keep this community active or if I should just redirect everyone to !chat@beehaw.org and call it a day.
I wanted to have a casual conversation community accessible to instances defederated by beehaw, but it still feels like mostly like shouting into the abyss. Also I'm the single mod here, sometimes it feels like working alone, then you start questioning why you even put much effort in the first place.
Keep in mind Beehaw is defederated from many major nodes in the fediverse. I don't see any harm in continuing to post wherever you want. If it feels like "work" just don't post. It's not your job to post on a forum.
I often enjoy reading through the threads here, even if I don't comment much. I also can't see beehaw communities because they defederated us. I would really appreciate if you keep this place going for a while longer and see how it develops. I can help with moderating if it's getting to be a lot.
I was indeed thinking about finding another place where everyone could meet (such as lemm.ee, which is still federated with most of the people, or reddthat.com), but we can probably still wait a few this before moving
I saw you were looking at discuss.online as well, which also makes sense to me.
Just be aware that you will lose a chunk of subscribers by moving to another server, no matter how many announcements you make. That being said, better to make the move sooner than later, if you're going to do it.
Also, although I do think hexbear users are often funny and positive contributors, they're not particularly well suited for casual conversation. Despite wanting to be federated with that server, it's also nice to have the option of spaces where I don't have to worry about being called a reactionary lib when I'm just trying to make polite conversation. Just something to think about. Lemmy.world's aggressive defederation policies are actually a benefit when it comes to a community such as this, imho.