The Beehaw project is entering some significant challenges
The Beehaw project is entering some significant challenges
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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Specifically, we chose Lemmy as the software that we would use to launch our endeavor to attempt a safe space for marginalized persons online.
As a relatively non-marginalized person, I think it's important to focus on this. Beehaw has grown beyond the marginalized group. If Beehaw were to leave Lemmy, the non-marginalized would be fine and can switch to different instances. The marginalized would follow Beehaw for that safe space.
It comes down to the purpose of a safe space. There's the group of people that want to avoid bigots, and there's the group that want to be a light unto the world, to effect change.
An example of a little bit of positive Beehaw has had outside of their community would be the influence it has had on me. I've read posts from the LGBT+ community that enlightened me to things I've never thought about. But I'm also not a bigot, just naive.
The negative is what has prompted these discussions: the bigoted trolls. It's just not sustainable for the small Beehaw team to moderate everything.
My view is that it's of utmost importance to maintain the safe space for the marginalized. Of those marginalized who want to connect outside the safe space, they are free to engage in Lemmy/Reddit and spread their light.
What would I do? I would find a new instance and continue to be receptive to LBGT+ discussions that come up on Lemmy. I don't feel right asking Beehaw to stay on Lemmy at the cost of keeping marginalized people safe from bigots. They deserve to be able to talk about things without having bigots come at them; to be able to laugh and cry and vent and have others understand—especially with the US Right becoming more brazen in their persecution of this community.
Just my 2 cents.
Take my 2 cents too. Well put.
Another non-marginalized person here.
Restricted spaces are necessarily smaller than non-restricted. Less content. Less interaction. Less everything. If hateful content is really rampant, then that can be a valid tradeoff, but separate systems are never equal, and it is always the minority/marginalized system that suffers. You've described exactly why: "I would find a new instance and continue to be receptive to LBGT+ discussions that come up on Lemmy."
As I look elsewhere in this thread, the comments I see people reference as "against Beehaw goals" are just people being rude assholes, not misogynist, racist, or homo-/trans-phobic. Creating a space where everyone is polite and universally friendly seems a very different objective than creating a space where marginalized people feel safe. If that - universal friendship - is the real goal, then Beehaw very definitely needs to close off interactions with non-vetted, pseudonymous users, and accept that it will look like a virtual ghost town. In that case, it doesn't matter whether it stays with defederated-by-default lemmy or moves to some other forum platform.
The middle ground, where you accept that some people are just rude, but still provide a forum where marginalized people feel they can share their experiences without threats or repercussions, needs strong, active, focussed moderation. Have to be able to block users and communities from other instances, delete posts/comments that originate from other instances, and do local moderation of communities hosted on other instances. Have to have enough moderators to respond quickly to user reports, and probably an automod-like system to catch serious issues before users do. It sounds like that is not within the current capabilities of lemmy. So, I can see why the admins think that the lemmy framework is incompatible with their objectives. Probably, a lot of the people who joined post-Reddit are incompatible and uninterested in those objectives.
I can see where the lemmy framework worked when no one used it, and I can see why it would immediately fail in the face of hundreds of thousands of new users. If millions are coming, it will only get worse. No doubt, the admins are aware that they'll lose 80, maybe 90% of their userbase if they leave Lemmy, but it's not so long ago that their userbase was only 10-20% of what it is today.
If I lose this little window into cultures I would not otherwise see, I will be a lesser person for it, but I can accept that it was not meant for me in the first place.
Thanks, you put into clear words a lot of my jumbled thoughts and expanded on it. It's a tough choice for the Beehaw admins with pros and cons either way; a tug-of-war on whether the community is strong enough / has what they need to handle this far from perfect world. It would be a loss from the wider Lemmy community, but based on a few outspoken comments we can see there are also people with a "good riddance" stance.
I think Beehaw needs to do what's best for them first, as an administrative team and for their core community. When they're stronger, I'm sure we'll feel and see their presence on the wider stage. After all, time is intrinsic to progress.
Online gathering spaces not hostile to trans and gnc folks seem to be evaporating. It’s concerning with KOSA in the works in the US.
You make a very, very good point. I’m glad you posted.
Also,
But I'm also not a bigot, just naive.
is so much me it’s ridiculous.