ANNOUNCEMENT: defederating effective immediately from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works - Beehaw
beehaw.org
hey folks, we’ll be quick and to the point with this one: ##### we have made the decision to defederate from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works. we recognize this is hugely inconvenient for a wide variety of reasons, but we think this is a decision we need to take immediately. the remainder of the post details our thoughts and decision-making on why this is necessary. — we have been concerned with how sustainable the explosion of new users on Lemmy is–particularly with federation in mind–basically since it began. i have already related [https://beehaw.org/post/520044?scrollToComments=true] how difficult dealing with the explosion has been just constrained to this instance for us four Admins, and increasingly we’re being confronted with external vectors we have to deal with that have further stressed our capabilities (elaborated on below). an unfortunate reality we’ve also found is we just don’t have the tools or the time here to parse out all the good from all the bad. all we have is a nuke and some pretty rudimentary mod powers that don’t scale well. we have a list of improvements we’d like to see both on the moderation side of Lemmy and federation if at all possible–but we’re unanimous in the belief that we can’t wait on what we want to be developed here. separately, we want to do this now, while the band-aid can be ripped off with substantially less pain. aside from/complementary to what’s mentioned above, our reason for defederating, by and large, boils down to: - these two instances’ open registration policy, which is extremely problematic for us given how federation works and how trivial it makes trolling, harassment, and other undesirable behavior; - the disproportionate number of moderator actions we take against users of these two instances, and the general amount of time we have to dedicate to bad actors on those two instances; - our need to preserve not only a moderated community but a vibe and general feeling this is actually a safe space for our users to participate in; - and the reality that fulfilling our ethos is simply not possible when we not only have to account for our own users but have to account for literally tens of thousands of new, completely unvetted users, some of whom explicitly see spaces like this as desirable to troll and disrupt and others of whom simply don’t care about what our instance stands for as Gaywallet puts it, in our discussion of whether to do this: > There’s a lot of soft moderating that happens, where people step in to diffuse tense situations. But it’s not just that, there’s a vibe that comes along with it. Most people need a lot of trust and support to open up, and it’s really hard to trust and support who’s around you when there are bad actors. People shut themselves off in various ways when there’s more hostility around them. They’ll even shut themselves off when there’s fake nice behavior around. There’s a lot of nuance in modding a community like this and it’s not just where we take moderator actions- sometimes people need to step in to diffuse, to negotiate, to help people grow. This only works when everyone is on the same page about our ethos and right now we can’t even assess that for people who aren’t from our instance, so we’re walking a tightrope by trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. That isn’t sustainable forever and especially not in the face of massive growth on such a short timeframe. > > Explicitly safe spaces in real life typically aren’t open to having strangers walk in off the street, even if they have a bouncer to throw problematic people out. A single negative interaction might require a lot of energy to undo. and, to reiterate: we understand that a lot of people legitimately and fairly use these instances, and this is going to be painful while it’s in effect. but we hope you can understand why we’re doing this. our words, when we talk about building something better here, are not idle platitudes, and we are not out to build a space that grows at any cost. we want a better space, and we think this is necessary to do that right now. if you disagree we understand that, but we hope you can if nothing else come away with the understanding it was an informed decision. this is also not a permanent judgement (or a moral one on the part of either community’s owner, i should add–we just have differing interests here and that’s fine). in the future as tools develop, cultures settle, attitudes and interest change, and the wave of newcomers settles down, we’ll reassess whether we feel capable of refederating with these communities. thanks for using our site folks.
  • bigmanjezza@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    kind of disappointing to see, considering they had some very large communities across the feddiverse.

    If they were trying to do something like tildes with the small, curated user base, they probably shouldn’t have federated at all. this is just going to hold community growth back for the other instances

  • NotInTheFace@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    So what does defederation mean in practice? I can still see communities on beehaw im subbed to. Is it just that I won’t see new ones? Or that I can’t search/comment on them?

    • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Ok so Lemmy instances can decide to disconnect from other instances.

      We have instance A, instance B and instance C

      initially all 3 are interconnected or “federated with each other” - any member of any instance can see the communities and users from any other instance.

      Suddenly something happens that makes instance A defederate with instance B

      So now instance A cannot see and participate with the communities and users of B and vice versa. However instance C can see and participate in the communities of Both

      So in terms of beehaw vs lemmy.world I would be on instance 3 - I can see and participate both, their defederation from each other doesn’t affect you, it only affects the users of beehaw or Lemmy.world

      EDIT:

      I just realised your in lemmy.world. huh weird… Maybe it takes a while for the defederation to settle, or maybe it makes it a one way communication.

      EDIT2 I might be wrong, see this post

      lemmyworld@lemmy.world/t/22361/-/comment/96933

  • Raitontime@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Oh well, I was subbed into a couple beehaw communities but wasn’t really active in them anyways.

  • MyOpinion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    All the generic subs like news and technology were there. This is nuts. Glad it happened now. That server of snowflakes needs to not be promoted.

    • SickIcarus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      And reading through them it looks like they took the bulk of the most judgmental reddit users. Good riddance, I say. Let them echo-chamber themselves into oblivion, we’ll build our own communities with blackjack and hookers!

      • Luca@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        The moment I jumped ship from there was when someone made an erection joke in response to Trump being indicted again, and the replies were all admonishing about how it’s insensitive toward people who are uncomfortable with sex.

  • nickpeirson@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I think this is going to produce some interesting results, which will likely help progress Lemmy as a whole.

    One of the regular topics coming up is users not knowing which instance they should create a user on, and what the implications of being a user on a particular instance are. This change by the Beehaw is going to clarify some of the implications and help drive people towards one instance or another, or even to have multiple accounts on different instances.

    I think this will increase the adoption of Beehaw for users that the Beehaw admins are looking for in their community, which benefits the Beehaw instance. Conversely, I think the more general communities on Beehaw that aren’t there specifically for the community Beehaw is trying to foster will likely migrate to the equivalent communities on other instances and settle there. While Beehaw was popular and federated it made sense to subscribe to technology@beehaw.org, but now it’s defederated I’d expect an equivalent community on a more permissive and widely federated instance to gain traction.

    Right now it feels pretty disruptive. Arguably this occurring now with a relatively small number of users (thousands rather than millions) affected is preferable and will help shake out these issues, which will make it smoother for future users.

    It will help Lemmy become more resilient. The tooling to help manage an instance defederating is also likely to be useful for instances going offline, or otherwise disconnecting from the fediverse. Better that that tooling is in place early.

    • eee@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Arguably this occurring now with a relatively small number of users (thousands rather than millions) affected is preferable and will help shake out these issues, which will make it smoother for future users.

      I disagree, lemmy is seeing a temporary boost from all of us reddit refugees. We need content and a welcoming community for everyone to stay. This sort of infighting and politicking is going to come across as toxic and exactly the sort of thing redditors wanted to get away from.

      If it were done later when the fediverse is bigger and more stable with enough critical mass of content, separating will affect more users but it will be least disruptive to the fediverse as a whole.

  • Chenz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    This sucks, and might be the reason I return to Reddit. This pretty much splits the Lemmy population in two halves

    • Fizz@lemmy.nzEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      No it doesnt. Lemmy has 130k users Kbin has 30k. Beehaw and lemmy.world have 30k combined. Everyone will still be able to see posts from both of those instances. Most of us have only been here for a few days so switching servers is not a big deal if you happened to create your account on beehaw or lemmy.world.

    • Wolfric1982@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Except not really. I created a new account on lemmy.world once I saw the notice they were defederating. I’m sure I won’t be the only one to do that. I liked what they were trying to do over at beehaw but I don’t like being cut off from 2 of the biggest instances.

    • V6277@kbin.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      Not really, I’m sure there are other Lemmy instances that have access to both. I’m on kbin for example and can see and interact with lemmy.world, beehaw.org, and sh.itjust.works.

      • Chenz@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, but at the moment, beehaw, ml, world and shitjustworks are the 4 biggest lemmy servers. Now, beehaw and ml will stay on the beehaw communities, while world and shotjustworks will have to split out into new ones

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
          1·
          1 year ago

          Or you can have an account on other than the 4 big servers and still be able to see and interact with all content.

  • joelthelion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Mod heavy people always talk about this supposedly huge influx of trolls, toxicity, spam that they have to moderate, but I just don’t see it. I’m not sure that I have seen even a single post that obviously needed to be moderated this week. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right communities?

    • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      02·
      1 year ago

      There are a few other commenters on this post that mention seeing mass spamming of slurs and a meme about killing drag performers. I see no reason to doubt the explanation given by the mods. Of course trolls would target beehaw, because that community made such a big deal of being nice and positive. It’s just a shitty situation all around.

  • nivenkos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    And over-sensitive, over-protective jannies ruin it again - just like Mastodon.

    Hopefully we can re-establish the Technology and Gaming communities here.

    • jerkface@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Does this really ruin anything or just it just get your nose out of joint? The fediverse doesn’t have to be and ideally isn’t a homogeneous experience. If you can’t deal with minor differences like this across independent, autonomous sites, you’re just not going to have fun. Lighten up.

      • ChemicalRascal@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        It actually kinda does ruin something. Beehaw was setting itself up to have the defacto communities for a bunch of topics.

        • macarthur_park@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          It’s only been a few days of massive community growth. Now that the beehaw communities aren’t available, I’m sure alternative large communities will grow within the federated instances. And it’ll only take a few more days to get them up to where the beehaw versions were.

          This is actually really good for lemmy.world, as it’s the second largest instance so it will likely wind up with the largest versions of those communities.

    • Joe B@mastodon.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      @joelthelion You can be on 2 instance and see all instances and there content. It’s called the fedeverse. One thing that is awesome compared to reddit

        • Maestro@kbin.social
          0·
          1 year ago

          Defederation means that posts and comments from defederated instances no longer appear on beehaw. I don’t think it automatically means the reverse. You can even comment on a beehaw post, but your comment just stays on your Lemmy instance, it never goes to beehaw

          • Mane25@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            So I can still see beehaw communities here and comment on them but if I do they won’t show up to beehaw users?

            If that’s the case then we really need some indication/warning sign that the instance is defederated, or else people will be talking into the void if they don’t keep close track of which instances are/aren’t defederated.

  • Podunk@lemmyfly.orgEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    So i guess that this solves the big problem short term. The influx has been the first growing pain. But long term it does nothing. They will get caught defederating from smaller instances over and over. Anyone that jumps in from smaller instances will be able to carry on, at least how i understand it. The cream will rise to the top eventually, but such a strong declaration so early isnt a good sign. If the mods from any large instance decide that “this is too much, ban them” is the best response, the lemmy community is destined to be a fractured mess, rather than a reddit killer or a reddit refugee state.

    I guess, imo, i get it. 100% understand from a moderation point of view. But im frustrated that there is this big of a fold the first week of real volume. The cesspool will exist in any instance. But going thermobaric this early leads to nukes next week. And it may be a sign of why a strong corporate arm and direction, as much as we hate it, is currently the winning scenario. Unfederated control is powerful. The hydra has been unleashed, but for each head you cut off, three more appear.

    • zalack@kbin.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      IDK, the creator of that instance just started it as a little side project. I don’t get the sense they ever really expected for it to blow up or were trying to make it a “main instance”.

      If anything this is just a reminder that instances aren’t nodes in the same service. They will all have their own culture, goals and philosophy.

      • tarjeezy@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        Is there a summary somewhere of each instance’s “reputations”? Most descriptions I see are just things like “A place for everyone”. It’s kind of frustrating that new users are told to join any server, because it’s all federated, and then go oops sorry you joined the Nazi server, sucks for you.

  • johndroid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    So just like that a bunch of communities I’m subscribed to are gone? I guess I could make another account on beehaw but this is quickly becoming more trouble than it’s worth. I’ve broken my Reddit addiction. Maybe it’s time to leave lemmy before I get attached.

    • Joe B@mastodon.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      @johndroid Lemmy and the fedeverse isn’t for everyone. If your used to getting told what to do by corporations go back to Twitter/Reddit and they will sensor you and sell your activity/Data if you wanna stay free stick with lemmy and Mastodon

      • ppptan@kbin.social
        0·
        1 year ago

        It’s not about getting told what to do or having your data sold, it’s about a friction-free social media experience. It depends on what the aims of the platform are and what the desires of potential users are. Personally, I’d imagine most users want something simple and easy, where they don’t have to think about what and where and how to post. But if the intent of the platform is to make that harder, then that’s fine, it’ll just result in fewer users and less content/activity.

        • Joe B@mastodon.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          @ppptan @johndroid Reddit and lemmy are hard when you first start l. Eventually you will get muscle memory and it will become second nature. I think people that are on Lemmy and Mastodon are there to escape oppression from the man (Corporate) They all provide a service but people want freedom. Nobody can’t stop you from using Reddit. We just know that the CEO is there for the bottom dollar no matter who gets in the way.

  • spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    0·
    1 year ago

    I think the general perspective on beehaw needs to change. There’s no way they can realistically continue to maintain the largest communities on the threadiverse with only four mods and this is exactly why they should have never let themselves get in that position in the first place.