Has anybody had a conversation about implementing non-federated communities or is that even a possibility with activitypub? I would love to have native beehaw communities that are only accessible by logged-in beehaw users, but still retain federation for some of my more niche communities that may not have a large enough audience here.
Although I could very easily just maintain my old account on a fediverse server alongside my beehaw account if beehaw ventures off into an entirely new direction.
When I read about the beehaw vision a few days ago, I fell in love, so I’m here for whatever y’all decide.
there are and have been conversations around the fediverse about this very same concept or need. See, eg, a cousin comment in this thread on the same idea: lemmy.ml/comment/7026804
And the short answer is no … the fediverse basically sucks at providing such a thing … so enamoured is it with federation that localised communities are obviously a bit of an afterthought. Thing is people actually want and need more private or local spaces as well as the big public spaces. Its why all the old school forums are still kicking.
And the worst part is that federation offers a great opportunity to provide both in a really useful and seamless manner on a single platform. But neither lemmy nor mastodon have a feature for it (with mastodon lead dev actively opposing the idea it seems).
I have to believe it would be easy for lemmy to implement.
As a contrast, misskey and its forks such as firefish, catodon, iceshrimp etc (and yea, these names are a choice, in a good way I think), actually provide local only groups and people like them.
@sarmale exactly. I saw on r/RedditAlternatives that someone created a Lemmy instance that was defederated from everyone - so it is possible to turn your Lemmy server into a walled garden. Maybe an allowlist would make for a better middle ground.
We simply need a lot more moderation tools than the current set of lemmy devs are willing to create, and many of them see some of the requests as frivolous or not in line with their personal beliefs on how the website mechanics should work. There’s also a metric ton of bugs, potential legal issues with how the platform deals with federation and malicious and abhorrent material, and the issue of the code of choice this website runs on not being a particularly popular or easy to pick up coding language meaning less access to talent to fix or work on new things. We’ve been talking about potentially moving platforms for some time now and with time there are just more discoveries of new issues.
I will be honest with you, I do not think that it would be a good use of your time. This has been unfolding for a long time and its clear that there are both coding and ideological issues with lemmy as a platform (there’s plenty of discussions of this which have unfolded in the chat and beehaw support communities which I would suggest reading up on). However, if you are committed to making lemmy as a whole a better place, here’s a truncated list of some of the still existing issues:
There are not enough federation options to deal effectively with current problems, at minimum:
One-way federation to protect our site culture
Exemption from all feed & media reject to handle pornography
Purging posts and comments does not purge associated images
Reports are not sent to the right places (example: we don’t get reports about our users’ off-instance activity and reports are not sent to moderators which are off-instance)
The modlog does not work in a chronological fashion and does not allow to filter actions by instance or per community
Moderators are exposed to graphic images because a banned user’s description is still visible
If you are a mod of a community, and you get banned from that community you mod, you can still take mod actions
If you get site-banned from an instance and you are from another instance, you can still post on the community and people from your instance can see and interact with your posts
I feel like lots of thinking like this or adjacent to this is going on around the fediverse, and part of the problem we’re all encountering is that many or even most of us don’t really understand this “design space” of homely/kind/safe/wholesome/fulfilling online placed particularly well. And so we’re either reaching for established models (reddit/twitter etc) or expecting too much of new technologies (decentralisation and federation).
In the case of holiday meals and beehaw, while reading your post, my immediate thought was how it’s simultaneously a fantastic metaphor and an inapplicable one for social media. A holiday meal, I’d say, is defined by its rarity and specificity. Once a year, family members and close friends gather together for the purpose of being together. I don’t see that mapping onto online social media … like at all … however desirable that demeanor and vibe is desirable.
And while being kind and open etc is obviously a good aim for a social media space, so long as it is social media, which means open ended discussions/topics, (relatively) open membership, relative anonymity, constant activity, and, let’s be honest, some expectation of providing some form entertainment to lurkers … the personal bonds and purpose of a holiday meal just can’t exist. Which is a problem, IMO, that goes beyond ActivityPub, because the moment you make a social media space more closed or exclusive while trying to still be a form of social media, it will become quieter, duller and less compelling to users (for better or worse) and eventually fall into relative disuse and so seem to fail at social media.
If you then want to recast social media, you then, IMO, need to think a lot about formats, UIs, media types and framing and how people are presented and interact … like to a large extent … because this whole “sending text messages to each other in a public space” can only go so far (which is a big problem I personally have with the fediverse).
I say this not to dismiss your and Beehaw’s goals … but really just to say … “that’s great, but underestimating how hard this stuff can be would not serve you or beehaw well IMO”.
Hope it goes well though and will be curious to see what happens to beehaw!
A holiday meal, I’d say, is defined by its rarity and specificity. Once a year, family members and close friends gather together for the purpose of being together. I don’t see that mapping onto online social media[…]while being kind and open etc is obviously a good aim for a social media space, so long as it is social media, which means open ended discussions/topics, (relatively) open membership, relative anonymity, constant activity, and, let’s be honest, some expectation of providing some form entertainment to lurkers … the personal bonds and purpose of a holiday meal just can’t exist.
Familial relationships are the product of time-tested, intimate bonds. They can’t be manufactured, and attempting to do so is likelier to limit comfort and expression from users in the absence of functional knowledge of others’ boundaries. Social media should, ideally, encourage cordial free expression, dissent, and disagreement, when (1) the focus of those activities are on ideas rather than people (e.g., other users), and (2) those ideas are not harmful to any other person or people. I actually don’t think Beehaw is great at this currently, with the strong caveat that I also believe it is much, much better and more earnest in its endeavor to do so than any other alternative I’m aware of. But I fear further seclusion would be a move in the wrong direction.
the moment you make a social media space more closed or exclusive while trying to still be a form of social media, it will become quieter, duller and less compelling to users (for better or worse) and eventually fall into relative disuse and so seem to fail at social media.
Observing from my own experience here (and the admins would obviously be well-suited to prove otherwise), too much of the contributions to this community are weighted toward the admins and mods rather than general users. Discussions get decent traction, but I notice that many of the posts themselves are coming from the elevated accounts. If this is accurate, it’s a significant point of failure that would conceivably hasten the “fall into relative disuse” in the event that just a few of these power users are unable to contribute as prolifically. Federation helps fill this gap.
All this being said, I want to counter-balance my criticisms by extending my gratitude and admiration for the admins and mods who’ve made this community what it is. I have an account on Kbin as well that can view much more of the fediverse, but I spend roughly 85% of my time here on Beehaw because of the strength of the community (and, admittedly, to a lesser degree because there are no good kbin mobile apps). It’s clear to see the amount of time, effort, and diligence it takes to create this space, and I am extremely grateful for it. For my own sake, I hope that Beehaw remains here (or on another federated service), but whatever direction is chosen I wish the experiment enormous success.
I actually don’t think Beehaw is great at this currently, with the strong caveat that I also believe it is much, much better and more earnest in its endeavor to do so than any other alternative I’m aware of. But I fear further seclusion would be a move in the wrong direction.
I’m curious in what ways you think we could improve? Would you care to expand upon this?
I’ll try, hope this makes sense. As a leftist space, Beehaw is a bit of an echo chamber. On its own, this is kind of a neutral value, maybe even a positive one (we’ve seen with brutal transparency what “free speech” platforms actually are). But echo chambers are vulnerable to the creeping growth of some inhospitable characteristics (being dismissive, derisive, reductive, etc.) toward ideas outside the narrow lane of the chamber. We treat conclusions as foregone and perceived opposition as hostile. And that’s the main thrust: I firmly believe that internet culture, broadly, mistakes and/or conflates things like ignorance, diverging personal experience, or even sufficient inarticulateness as opposition and treats it accordingly.
One of the most frequent examples I see here is the devolution of a minor disagreement (there was a relatively recent example concerning the fairness of a news headline) into a hyperbolic declaration of someone’s overall character (e.g., “because of how you’ve conducted yourself in this conversation, or the ideas you’ve expressed, you probably would have supported the Nazis” as a demonstrative example). At other times, I’ve seen relatively harmless stubbornness responded to with blocks or bans, which felt extreme to me despite the fact that the stubbornness was indeed frustrating and potentially (but not actually, yet) malicious.
I want to be explicit that I don’t think any inclusive community is well-served by being tolerant of harmful ideas. Harmful ideas should be countered, blocked, banned, censored, and burned in a fire. But I’d like to see non-hostile opposition, ignorance, diverging personal experiences, etc. treated with more cordiality and grace up until the point that they are effectively exposed as malicious. I think there are good people with bad ideas (I’ve been one of them and expect to be again) who could learn and grow in a community like this with the right balance.
Thanks for elaborating. It’s tough to decide where is ‘too far’ and when someone is behaving in a way that if left unchecked results in a slow decline into a space where nice people no longer want to participate. We tend to err on the side of caution because we’ve seen how evaporative cooling can ruin a nice place, but with strong checks/balances to try and reduce/minimize inappropriately stepping in, as well as inappropriate deletions and bans. We’re human though, we make mistakes, and ultimately it’s important to us that we create a space we haven’t been able to find elsewhere and sometimes there just aren’t enough people with enough emotional bandwidth to do the messy work of differentiating between someone who’s just stubborn and misinformed, and someone who’s being malicious (let alone issues that crop up with neurodivergence and not understanding what nice behavior is).
I truly do wish we had enough bandwidth to provide more cordiality and grace to everyone. Speaking of which, if you or anyone else who does have emotional bandwidth, extra time, and passion for seeing places like this exist on the internet and wishes to step in and help us stick to our principles, we’d love the help 💜
I should acknowledge how easy it is for me to commentate from my position as spectator! You and the rest of the team have very clearly put a lot of research and thought into cultivating Beehaw and it shows. I’m very lucky that this was my gateway to the fediverse during last summer’s exodus.
I wish I could volunteer to help but I’m rather flaky and inconsistent with my online time, as it’s necessarily well down my list of priorities. If that still sounds like a situation I could contribute through, let me know.
I’d prefer if you guys stayed in the fedi, but this is probably the 10th time you guys have asked this same question on if you should stay. If you have to keep asking, I think you know the answer. No need to ask an 11th time.
I think it’s simply an ongoing thought process. Just like the threads debate. Personally I think these are today’s questions to shape future society. Asking it over and over is just an impulse to try and resolve it.
Its an on going discussion and not a take our ball and go home situation. I think its important to gather support and insight with a big decision and not play dictator. Also, now the hectic holiday season is mostly over in the states, others opinions may differ from before.
This is more of an internal conversation, so I can totally see why this topic coming up yet again is a bit much for the rest of the fediverse. I have to admit, reading your comment made laugh though, thanks for that.
I came to Beehaw wanting a replacement for orangesite™. However, I’ve since decided that I care a lot less about having a massive network and more about just having a positive community of strangers to talk to about my life and interests. In that respect I’d totally be open to a smaller platform. Whether that’d be Beehaw or somewhere else, I don’t know. But Beehaw leaving the Fediverse wouldn’t be the dealbreaker for me that I once though it would.
All that said, I’d definitely prefer Beehaw to stay in the Fediverse. While there are a lot of dorks out there in the wild, there are some communities that I’d really miss.
I just joined a couple of days ago, but your comment nails my perspective. Beehaw’s focus on building a small but positive community is what attracted me to it, especially after all the toxic behavior just assumed to be standard and acceptable on Reddit.
I think that’s a great description, in part it’s what drew me here with the idea that the discussions and topics are always from a kind and informational perspective, without the common “sneer tone” that can so often overtake conversations on the internet.
Personally my experience with users on Beehaw has been entirely kind, thoughtful, and full of knowledgeable people, whatever the topic may be. The few poor experiences I have had here were from outside instances, it’s true, and I can’t imagine just how much of that you all must have to deal with. But I have also had just as many incredibly thoughtful interactions from some federated instances as well, generally the (seemingly) smaller instances. I feel like maybe every 1 in 10 comments through the posts I go to read in All might have be negative or purposeful troll, but all the rest are at least coming from a perspective that I can understand even if I may not agree - but it’s always worth engaging because it drives good thoughtful conversation.
I have an account on slrpnk that is federated with lemmy.world and it can be unbearable to use sometimes - the slrpnk community itself is wonderful, but lemmy.world dominates the All feed, and lemmy.world comments… it’s a mix of dismissive and instigative. I feel like every 1 in 10 comments might be coming from a kind and thoughtful perspective. Comments are immediately downvoted, often times there’s comments no more than a sentence long through a whole thread. Except for moderators, but there’s just a tone that I can’t quite place among reading the interactions that feels… maybe not entirely welcoming? However I also understand they have a lot going on there, and certainly some history I’m missing.
Anyway, that’s a long way of saying I really, really value both the Beehaw community & mods and our set of instances, even if there may be a few that still have problems that I don’t get to see as a regular user. But I do know that I value all of your comments enough to see what you have to say and get to know my internet friends - Chris, your determination for community is inspiring and you’ve got some cool hobbies! And the few times I have seen moderator intervention and extended discussion, I’ve yet to come across an example where I think any of you handled it poorly. (All of you) Your contributions here are more than mod team leaders when you need to be, you feel like community members through and through - which unfortunately feels rare for a mod team!
Regarding federation and instances - maybe the family analogy is something that can be adapted? Here on local we are the immediate family but the instances that I appreciate the most I still feel are cousins. I think many of them appreciate us as well. Unfortunately, I think the negative users overall will not be prevented from their bad habit by a sidebar and our philosophy. With that in mind I think federation with servers that focus on sharing knowledge is the most important.
From the recent post made on I think lemmy.ml regarding Beehaw’s federation - the reception was terrible. It felt terrible to read. But looking through the comments, I would say over 80% of them at least had to be lemmy.world users who have never even interacted here - or if they did were soon defederated from and clearly salty about it, all of those getting ~30-50 upvotes. It was a literal circlejerk about our instance coming from a flawed or probably just intentionally wrong perspective. Information like a game of telephone. If it weren’t so inflammatory it would have been funny, given my actual experiences here.
However, the rest of the comments though were from a wide, wide array of instances saying they would miss our presence, with it being about a 50/50 split from lemmy.ml itself. And each instance I happened to see that felt positively about us, I likewise had only ever had good interactions from members of those instances as well.
Luckily, I had already seen just how awful lemmy.world can really be, as I mentioned I’d created my slrpnk account just a few weeks ago which is actually where I saw that post, maybe just last week or so? Suffice to say, the reception from them was not surprising in the least because to me it seems clear the intent is to tear down, not lift up. You cannot share knowledge in a tear down community because no matter what, somehow your knowledge is wrong.
Users here just have a completely different intention and way of using and interacting with the internet. Users on other smaller instances feel like that intention is there too. We share knowledge with the intent of further gaining and growing our ideas and abilities and because it helps another member of our community. That is becoming more and more rare on the web and I really value our presence in the fediverse and I believe that there are others that do too.
Whatever the future may hold for our instance, I’ll likely migrate with and keep it as part of my sites, but I do worry about the continued level of engagement over time. On the other hand, I realize I don’t like the wider fediverse as much as I thought I did after my last month or so looking around on other accounts. (I definitely need to curate better, though). Anyway, I saw this post 14 minutes in and I only got distracted once so… Happy new year to all and I look forward to our next interaction!
Just stopping in to say this is a really well thought out response and you’ve more or less nailed all the salient points. We greatly appreciate thoughtful feedback like this, thank you for being a part of our community 💜
As well as hosting the ball drop for something like 20 years, Anderson Cooper has covered war, famine, and devastation – but the thing he can’t handle is showing the viewers’ back home a camera shot of cat’s butt.
My first holiday season after going no contact with my parents. I spent time with my wife and her family and many cousins who love me! It felt safe and warm to be surrounded by people who actually like me— really feel like I made the right choice this year!
Lot of that going around. If it is not the flu, covid, or RSV it is the cold. Our doctor was so backed up my wife had to use the online option provided with our insurance.
There are at least 5 people in our extended family that are sick… maybe more. Thought I was done with masks but I am back to wearing them at spreader like events.
I guess this is the long way of saying your not alone. Get well soon.
Much better than expect. This has been the first year where we’ve had someone outside of our immediate family join us (my brother’s girlfriend) and it’s been very pleasant.
Going to start working my way through the Christmas ales I’ve been saving now!
I really like the “for as long as it works” part.
Was that a religious ceremony of some kind or ‘just’ a civil wedding?
The song I picked for my second wedding was not a processional per se, but it was Nicht doof (loosely translated “Not Stupid”) by German band JBO. The male singer sings about how he enjoys somebody’s company because of a list of bad traits she doesn’t have: she’s not ugly, she’s not annoying, her farts don’t smell worse than his, she’s not an idiot etc. The melody is lovely though. The song was in line with the wedding theme, if you can call it that - the main event was a bad taste party at a swinger club, part of which was SO’s idea, which convinced me that she’s the one.
With the first, we had about the most stoic engagement ever. It was a Saturday morning, I’d gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed while she was grabbing something out of the closet, and I asked if we were headed toward marriage. She gave it a think, and as we were a year or so into things, figured this is what we’re supposed to do next, so yes. Actually exciting weekend ensues, as we realise we’re engaged.
I still have Lieder, die Die Welt Nicht Braucht, by Die Doofen from my time as an exchange student, so I get the … as the French would say, “I don’t know what” … about it.
Anyway, we had that wedding at the local science museum after the mountain lodge we’d booked for the ceremony, reception and the whole place for the night … burned down the day after we sent out the save-the-date cards. Glad I worked at a copy store to be able to quickly print and mail “We’re working on Plan B” postcards.
I admire your pragmatism. It’s a shame it didn’t work out, but at the very least it looks like it’s somehow led you to your second and better match, so there’s that!
Out of nothing more than personal curiosity, where in Germany did you live?
I still have Lieder, die Die Welt Nicht Braucht, by Die Doofen
Aah, I remember owning that one. Personally I’ve filed it under “those were the 90’s and it seemed like a good idea at the time”.
It was 1995, and I’m not saying it was high art, but it did feel like absurdist music like that was one of the main outlets for expressing humour amongst my classmates.
I was in Hameln for school and socializing but lived in a Dorf some 5km outside of town.
Actually, the second engagement was arguably worse. We were on the back stoop smoking cigarettes, and I opened the conversation with “obviously, I’m not going to ask you to marry me.” There are red flags, and then there’s this.
What I was unaware of was the ring out of a quarter machine she’d given me a week earlier “as a joke” was not. So she happily let me fumble words for some 20 minutes after that opening, knowing exactly where I’d end up and basically said “you were already mine, but this was fun to watch.”
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