I am one of the admins of Beehaw and I’m trying to get some feedback on our potential move.
Let’s start out with a little Beehaw history before judgements are passed, please.
A handful of us were beta testing Tildes when we decided to have discussions on a Discord server.
We decided that our ‘Northern Star’ or guiding principle would culminate as ‘Be Nice’ with purposefully vague/flexible interpretations. Our overall goal is to provide a safe space to disenfranchised persons.
We talked for a little over a year and some of our members became impatient. Then someone stepped in to suggest a couple of platforms that we could consider getting started with.
One of those platforms was Lemmy. None of us knew, at that time, anything about ActivityPub.
During the Reddit exodus (surrounding the API outcry and blackout), our instance exploded. We were, initially, crippled by the mass amounts of users seeking refuge.
Thankfully, someone stepped in and volunteered hundreds of hours of work to stabilize our instance and refine it further.
After many hours of talks, it became clear to us that our overall goal could be achieved outside of Lemmy/ActivityPub.
Right now, we feel that Lemmy and ActivityPub have downsides that are limiting us from achieving that goal.
I replied to another user, but I’m sharing it in a main reply to add my voice to the base level comments.
I want a safe place to be, while looking out into a wider sea of content (albeit through the filter of Beehaw’s defederation, which I really appreciate). When the trolls and the assholes get too much, I like to be able to retreat back to just
Localfeed setting and be safe again. If beehaw was to be a separate platform, I’d lose that.Beehaw is a shining beacon in an ocean of content, good and bad. I’d love that beacon to remain, so more people can find safety here if they need it.
As a fellow Beehaw local, ditto. Would definitely be a shame, even if I can appreciate why it’s being considered.
I do think the potential federation to build a unified alternative to centralised megacorps with freedom of movement for users is well worth the cost, and Beehaw leaving the party erodes that, but ultimately what will hit me on a day to day will be the loss of the usage pattern described above.
I agree with this entirely, but I think the missing context is the mental health of our admins. Not to mention the sheer number of hours of unpaid labor they do, they are subjected to some heinous things. I don’t want them to sacrifice themselves for us. I will follow beehaw if they leave, I already have another lemmy account to see a wider scope of the fediverse, but beehaw is too special to abandon.
I certainly agree that the beehaw admins shouldn’t be sacrificing themselves or their health in order to support the platform - if the continued federation of beehaw has that cost, then federation must be sacrificed first.
However, I do think that there are other paths forward between “admins sacrifice themselves” and “beehaw is off the fedi” and I wanted to share my hopes and voice <3
Totally agreed!