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 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.

  • mustyOrange@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    1 year ago

    I know the intent isn’t to keep us siloed here, but unfortunately that’s the end result. Personally, I’d rather deal with trolls than defeat the whole purpose of the fediverse. If I wanted a small walled garden, I’d have gone to raddle.me or tildes. The mods absolutely have good intentions here, but it’s a bit smothering

    • Wigglet@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      1 year ago

      If you have jerboa you can have the multi accounts feature to still access what ever instances you would like pretty seamlessly. I think the long term goal is more mod tools so that there doesn’t need to be a giant wall but maybe some boarder patrol to keep the trolls out.

      • Sharkapotamus@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think I’m probably being an idiot, but I have Jerboa and can’t see where to add a second account?

        • Zoop@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          There’s a little menu in the top left corner when you’re on the main/front page that shows up when you first open the app. Click that and a sidebar pops out. By your current username is a little down arrow. Click that, then there should be a little plus sign and something that says ‘add account.’ Tap that, then it asks you for the instance link, your username, and password. Hopefully that helps!

            • Zoop@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              1 year ago

              You’re so very welcome. I’m glad I could help! & Don’t sweat it - that little arrow is easy to miss! :)

          • Adora 🏳️‍⚧️@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Sorry to continue this OT thread; I am a bit of a dumbass and also completely new to Lemmy/fedi (this is actually my first post whee). Just downloaded Jerboa and have figured out how to add multiple accounts, but can’t find one of my other instances in the instance drop-down (lemmy.blahaj.zone? Not sure if this the instance name or not…) Does Jerboa not have all instances yet or maybe am I just utterly confused about the naming (probably)?

            • realChem@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              I think Jerboa has a set list they show (or maybe they show the several most popular). You should just be able to type in the name of the instance though, I don’t think you need to pick one that’s specifically shown in the dropdown.

            • Chris Ely@fosstodon.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              You can type any instance you like into that field. A lot of people were confused by a drop-down that also lets you enter text. You are not alone.

      • Kaldo@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Do you know perhaps if there’s a simple way of syncing subscriptions between multiple accounts?

    • flora_explora@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Hm, sure the effect is as you describe (if you don’t go multi-account). However, I have experienced over and over again how only a few bad actors can totally ruin an otherwise safe and welcoming community. The only solution so far was always to restrict ourselves to fewer but trusted users. And this happened even in trans only spaces where other trans people were bigots themselves.

      Maybe, as pointed out above, it is a difference in interest and priorities. If your priority is to see more content but with the drawback of more bigoted behavior, probably an account in the now de-federated instances is a good idea. However, as I understand it, the reason for many people to join here was specifically to create this protected space where we err rather on the safe site.

      And btw I would love to see more queer and specifically trans spaces on Beehaw ;)

    • Pigeon@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      You could always pick up shop and move to, like, lemmy.one, which federates with beehaw and likewise disables downvotes (if you like that, elsewise choose somewhere else), and still access beehaw communities while also continuing to access lemmy.world and etc. Or use multiple accounts. This is inconvenient if you want your comment history all in one place, but I think that’s just always going to be harder in the fediverse anyway.

      I hardly think this move defeats the whole purpose of the fediverse, when the fediverse is deliberately set up to allow different instances to moderate themselves differently, and spread the system out over different servers precisely so that you can choose the one you prefer, or so that if one goes down it doesn’t take the whole thing down. There are plenty of instances that aren’t moderated in the way beehaw is, if you dislike it.

      Imo, if anything, the fediverse purpose of allowing for different moderation in different instances is rather defeated if random people from free-signup servers can just waltz in to more strictly moderated servers and be assholes whenever they want, which will only become more of a problem as more people show up and import their sometimes terrible reddit behavior. It’d just chase out a lot of the people whose comments and posts I’m enjoying here.