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.

  • realChem@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    At least for me at least, I personally err on the side of having more freedom to look into places even if that means dealing with a couple of assholes.

    This decision was about users from other instances coming here and causing trouble, not beehaw users going elsewhere. The intent isn’t to keep users siloed in here. Unfortunately, lemmy currently only supports two modes of interaction between instances: either you federate, or you don’t. More technologically mature fediverse platforms like mastodon have more nuanced options, and hopefully we’ll get similar options in lemmy soon that will allow, e.g., beehaw users out onto these instances without letting everyone on those instances in here.

    • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPM
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      1 year ago

      This decision was about users from other instances coming here and causing trouble, not beehaw users going elsewhere. The intent isn’t to keep users siloed in here.

      yeah to be clear: we don’t want this either! it sucks! but that’s how it is and we’re willing to ultimately bite that bullet and any potential consequences.

      • Yabai@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I just fail to see how this solves anything, people can easily sign up here or another non-blocked instance to troll.

        • Dee@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          people can easily sign up here or another non-blocked instance

          It requires approval to sign up here and a lot of the other instances Beehaw is federated with, because of that filter it will drastically cut down on trolls and make moderation much easier for the small team here.

          The beauty of the fediverse is that we can go make a lemmy.world account and enjoy all that content if we want. I have an account there already, and a kbin.social account because it’s temporarily defederated from just about everyone.

          • Pigeon@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            We need maybe a desktop client that can independently make it easy for each user to switch between accounts, like Jerboa apparently enables for android (and mlem for IOS, maybe?)

            • Gmr Leon@mstdn.social
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              1 year ago

              @Lowbird @Dee_Imaginarium On desktop you can be signed into different instances via different tabs, unless I’m misunderstanding you. Arguably a little clunky, but I do this with Mastodon to switch between a more moderated & focused instance, & a more general instance.

              I imagine some may end up approaching Lemmy similarly now with Beehaw’s decision (which I understand & honestly anticipated happening sooner).

              • Dee@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Yeah, that’s what I do for now until better functionality is developed for switching in Lemmy. It’s not the best but still plenty workable for me.

        • Rentlar@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          The two blocked instances in particular allow signup without application. To sign up here you need to show you are of good character. Sure, other instances’ applications aren’t as rigorous but due to waiting periods it will still discourage people from making spam/troll accounts and evade user bans.

          One particular thing in the modlog I spotted was a username lgbtslayer from a now-defederated instance making a stupid and nasty post in the LGBTQ+ community on here. No self-respecting admin reviewing applications would allow a username with a clear meaning to be hurtful to others. Seems like the Beehaw admins are plugging this hole earlier rather than later before it becomes too much for the handful of them to handle.

          • Pigeon@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Yeah. It won’t prevent people from play-acting like they’re legitimately on board with beehaw’s philosophy to get in the door, but the number of people willing to go to that length will be a lot smaller. And if we were to get brigaded by some concerted effort to sneak trolls in the door, beehaw can close the door even more, temporarily.

      • flamingarms@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Is there a way for us to see all the instances you have defederated from? As a new user, it’s really confusing that I can still go to a community and post a comment there without knowing that we’re defederated from them and they will never see it.

        • Cass.Forest@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          If you scroll all the way to the bottom, there’s a link that says Instances; it’ll show you every instance Beehaw has blocked.

        • Pigeon@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Oof, yeah, that doesn’t sound great.

          Apparently users from instances that don’t disable downvotes have a similar confusion when they look at beehaw content, too, because their instances show them downvote buttons and counts (local to their instance I guess?) that don’t actually get applied on beehaw in any way.

          • flamingarms@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Oh that’s interesting. So it’s not just a connection being made when it comes to federation; contributions are stored locally somehow too, maybe?

    • mustyOrange@beehaw.org
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      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
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        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
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          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
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            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
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                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
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              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
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                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
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                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
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          1 year ago

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

      • flora_explora@beehaw.org
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        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
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        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.

    • fievel@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Do you know if there is an issue on lemmy github about this feature you talk about (more flexible federation options) ? So we can follow or maybe contribute

      • realChem@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I know there’s a general issue to track shortcomings in the mod tooling: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/2277

        There’s also an issue to allow users to block certain instances themselves, which would be helpful with this kind of thing: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/2397

        There are a lot of open issues at the moment on lemmy’s github. I’m not sure if there’s something specific to this issue yet. I wasn’t able to find one but I may well have just used the wrong search keywords (I don’t know all the activitypub lingo yet). If not, one should definitely be opened! (And if I happen across one I’ll update this comment.)