I’m sure people here can empathize with having all the tech wizards get burnt out and leave, and all the various teething problems but this is a bit much… lemmy has its issues but plenty of sites larger and smaller than beehaw are getting on just fine. Perhaps the lib sysadmins are just going back to brunch?

  • pooh [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    78·
    10 months ago

    Therefore, we are left with some options that may feel uncomfortable to us. For example, we may want to consider leaving the Fediverse for another software platform that does NOT include ActivityPub. To explain, Fediverse/ActivityPub are very positive concepts on the foundational level. However, the Beehaw project is struggling to include this because most of our moderation/content/ethos is being jeopardized from OTHER federated instances (i.e. it, mostly, is NOT coming from within our own Beehaw registered user base).

    Sounds like they don’t like federation and just want to isolate their own instance. Why couldn’t they just defederate instead of going through the process of migrating to another platform? Is it really that difficult to do?

    EDIT: Thinking about this a little more, it seems like the admins (or admin?) have a very specific idea of the kind of community they want, and are getting frustrated when everything isn’t perfect to their vision, whether that’s lemmy code or other instances they are federated with. Then they complain and contribute nothing towards making the fediverse better. I guess what I’m saying is that they really do seem to want a walled garden that’s perfect to some idealized community that only exists in their heads, and I don’t think communities really work like that.

      • pooh [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        10 months ago

        Not being federated can certainly work (we did fine here for 3 years without it), but I was speaking more about this desire to create the “perfect” community isolated from everything else.

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      12·
      10 months ago

      EDIT: Thinking about this a little more, it seems like the admins (or admin?) have a very specific idea of the kind of community they want, and are getting frustrated when everything isn’t perfect to their vision, whether that’s lemmy code or other instances they are federated with. Then they complain and contribute nothing towards making the fediverse better. I guess what I’m saying is that they really do seem to want a walled garden that’s perfect to some idealized community that only exists in their heads, and I don’t think communities really work like that.

      An old-school forum would hit 100% of their needs (mature software that isn’t janky like Lemmy, they have low activity meaning nested comments and activity sorting aren’t needed, better moderation tools), but they still have Reddit brainworms and believe forums are technologically inferior to Reddit.

  • sicklemode [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    64·
    10 months ago

    This is hardly a surprise. When you adopt an anti-communist stance, you pave the way for unhealthy social trends to takeover, which increases the moderation workload considerably, and forces you into an unsustainable method of operating. Perhaps the decay has finally reached a stage advanced enough to send them back to the likes of Silicon Valley centralized models.

    Hexbear has survived all this time because, like China, has been engaging in self-reform to address the problem of rise and fall. So long as Hexbear continues this path, it will continue to go the distance.

    The other big instances that are here today may not be in a few months, or years. Fascinating to see from a dialectical perspective.

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      47·
      10 months ago

      Hexbear has survived all this time because, like China, has been engaging in self-reform to address the problem of rise and fall. So long as Hexbear continues this path, it will continue to go the distance.

      I want to say that another major factor is that communists have a sense of “just keep going” to them. Keep the work going, keep marching, keep building. The only thing that you can do is push through adversity and keep moving forwards.

      There have been several moments in Hexbear’s history where people could have given up on it, team burnout and emotional distress in particular. But instead decided to just keep up the long march. Pushing through those down times eventually led to the good times.

      A big part of this is willpower and real dedication to the mission goal.

      • sicklemode [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        10 months ago

        Absolutely. Unlike liberals, who have no sense of direction or any clue how to move toward the future, communists actually engage in development, both self and collective. Thus, we have a future, whereas liberals stand still and let all of this just pass them by (like US infrastructure compared to China’s).

        Liberalism will always be doomed to fail, just as capitalism will always follow the trend toward common ruin. The pursuit of communism will always follow the trend of common prosperity and the revitalization of the people.

        Leave these relics of failed states to toddle off the coil while we continue to build a better future.

  • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    63·
    10 months ago

    This is really sad for me. Beehaw was what helped me really dive into the Fediverse, and then I found midwest.social through them, and then you guys federated, and now I’m here… but they’re such a kind and sweet place on the Internet.

    I get that they’re mostly lib af, but still, they’re very kind, well-meaning folk, and I wouldn’t have found you all without them.

    I’ve been meaning to dive back in over there to say hi and be supportive but have had so much irl stuff going on, and man oh man, it just really hurts my heart that they’re going through such terrible growing pains. I meant to contribute to the living expenses of one of the admins because I appreciate their work so much, and then I adhd-taxed myself and got some overdraft fees and was distracted with hexbear in the meantime and totally forgot, and damn do I feel like an asshole.

    Idk what the point of this is, except to say that they’re really wonderfully kind people over there, and I’m so sorry that things are getting so difficult for them.

    I need to put some money where my heart is and contribute more to them and to hexbear.

    • cynetri (he/any)English
      31·
      10 months ago

      midwest.social mentioned 🔥🔥🔥 but yeah thats the vibe i got from them too. one of the few libby instances that dont still constantly bring up hexbear despite defederating, pretty unfortunate to lose em

      • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        10 months ago

        Do you know why? This piece is the shortest of many essays they’ve got about what they’re trying to achieve and why. The basic gist is that they want to make a kind, supportive online community as a refuge for marginalized people. It’s an anti-dunking community, so definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m curious what about them might cause a negative view.

        Edit: I really appreciate all the information and perspective ❤️ thanks, everyone

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          45·
          10 months ago

          Do you know why?

          They pre-emptively defederated from Hexbear (more than a year before we even had the ability to federate) making up the excuse that hatespeech(lmao yeah ok suuuure) was their reason for doing so. The reality is that they have been anti-communists from the start, they are an explicitly neoliberal project with the intent of grooming their users into neoliberalism, but this goal must remain secret so they couldn’t just say “we defederated from hexbear because they’re socialists”, hence the lies.

          As you can probably imagine, this creates a lot of animosity here.

        • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netMEnglish
          25·
          10 months ago

          Most of us became aware of them when they made an announcement in the midst of the Reddit exodus red scare accusing us of bigotry and hate speech, so our first broad impression was that they are (administrated by) fucking morons who are perfectly comfortable lying about other communities.

        • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          8·
          10 months ago

          Their instance sucks. They’re just libs with a massive civility fetish. The only credit I’ll give them is they at least aren’t trying to recreate Reddit without spez like the rest of the Ledditor instances. It actually would make sense for a civility fetish instance that doesn’t actually want to recreate Reddit to have second thoughts about staying on a shitty Reddit clone.

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    52·
    10 months ago

    Good riddance?

    They’ve contributed nothing to lemmy but pain and problems. They do not provide any value to it. They do not federate with anyone. They’ve done nothing but take from the devs and done nothing but try to harm the project.

    Sounds like internal issues. Whoever exists on their team that has the basic minimum technical knowledge to implement anything is burned and leaving so they’re trying to put a spin on this.

  • VHS [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    48·
    10 months ago

    i’m not really familiar with the nitty-gritty details of the software, but what could be such a large issue with lemmy that it’s unworkable to run beehaw (700 users/month) while instances several times the size are getting along just fine? skill issue?

    • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      61·
      10 months ago

      Beehaw admins have been complaining about the difficulty of modding federated users for a while. I think this is partly a skill issue, partly that they’re federated with some of the worse lib instances we’ve defedded, and also partly that they’ve prohibited dunking but not saying dumb libshit worthy of dunking.

    • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netMEnglish
      24·
      10 months ago

      In short, they are uncomfortable collaborating with communists on the technical end and lack the expertise / willpower to maintain a fork independently. It is kind of a skill issue, but there is no need to over-glorify the code-monkeys either. A community of 700+ people certainly has people among its ranks with the skills to do this work. What it lacks is the motivation. Nobody sees it as a calling. Nobody sees it as urgent or necessary work.