Beehaw "moderators" don't have an issue with their user base checking out other communities. As is clearly obvious from the fact that they aren't defederated from all other instances.

They do have an issue with droves of unvetted users from other instances trolling and harassing their community though. And the most effective way to deal with that currently is to defederate from the instances that the majority of those bad-faith users are coming from. The unfortunate (and unintentional) side effect is that Beehaw users won't be able to interact with any of the users from those instances.

This is a situation born out of a combination of

• lack of manpower and moderation tools
• gaps in the configuration of inter-instance interactions
• the way the internet works

You can disagree with this decision and users are free to switch, but this meme is a poor caricature of the actual effects of Beehaw's actions and (at least in my estimation) of their intentions.

The decision to defederate is less of an attack or an indictment against the other instances and more of a practical necessity for them to protect their community.

If the user base of the lemmy verse keeps growing I wouldn't be surprised if either

• more granular control over the way instances interact with each other is implemented and the restrictions are softened or
• the amount of spammers and trolls reaches a level that forces more instances to vet their users and the defederation is lifted entirely or
• more powerful moderation tools show up and in combination with a greater number of people moderating makes the pre-screening of users unnecessary

Nothing wrong with that imo. If you don't like it, just use another instance.

This system means people can foster their instances to be however they want, and that's great!

Also, fyi, if you're on lemmy.world, leave any beehaw comms you've joined and join alternate comms in other instances. The beehaw comms are going to be very empty on your end soon.

Let them do what they want. The communities you wanna check out will be available elsewhere with time.

And this a prime example of why the multi-instance system is great. Don't like one instance? Go to another one.

EDIT: I also wish to say that I feel both sides of the situation have merit. Yes, it sucks that we've been defederated, but in all fairness, there legitimately was an issue with abusive users causing havoc over on Beehaw.

beehaw initially seemed like a nice good natured well rounded place but they got controlling and weird very quickly. never even let me in, i typed pretty good faith answers and haven't heard shit ofc

Dislike the meme, because I fully believe the beehaw decisions have solid, purely technical, grounds.

Coming from sh.itjust.works. It seems there is a pattern of some attacks to forcing defederating some lemmy instances. Those threads can be found on both sh.itjust.works and lemmy.world. There are several vocal users dominating those threads (some user even reaches 20+ comments written in the same thread). Those user whose complaining user has total against, and already hostile to the instance they dislike, and interact to the other instances with bad faith, provoking, and insulting those instance. I believe this is some sort of coordinated pattern to break fediverse into echo-chamber.

IMO, defederation should be used as last resort, because normal user, especially seeking small niches, will be affected the most. In case of beehaw, there are tons of factors that are justifiable. I wish this defederation drama is not become the defining feature on both lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works.

I believe individual user can block communities and users, plus block instance feature is in the works. I wish the people who starts those threads can just do that.

They had some quality communites. Ah well, we can make them here with blackjack and hookers.

I think it’s a fair point. They won’t be able to remain federated to many instances if their point of contention is open-enrollment.

I understand needing the Lemmy moderation tools to improve and that it’s temporary, but the damage to their own communities and users may not be temporary.

Their users will turn inward and end up preferring their own communities—which is fine. However it also means that non-beehaw users will shy away from those communities in favour of others, lest their home site get de-federated at some point for the same reasons. These effects combined means slow-to-grow, low-visibility communities in the fediverse, and increases the chance that their communities may dwindle if others of the same subject become pre-eminent outside of Beehaw.

In short, while I understand their reasons, I think that it risks making Beehaw.org permanently insular and ultimately much more similar to a non-fediverse website.

I think it's a healthy part of the growth of the Fediverse. Maybe it ends up being a good idea, maybe not. Hopefully everyone can keep an open mind and learn some lessons along the way both with successes and failures. Let's be real, if this is what kills the Fediverse then the Fediverse was doomed from the start.

This is all early days and I'm just enjoying the ride. It's really just refreshing that it's not some VC backed mega corp making these decision.

if they want to hide in a lil hug box that is their perogative

Yeah, they basically make you write a cover letter. I don’t even write cover letters for jobs I want. Definitely not going to write one to be approved for an Internet forum.

I'll be honest. I really do feel their argument about open registrations is a weak one. Reddit is effectively open registration. The only thing you need on Reddit is an email and then you're in.

The moderation tools are a fair point. I really do feel like they really want to make in their eyes a safe space. Which is their perogative but not something I personally vibe with given how much they are deleting and removing. I've rarely had to step in as a moderator in the places I run, most people are behaving. One total person I had to ban and they were not from Lemmy.World.

They've only been the most popular instance for like 3 days and the mods there are already power tripping.

Unfortunately, "Defederating" is the same as "Banning yourself from everybody else", so I trust that people will vote with their (virtual) feet and move to instances with a more diverse set of federations.