Like many of you, I woke up this morning to discover that our instance, along with lemmy.world, had been unexpectedly added to the beehaw block list. Although this development initially caught me off guard, the administrators at beehaw made an announcement shedding light on their decision.
The primary concern raised was our instance's policy of open registration. Given my belief that the fediverse is still navigating its early stages, I believe that for it to mature, gain traction, and encourage adoption, it is crucial for instances to offer an uncomplicated and direct route for newcomers to join and participate. This was one of the reason I decided to launch this instance. However, I do acknowledge that this inclusive approach brings its unique challenges, including the potential for toxicity and trolls. Despite these hurdles, I maintain the conviction that our collective strength as a community can overcome these issues.
After this happened, the beehaw admins and I had a good chat about their decision. While our stances on registration policies might diverge, we realized that our ultimate goals are aligned: we both strive to foster communities that thrive in an atmosphere of safety and respect, where users can passionately engage in discussions and feel a sense of belonging.
Although the probability of an immediate reversal are slim given the current circumstances, I believe we have managed to identify common ground. It's evident that, even in separation, we can unite to contribute positively to the broader fediverse community.
In the coming weeks or months, we plan to collaborate with other lemmy instance administrators to suggest enhancements and modifications to the lemmy project. Primarily, our proposals will concentrate on devising tools and features that empower us, as instance administrators, to moderate our platforms effectively.
In the meantime, while I understand may not be ideal for everyone, users who choose to participate on the beehaw instance will be required to register a separate account on their instance.
Thank you all for continuing to make this community great!
Are you talking about the early days of the internet and email, or the Fediverse today? I can't tell which.
You say that like I'm the admin of an instance with 13k users with the platform to crowdfund additional developers on the core project. I have a simpler idea though, what if I engineer a crisis by splitting the network and forcing existing devs to choose between working on my pet features or forking the network with no notice. That sounds way easier.
I think your phrase "the Fediverse today" is significant, because Beehaw didn't feel a need to take a breather a week ago, and both of their mod announcements re: defederation have pretty explicitly called it a temporary change.
Seems to me the mod team just wants a moment to evaluate what the new traffic is going to look like a week from now. I can't think of an objection to that.
I'm talking about the fediverse since tech has advanced quite a bit from when email was first starting up which has increased the capability of trolls to cause problems.
As for why you should help out, you're the one demanding access to a community that has set rules and doesn't have the tools to enforce it exactly the way you want so.... Maybe step up and stop complaining so much? How is it such a crisis that a community closes it's gates? It's likely not permanent and can be reversed when said mod tools reach the usability needed.