FantasticFox

Why lemmy.world should not defederate from beehaw.org.

https://lemmy.world/post/151254

Why lemmy.world should not defederate from beehaw.org. - Lemmy.world

What defederating would mean: - We won’t see beehaw.org [http://beehaw.org] posts/comments on other instances. Pros: - There is less confusion, you can’t respond to a beehaw.org [http://beehaw.org] user, thinking they will be able to see your response when in reality they cannot. Cons: - We won’t be able to see any beehaw.org [http://beehaw.org] comments/posts on other instances, so we will miss out on some comment threads and posts. It could be good to be able to see them and interact with the other users there even though beehaw.org [http://beehaw.org] users won’t see any of our content. Summary Overall, I think it is better not to defederate, but simply unsubscribe from all of their communities (and as we no longer get posts from their instance, with time these will cease to appear on our ‘front page’). beehaw.org [http://beehaw.org] users already can’t see our posts/comments anywhere so it’s not like defederating would change their experience in any way, so it wouldn’t really be retaliation and would just limit the content available to lemmy.world users. What do you think?

Jun 15, 2023 at 9:28amWeb
Show threadflimsyberryJun 15, 2023
My gut feeling is that defederation should be done as little as possible. I'm quite new to all this, but to me, it feels like it should be user preference instead of admin/mod preference. I have no clue whether that is even possible though. Perhaps there should be more filters than just Subscribed, Local and All to alleviate certain issues.
Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023
One problem atm is that a user can't block by instance, just by community or individual users. It seems a lot of people are requesting this ability though so hopefully it gets added in the future.
Show threadflimsyberryJun 15, 2023
I think that would be great feature. Do I understand correctly that if a user would want to do that now that they have to set up their own instance and determine what to federate and what not?
Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023
Yeah, I'm not sure how complicated it is. With the cloud, getting a server is pretty cheap and easy nowadays and maybe someone already has a Docker image set up to make it as simple as possible. There are step-by-step instructions somewhere.
Show threadt҉̠̙ǵ̣̞̄ͪ͜x̸̱͚̳ͫ͐̑̈ͯͣ̚n̒͌҉͉̦̜̝ͅJun 15, 2023
There sure are and it's as easy as ABC if you know what to look for. 👍
Show threadsveritJun 15, 2023
Yes, that would be perfect and could have avoided beehaw's decision.
Show threadpoVoqJun 15, 2023
They might also remove the block again in the future when moderation tools have improved and/or lemmy.world does a better job at vetting users, and then it would work better to have never blocked them.
Show threadNorthernLightMountainJun 15, 2023
That's basically what they said they'd do
Show threadcertain_peopleJun 15, 2023
Except their perspective of "when moderation tools have improved" is "when our users can use other instances but their users aren't allowed here"
Show threadbdonvrJun 15, 2023

I don't see any problem with that. They want their own little community.

Then they could have that but still contribute to the wider "threadiverse".

Show threadsocialjusticewizardJun 15, 2023
This keeps coming up but like... So? If beehaw users are putting good content up on a sh.itjust.works community, and making good replies and stuff, who cares if I can't go do the same on their semiprivate instance? I'm just happy to have the user.
Show thread🅿🅸🆇🅴🅻Jun 15, 2023

So we'll still see posts from beehaw users on other instances that beehaw still federates with?

Will we be able to interact with the above posts (vote / comment)? I'm guessing yes, because the posts would be hosted on those 3rd party instances still federating with beeehaw, not beehaw.

If I inderstand correctly, I'd be in favor of keeping the federation, which in short means "keep interaction with beehaw users through other instances", even if we lost sync and interaction with "beehaw communities / posts in those communities."

Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023

Yeah, we can see them and interact with them. But the beehaw users won't see our comments, the other users on the instance will. So it could be confusing if you were expecting a reply from a beehaw user - as they won't even be able to see your reply.

I'm not sure how voting works, I guess our votes would count? As the copy is held on the instance? But maybe beehaw users wouldn't see them.

Show threadnivenkosJun 15, 2023
This is still confusing though. Ideally there'd at least be a warning in the UI that you are replying to a user who won't see your comment.
Show threadbdonvrJun 15, 2023
You'd be able to see and interact with comments/posts made by BeeHaw users on other instances. However note that the BeeHaw user will never see it. Everyone else will.
Show threadchimayJun 15, 2023

I’m not sure we will be able to read beehaw comments & posts, see this post :

https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/24341/How-the-beehaw-defederation-affects-us

How the beehaw defederation affects us - lemmyworld - kbin.social

ou might have seen that we've been defederated from beehaw.org. I think there's some necessary context to understand what this means to the users on this instance....

Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023

We see them on other instances, from that post:

Why do I see posts/comments from beehaw users on communities outside lemmy.world and beehaw.org?

That's because the "true" version of those posts is outside beehaw. So we get updates from those posts. And lemmy.world didn't defederate beehaw, so posts/comments from beehaw users can still come to versions hosted on lemmy.world.

The reverse is not true. Because beehaw defederate lemmy.world, any post/comment from a lemmy.world users will NOT be sent to the beehaw version of the post.

Show threadchimayJun 15, 2023
so, if I understand correctly, we wont see them on their own instance, but elsewhere
Show threadbdonvrJun 15, 2023
Yes, however they won't be able to see your responses.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023

What happened? Why are they making this move? I think it's a bad idea to start defederating, especially this early.

Edit: How effective or practical, for lemmy.world in the future, would a voting system be for defederating? In case it comes to that for us.

Cause it seems like a very dramatic approach, with only a few people making the decision to drop a ton of content yknow.

Not sure if it's possible even, I know it comes down to our admin, but they seem pretty cool. I dunno just thinking aloud.

Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023
They said they couldn't deal with the level of abuse and spam that came from lemmy.world users. They have a much more restrictive content policy and smaller, centralised moderation team than most other instances which exacerbated the problem.
Show thread🅿🅸🆇🅴🅻Jun 15, 2023
Just like kbin, on beehaw the communities are fixed, and only admins can create communities, right?
Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023
Yep. It has the benefit that it concentrates the userbase in the existing communities. But it also creates a really static site and is at more risk of moderator abuse.
Show threadGONADS125Jun 15, 2023
If reddit taught me anything, it's a question of when; not if.
Show threadarkcomJun 15, 2023
Anyone can make a magazine on kbin.
Show threadOtome-chanJun 15, 2023
here on kbin users can create communities freely. on beehaw, they cannot.
Show threadorangepeeljediJun 15, 2023
What's even the point then? I guess it's either Reddit or no reddit.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
Tbh, that's kinda hard to believe. I have seen zero malicious activity in my 4 days here. Maybe their standards are just higher than mine, not sure that's a good thing in this case but whatever. Damn that sucks, beehaw had some good stuff.
Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023
Same, I've found the attitude really positive here. It reminds me of early Reddit in like 2008.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
Yea I'm having quality discussions, the kind that get zero traction on reddit.
Show threadGONADS125Jun 15, 2023

Exactly. Relevant discussion has continued to decline and be suppressed by stupid memes and puns. Can barely find any relevant discussion in comments anymore.

On reddit, it wouldn't be unusual that someone would talk shit to me for having a thought-out, long reply to someone.

It feels like 60% of the users are pissy teenagers spreading anti-intellectualism and another 30% are bots. Aside from a specific few niche subreddits, I don't miss reddit at all...

Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023

One sub I was subbed to literally turned into memes, where even the comments were just links to memes and people carrying out full length discussions that way.

I sort of missed the meme culture period. And I always enjoyed writing, so it's pretty nice here.

I went and checked reddit for first time today since the 11th and I left right away.

Show threadcuraJun 15, 2023
From what I saw on their post, it seems there are bad faith actors registering in lemmy.world just to harass beehaw.org.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023

Sigh.

Who tf comes online just to troll "beehaw" some obscure instance on an obscure platform? That's crazy to me lol.

Show threadsotolfJun 15, 2023
Yeah, some people are really werid.
Show threadCarbonIceDragonJun 15, 2023

I mean, there are trolls on Reddit to be fair, it's not terribly surprising that if a lot of Reddit users move to some place, a bunch of trolls will come with, either because they too don't like reddit's changes, or because they see new communities to mess with. And I can imagine that, if someone is a troll and gets enjoyment out of bothering people and causing anger, that a community that is pretty restrictive in it's rules and tries to maintain a "calm" and "safe" sort of vibe is probably going to be a more satisfying target?

Beyond that, I do think I recall seeing one of the beehaw admins saying something about not wanting theirs to be the place all the redditors move to, because they don't want keeping the community run and moderated to be a full time thing and because they want quality over quantity, in terms of their community. If they feel like they're reaching the limit of how big a community they can comfortably handle and dont want it getting much bigger, then a controversial move like this that might lose them some users isn't going to be a problem for them.

I'm not saying I like this move, I don't personally have any real stake in it obviously not being hosted on either instance involved but I worry that fragmentation like this while people are starting to really look into the platform as a whole isn't a great look for lemmy, -but I do get where they are coming from.

Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
That's fair. I don't really have a horse in the race, just curious about the whole situation.
Show threadGONADS125Jun 15, 2023
Alt-righters and 4-chan users. They often feel justified thru their delusions and rationalizations.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
"Who tf are these people?" Is a question I find myself asking quite often lol.
Show threadLolsJun 15, 2023
from what i understand you will still be able to see their content, they just wont be able to see content from lemmy.world or shitjustworks
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
Yea same. Well we can still interact with each other on their posts I suppose 🤷
Show threadLolsJun 15, 2023
you can interact with me on their posts, however they will not see your comments ik pretty sure
Show threadShakeThatYamJun 15, 2023
What's dumb is that if someone wanted to troll them they could just make an account on any number of smaller instances that they federate with. I mean, eventually they will have to be completely siloed off to prevent outside trolling.
Show threadFantasticFoxJun 15, 2023
Yeah, I suspect they will move to a whitelist the moment that functionality becomes available. Or just defederate entirely from everything and become a walled garden.
Show threadKrestenJun 15, 2023
A whitelisting feature already exists.
Show threadLolsJun 15, 2023

thats pretty unfair, theres no reason to think that they intend on cutting themselves off from the fednet entirely

according to them this is a temporary measure until they have better tools for moderation, more mods or until things have calmed down a bit, I dont see any reason to question that

Show thread🅿🅸🆇🅴🅻Jun 15, 2023
I hope they ran this defederatiom thing by their users first.
Show threadWolfric1982Jun 15, 2023
They did not. It was just dumped on everyone earlier today
Show threadGONADS125Jun 15, 2023

I'm all for protecting users from bigoted assholes, but I would be very unhappy as one of the users they aim to protect due to feeling as tho they believe they know how to act in the best interest of their users, when they don't give their community a seat at the grown-ups' table to make the decision.

I'd rather not be part of an instance in which drastic, sweeping actions are taken without consideration or feedback from their userbase. I'm not even arguing that they are wrong in doing what they did; just that I wouldn't appreciate being treated like they know what's best for me. Feels like being treated like a child.

I don't want to be part of an instance in which I'll suddenly lose access to content across Lemmy because it's 'in my best interest' according to internet strangers.

With that said, hopefully we stop accruing bigoted assholes here, we get better mod tools, and things can be refederated.

Show threadWolfric1982Jun 15, 2023
I had an account on beehaw and once I saw the post I immediately created a new account on lemmy.world for the exact reason you described. I don't want to be cut off or told what I can and can't see.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
That was my thought as well. Seems like a bad idea this early in the social experiment.
Show thread🅿🅸🆇🅴🅻Jun 15, 2023
Well, we're the new ones to the social experiment, they were here first :) Disappointing decision though.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
That's fair. Need to check my reddit privilege lol.
Show threadWolfric1982Jun 15, 2023
So I have an account on beehaw and pointed this out earlier to the admins. Got snapped at because how dare I try and say what they will do in the future. I was also told if they were going to defederate from everyone they already would have. Didn't really get a response as to what they would do once people start to trolling from other instances. They don't think it'll be a problem from what I gathered
Show threadShakeThatYamJun 15, 2023
If anything this is just going to make them an even larger target for trolling. I don't have a good solution for what they should do. But it seems that fediverse is antithetical to their goals.
Show threadWolfric1982Jun 15, 2023
I know. It's not hard to lie your way into their instance if you really wanted to or one that has criteria to join. I really don't think they know what they got themselves into with this decision because you're right, they put a huge target on their backs.
Show threadLolsJun 15, 2023

they could, but in practice it would never amount to the level of trolling and toxicity they are receiving from .world and justworks

folks are taking this too seriously imo

Show threadPriorProjectJun 15, 2023

What happened? Why are they making this move? I think it’s a bad idea to start defederating, especially this early.

  • Beehaw admins explained the move in this post: https://beehaw.org/post/567170
  • This post explains what it means for lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works users: https://lemmy.world/post/149743.
Show threadMiddleWeighJun 15, 2023
Yea I understand now. Makes sense. They're trying to curate their own thing. All good. Thanks
Show threadDarkwingDuckJun 16, 2023
Not all good. We should temporarily defederate them until they come to their senses, in fact most instances should do it together. Let them have their walled garden.