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.

  • projectazar@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    This is going to be a learning process I think for a lot of people. Not just on federation, but on community building as well. You all seem to be trying to build something here, and I am willing to be patient and participate while it grows. If we get down the road and it just isn’t working, I have faith that there will be open discussion on how to make this community grow while maintaining its ethos and we’ll be here to figure out what is best for each of us individually.

    Good on you for taking decisive action at these early stages while we figure out what we want, where we want to go, and how we want to get there on this relatively new platform.

    • lwaxana_katana@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I agree, at first my knee-jerk reaction was against defederation, but I think actually this is one of the cool things about Lemmy and the way it works; you can have relatively isolated pockets and very open spaces, and users can move between them freely. It’s not like leaving Reddit and coming to Lemmy, for example. You can use Beehaw and other instances, and both can serve a specific purpose. I really appreciate this write up because without it I would not have felt good about this decision, but after having read it I get it and I appreciate it.

      • Ghostalmedia@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Defederation wouldn’t bother me so much if there was one decent unified user experience that would allow me to quickly pogo stick between separate instances and inboxes.

        I’m on iOS, and Mlem is building that out, but the experience is still pretty early in development.

      • thebestlettuce@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        users can move between them freely

        but… they really cant though can they? atm, every community on beehaw just lost a massive chunk of their userbase, and they can’t even move to a diff instance. Masto allows you to automatically move your followers to a new account on a new instance, but there just isn’t that option on Lemmy

        • lwaxana_katana@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I mean, you can create two accounts. I have my Beehaw account as well as my startrek.website account, for example. I use them both for different things, and they both have different vibes. I quite like it tbh.

            • The Cuuuuube@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              Does it, though? Federation is not aggregation. It’s a model of interaction in which a community can curate what other communities they interact with. It can be more nuanced with limiting, as mastodon does, but that’s not an option here yet. I think this is precisely what federation is at its core

              • chris.@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                agreed, as someone who’s used fediverse platforms for a few years & seen cases of large scale raiding as well as just general infestation between some normal & some pretty bad servers, defederation is one of the main pros of the fediverse. without effective moderation, a community like ours cannot exist for long, & the only way to effectively moderate a foreign server full of literal tens of thousands of users who abide to a completely different law is to cut them off. while having to make an alt can be slightly inconvenient to some, the only alternative for a popular server like ours is to count down until it becomes too large to effectively moderate

              • Hrafn Blóðbók@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                I think this is an important point to consider. For a long time, I kept thinking that the fediverse was going to be the answer to the problem of keeping separate accounts on every site (because most places are isolated/walled-in networks). It took me years to accept that “one account everywhere” isn’t what the federation model is about.

                I wish there was such a thing, but that’s going to require portable identities/user accounts, and I don’t know why but that seems to be progressing at a snail’s pace with a bunch of stagnated RFCs everywhere (but please let me know if there is progress happening somewhere, I may be out of the loop). Once we have that, it’ll make the fediverse a lot more convenient, since then you should be able to log in to other instances with the same account.

                • The Cuuuuube@beehaw.org
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                  1 year ago

                  I think that will be something that comes down the road, but for now, it seems like it’s more of an answer to the problem of website admins running their site in a way you don’t agree with. On the Fediverse you have more flexibility to pick administrators you agree with their management style or to host your community and decide yourself how you want things to be

                  • Derproid@beehaw.org
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                    1 year ago

                    With defederation isn’t the fediverse no different from just separate bb forums we used to have that Reddir eventually killed them all off? Fediverse with too much defederation is just moving backwards and brings back the problems of the past.

                  • Hrafn Blóðbók@beehaw.org
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                    1 year ago

                    Indeed, it’s an answer to the problem of people’s right to organise and govern their own communities. It’s not perfect since federation is literally interconnected (to various degrees) centralised instances, with each one controlled by one or a select few people that the community trusts, but it’s better than commercial platforms and closed protocols.

            • lwaxana_katana@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              Sure, but maybe every instance doesn’t have to be tightly federated. There will be some instances where broad federation is their guiding principle, and some instances like Beehaw where their guiding principle is creating and maintaining a particular atmosphere.

        • JohannesOliver@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Who is “they”? The users, or the communities? Beehaw creates the communities, that’s why there are relatively few, so I don’t see that Beehaw communities would have much reason to move anyway. Beehaw has no create community button.

        • Einar@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          For that reason I am glad I don’t have my account with beehaw now, though I understand their reasoning. Being cut off from these large instances is not something I’d want right now.

          Moving an account to another instance is a feature being discussed afaik.

    • Ghostalmedia@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Can someone explain like I’m 5 for the new folks here what this means in terms of the user experience?

      What are the restrictions around viewing and commenting on posts?

      Does this impact, for example, beehaw to lemmy.world the same way as lemmy.world to beehaw?

      What mod tools would beehaw need to remain federated?

      • cnnrduncan@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Beehaw is still federated, it’s just not federated with those specific instances which means that you can’t access content posted on them through your Beehaw account and accounts on those instances can’t post/comment on Beehaw.

        • Ghostalmedia@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Can some explain why I can see beehaw content in lemmy.world, and I can comment on it? Do those lemmy.world comments just get filtered out if I’m viewing on the beehaw instance?

          • Dee@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            I believe if I understand it right any posts/comments that were present between the two prior to defederation remain cached in that instance, while new posts and comments are no longer able to connect. The comments being made on those cached posts on lemmy.world are visible only in that instance, I think. I’m still learning how this all works together so somebody feel free to correct me on that.

      • chris.@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Can someone explain like I’m 5 for the new folks here what this means in terms of the user experience?

        lemmy.world & sh.itjust.works are two huge (well, compared to many other lemmy instances) communities, so this effectively means being cut off from part of the lemmy fediverse.

        What are the restrictions around viewing and commenting on posts?

        the servers won’t be allowed to federate with us anymore. federation is the term for when an instance downloads posts, comments, profiles, upvotes, etc from another. this change means we simply won’t see posts & comments from those instances at all.

        Does this impact, for example, beehaw to lemmy.world the same way as lemmy.world to beehaw?

        not sure, but if i had to guess i’d say probably not, unless they also defederate. i’ll log into my lemmy.world backup account & test.

        EDIT: seems to affect them just the same actually, i can’t see any new posts or comments. i thought it’d only block them from posting but seems like it’s a total severance.

        What mod tools would beehaw need to remain federated?

        the admins & mods here can answer this much better than me, but from the post it seems like it’s more a problem of size & numbers than something a mod tool can solve.

        • realChem@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Defederation completely cuts the ties between instances, so no connection in either direction: lemmy.world users can’t post here (which is why this was done), and beehaw users can’t post there. The latter is less than ideal, but it’s the only lever of control lemmy has at this point for inter-instance relations. Hopefully things will change as better tooling / more granular controls are implemented.

          • chris.@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            yep, thanks for letting me know. just saw & edited my comment right as you posted lol. i thought it’d just block posts/comments from their end, didn’t realize it’d be everything

        • Wigglet@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I think the mods want kind of a one way gate so since beehaw has more restrictions, beehaw users could venture out unhindered but the lemmy world users wouldn’t be able to post or comment here unrestricted. I dont know what will be possible but it would be nice to have some sort of whitelist where posters from other instances could be white listed. With no entry requirements, the two instances removed are really easy for trolls to create as many accounts as they would like to harass.

          • GhostMagician@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            One way gate with at least an approval process would be good, since if someone can put in an application to make an account on beehaw then why can’t the same thing be offered the users from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works without them having to make a beehaw account one the tools are in place?

            And why even block them off from seeing content and vice versa. You don’t even have to be logged in to see what is on beehaw, so why suddenly so restrictive from non lurkers. I really want a subscription feed that is reliable like reddit was and not so vulnerable to the defederation when it comes to at least having my subscribed feed populated with new content.

            Sure control who can actually comment or whatever, but at least I’d like to be able to see.

            • delmain@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              Technically they still can view anything on beehaw in read-only mode by just going directly to beehaw, the same way a completely logged-out user does, that’s not blocked.

              What’s blocked is just their ability to go to their own logged-in dashboard and click “all” and see beehaw posts

        • Qaad@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          the servers won’t be allowed to federate with us anymore. federation is the term for when an instance downloads posts, comments, profiles, upvotes, etc from another.

          Dude this is the most succinct explanation of federation I’ve seen in the last few days of exploring federation and the fediverse. I wish more people would start out by explaining what it’s doing instead of just repeating what it means. Thank you so much!

    • ConstableJelly@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      This is the side I’m on. My initial reaction was alarm, but the most exciting thing for me when I first came over here from reddit was the prospect of higher-quality community participation. Negativity, generalizations, and just general unoriginality were so commonplace over there and it had been bothering me for a while well before the API drama.

      I don’t want this to be an approximation of reddit, I want it to be better. And I think taking decisive action like this, like you said, works toward that goal, at least until Lemmy provides greater moderation control and the admins here can refine their approach.