The Beehaw project is entering some significant challenges - Beehaw
beehaw.org
There is a lot of discussion happening in the background of our project here. We could not anticipate all of the challenges that we were going to face a few years ago. One of the reasons for this was because we had no idea what our choice of a platform would bring. Specifically, we chose Lemmy as the software that we would use to launch our endeavor to attempt a safe space for marginalized persons online. In the first year or so, this choice was completely successful for a very small number of users. And then we all experienced an enormous influx of users when Reddit announced/implemented their shutting down of third party apps. Since then there has been a huge number of people that have joined the Beehaw project. This tsunami of users initiated technical problems, and otherwise, that we could not foresee. Thankfully and fortunately, we have had a couple of incredibly knowledgeable persons that have swooped in to ’save the day’ and keep this site running. Unfortunately, these persons will NOT be able to continue to support the Beehaw project much further. They have life commitments and other factors, including careers and family life, that will prevent them from contributing to our project in an ongoing fashion. All that being said, Lemmy (the software that Beehaw runs on) development is incredibly slow and is riddled with problems that makes administration/moderation very painful. 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). The aforementioned persons, that have ’swooped in to save the day’, have been discussing/working with us to come up with the best solutions that would enable the Beehaw project to continue while NOT needing incredibly experienced/technically adept persons around. Right now, we are testing alternative software platforms and evaluating them based on everything that we want Beehaw to become in the future. Thank you all for your continued support of the Beehaw project and entrusting us to make this happen.
  • CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    447·
    1 year ago

    Yeah we all understand that they want quality content but its getting ridiculous on their part, its not that hard to moderate if you get some Mods. And if its that hard to moderate it may be because guidelines are either to strict or straight up ridiculous…

    • Z4rK@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      1 year ago

      They probably are fairly strict, and from my experience the moderators / admins are fairly opinionated on a lot of topics, so it’s hard to grow a large, like-minded community.

      I really do hope they manage to stick around in the fediverse though even if that means they will have to isolate themselves a lot. I think the fediverse will be much stronger and better if communities like beehaw can manage to exist in it.

      • CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        174·
        1 year ago

        Idk, beehaw isn’t the most important thing and i get wanting to grow your stuff, but beehaw is like someone planting a forest of just one specific tree and they kill every other tree, its becoming a echo chamber like hexbear and Lemmygrad where they just keep radicalizing each other.

        • Z4rK@lemmy.worldEnglish
          53·
          1 year ago

          You can have narrow and niche interest communities and echo chambers without it being “radicalizing” each other. They can just all be very interested in this one type of tree, and that’s fine be me.

            • snooggums@kbin.social
              2·
              1 year ago

              But not all types of plants, as invasive species will wipe out diversity.

              Have to find a place where there is variety that is within a certain range of the rest so they bring each other up.