I am one of the admins of Beehaw and I’m trying to get some feedback on our potential move.

Let’s start out with a little Beehaw history before judgements are passed, please.

A handful of us were beta testing Tildes when we decided to have discussions on a Discord server.

We decided that our ‘Northern Star’ or guiding principle would culminate as ‘Be Nice’ with purposefully vague/flexible interpretations. Our overall goal is to provide a safe space to disenfranchised persons.

We talked for a little over a year and some of our members became impatient. Then someone stepped in to suggest a couple of platforms that we could consider getting started with.

One of those platforms was Lemmy. None of us knew, at that time, anything about ActivityPub.

During the Reddit exodus (surrounding the API outcry and blackout), our instance exploded. We were, initially, crippled by the mass amounts of users seeking refuge.

Thankfully, someone stepped in and volunteered hundreds of hours of work to stabilize our instance and refine it further.

After many hours of talks, it became clear to us that our overall goal could be achieved outside of Lemmy/ActivityPub.

Right now, we feel that Lemmy and ActivityPub have downsides that are limiting us from achieving that goal.

  • derbis@beehaw.org
    4·
    11 months ago

    Can you be more specific about the downsides?

    I joined this instance because I was looking for a lemmy instance and to be on the fediverse. I mean I can still do that on a different instance, so if that’s the way you decide to go it isn’t the end of the world.

    I guess the core group has its motivations that are not necessarily shared by every user, although presumably our ideals are aligned. This is the first I’m hearing that the association with Lemmy is incidental.

    Whether I’d stick around or not, I’m not sure. One thing I like about the fediverse is that it presents a real shot at being a free-culture alternative to corporate social media, and I think losing federation with one of the most successful instances would be a loss for that movement.

    If you do defederate, would you continue to use Lemmy as the software for the community? Being able to use the mobile apps is convenient and honestly that’s probably the thing that has me logging in as much as I do.