ANNOUNCEMENT: defederating effective immediately from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works
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.
Hmmm; I am new to LemmyNet AND Beehaw.org; but have been falling in love with the platforms. However, I do want to see 'all' of LemmyNet.
What is the lemmyworld 'open registration policy? I ask because all I needed to supply to register HERE is a username/password. ??? Isn't that open registration?
Second, why not allow more moderators - please don't feel like you have to go over old stuff... I'm going to read thru some of Beehaw.org's PAST posts that I'm sure talk about this issue - but it seems like theres a great Beehaw.org community - if yer having issue w/ moderation, hire moderators; I bet the 'cost' is pretty cheap.
Last; what LemmyNet community should one join if they WANT to see the entire LemmyNet? I came aboard Beehaw.org BECAUSE I agreed w/ most of what the site stands for; but since I'm really getting into Lemmy I think I want to be where 'everything' is - good and bad.
Thanks for the explanation - even if confusing for a new user.
all I needed to supply to register HERE is a username/password
The application also had a required question you needed to answer about why you wanted to join this community in particular, which was then read and manually approved by a human.
if yer having issue w/ moderation, hire moderators; I bet the ‘cost’ is pretty cheap
Monetarily, it's free. We moderate as volunteers. But keep in mind that there's both an overhead to vetting new moderators, as well as the fact that it will always be faster to troll and harass than to clean up the aftermath of that trolling and harassment. That, combined with the fact that there are way more people who'd like to do a little trollin' than there are people willing to volunteer their time to keep tabs on things, and you should be able to see how poorly this solution scales. The admins have addressed this a few times in comments on this thread, which I'm sure you'll probably turn up if you do decide to read through it.
what LemmyNet community should one join if they WANT to see the entire LemmyNet
Any instance that still federates with beehaw.org, lemmy.world, and sh.itjust.works. There are many smaller instances, regional instances, interest-specific instances, etc that fit the bill. I'd recommend looking around and finding one that seems like a good fit for what you're personally going for.
OK; understood and FULLY agree with your registration vs. others that can be gamed by a script kiddy. That question, and response, was part of the reason I chose Beehaw, too - I get it, thanks.
I get it that hiring new moderators would take some work; and I wouldn't suggest or support just letting anyone doso - like ME... I think I'm too new to be 'trusted' to doso - but it seems like you have many members of the Beehaw community that might want to help, and fit.
Thanks - I'll check the list of LemmyNet sites and pick the largest one - I suppose lemmy.world is the 'WHQ' and might best fit what I'm wanting... I prefer Beehaw, but since I'm new the LemmyNet I want to see ALL of whats going on - I want to see the influx of Reddit users... I want to see where Lemmy lacks and watch it as it continues to be developed.
I respect ya'll choice to defederate, I personally think you should just ask for the community to help w/ your work; regardless of how you try to slow LemmyNet down, when its more successful your jobs are going to grow exponentially. I'd prefer if you didn't do this; and think you'd be in a better position if you simply deal with LemmyNets growth...
Thanks for the quick reply, and I aren't going anywhere - if welcome - but I'll find a fully-federated LemmyNet to bridge the gap. :P
If you do want a fully federated Lemmy, note that LemmyWorld won’t do it. Since they have been defederated by Beehaw, you will not be able to see any new content from the large communities on Beehaw. If you want to see everything, you would have to choose a home instance that is not Beehaw or Lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works. If you join another instance that is still bidirectionally federated with all three of those, then you will be able to see content from all three.
I personally think you should just ask for the community to help w/ your work; regardless of how you try to slow LemmyNet down, when its more successful your jobs are going to grow exponentially
I briefly touched on this in a few of my philosophy posts, but there are reasons why simply scaling moderation is not enough to instill a sense of community and how bad actors at scale can explicitly change a place. We're trying to cultivate something that's unfortunately exceedingly rare on the internet, and it's something that's very high touch and requires a ton of transparency because a lot of it operates on trust.
If you haven't already clicked this link in one of my posts or come across this blog article, give it a read for a general idea of what we're trying to avoid.
I can't speak for everyone but I'm from SF. I think we're mostly US based, but we do have a few sysadmins and other people helping out who are located in Europe.