welcome, new Beehaw users and lurkers. an FAQ and introduction to Beehaw
hey folks. here's a new FAQ on the community, since the currently pinned thread is a bit haphazard and crammed now, and we've had more time to go over stuff.
What is Beehaw?
in summary, we're a community that wants to cultivate a sense of real belonging to something, to foster meaningful conversations, and to ensure everyone feels valued and respected in a way that isn't the case with other social media out there. we've thought and written a lot about this. if you'd like more than that summary, we strongly encourage you to read the following essays, which explain how this community is run, what we prioritize in running it, and why we've designed it this way generally:
you don't need to write a whole essay, however: please answer the question fully, and try to engage with at least some of the content above/on the sidebar before you register.
this is not personal, but we've grown a lot and are primarily interested in users who really care for the philosophy of our community. if you don't answer the question fully, you will likely get denied or caught in registration limbo when we have a backlog of users.
How long should I expect to wait to be approved?
now that we have email working: anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours. you should get notified if you've used an email to sign up either way. make sure to check your spam folder to be safe this may be an issue for some users. if you did not use an email to sign up, try logging in after about 24 hours, and then again after 48 hours.
if we receive an influx of users you may get caught in registration limbo by failing to answer the questions, and it may take longer to get back to you than the 48 hours listed here.
I'm in! How can I keep Beehaw running, or otherwise contribute?
our instance is 100% user-funded. you can one-time donate or become a monthly donor here. you can donate anonymously both ways. as far as we're aware cryptocurrency is accepted by OpenCollective, it's just more laborious and you'll probably have to contact them to clear it.
if you have volunteer labor or advice you're willing to give us on how to keep the site running smoothly, we also generally appreciate that. our Matrix and Discord communities are the best way to offer that stuff to us.
How do I help keep the community running smoothly?
be considerate! think about the things you say and how you want to say them; be kind and charitable; don't assume the worst of people; but above all: Be(e) nice!
it might seem trite, but genuinely we've found there is no better distillation of what we want to accomplish here than that ethos. if something makes you feel like that ethos is being violated, err on the side of caution and report it (on desktop it's the flag button in the three dot menu on any post). it can't hurt. so far though we've found most people kind of know what we mean, and we're hopeful you'll be able to pick up on that too.
as for non-moderation ways you can keep things running: contribute to discussions! share stuff you find interesting! contribute your expertise and help out folks when they ask for it! it's okay—and very understandable—to lurk based on the toxicity commonplace on other social media, but we really do try to make this space as welcoming as possible to everyone here and we hope you'll find it a safer place to come out of your online shell.
What else should I know?
we always take feedback. while we can't promise any changes, you can provide thoughts and comments on just about anything on the site in Beehaw Support, or on Discord or Matrix (where we maintain real-time chat). we try to get a sense of what the community wants and needs all the time, so we'll frequently be asking for input from you to help inform our decisions.
we are all volunteers, and this is not a job for us. we would like to not have it be one, so we can just be members of the community with all of you. please help keep it that way!
Just wanted to take the opportunity to say that I actually kind of appreciate the sign-up process needing approval? I'm aware there's no quick and easy way to prevent bots and bad actors from tarnishing otherwise comfy spaces, but even just having to apply kinda makes Beehaw feel a bit safer? c:
I really like the policy of no downvotes. Honestly, even on Reddit I think downvoting had long ceased to serve any useful purpose, and turned into a harmful tool. Anything that truly is bad content can just be reported instead.
thank you to admins, this has been a a great experience, really has helped with finding a new place after reddit. The community here has been incredibly welcoming. I appreciate all the transparency and dedication.
Very happy to be here (thanks for the approval)... l have been looking around and reading through and it looks very awesome and curated content. Very happy to be part of this community :)
I joined back in April (then forgot about it...) so should I consider myself an early adoptor? Anyways, I'll spend some time familiarising myself again.
Thanks for approving me! I was looking for an art community on Lemmy as a replacement of Reddit and as far as I know, Beehaw has the biggest art community on Lemmy!
Hi guys, new here, how does this: "communities cannot be made by users on here. we do take feedback on what gets made and when to make communities" work in practice? is there a space to request a thing be created? Like for example i like to talk about wrassling shows but there's only a sports community.
Absolutely didn't mind the sign up process considering the idealogy of Beehaw at it's core. It's necessary to filter out, at the very least, the people who can't even behave for one simple "Why I want to join" message.
I do wonder what the plan is for growth, though? I can't imagine it'll be feasible to screen every sign up in a future where Beehaw continues to grow so quickly.
Hi everyone. This is an interesting place. I like that good behaving is part of the community philosophy. I can also understand why the creating a community is not allowed. Overall I have the feeling this is a place of quality.
However, disabling the down vote button leaves me with an uncomfortable taste in the mouth. I understand why this is done. This is my first post here, so I will see myself how its going to work out and decide at later time if this is a good idea or not. At least down voting unpopular opinions is such a bad thing in other communities, which would be solved here. And it still is self regulating, where top or hot comments have the most likes and comments. While writing my own comment here, I start to like disabling the dislike button.
Oh and thank god there is a Preview mode (like Github). I just wish there would be a realtime preview mode on the side.
Happy to finally be(e) here! It was worth the wait for approval. 😊 I've been watching how the Beehaw team and community has been responding and taking action during this tumultuous period and I'm absolutely impressed. Looking forward to being an active member of this community.
Hi everyone and thanks Beehaw for the easy registration. I've been on Reddit for a very long time and while I'm not very seriously attached to it in any meaningful way, it does make me extremely sad to see the direction it's going now. I found so many niche communities that I could spend my time in that were such a fun part of my day. I don't have many IRL friends and don't really have any online friends, but interacting with the strangers in the subs I carefully curated over the years was so enjoyable. I hope I can find something similar here.
Hi everyone, and a thank you to the admins for approving me! Really love the feel of this place so far, there are some interesting discussions taking place. I'm almost a middle-aged geezer, and the Lemmies feel more like late 1990s/early 2000s mailing lists or forums than anything else -- I really miss those. I hope that I can contribute to the positive atmosphere and discussion quality!
Thanks for approving my account, I like the feel of the place and look forward to becoming more active as I get more familiar with things. One question... While I was waiting for my account to be approved I opened an account on the startrek.website lemmy instance with the same user name. Is this going to cause any problems?
I always had mixed feelings about downvoting. On YouTube, dislikes were very useful, on Reddit I feel downvotes are just used to bring down dissenting opinions, regardless of their merit, so in a community like this it makes sense to disable them.
Thanks for having me! I'll do my best to engage and not just lurk/read most of the time lol! There's some great content so far and I'm liking the move from Reddit even with the learning curve. I'll donate when I can and if I can help more, I'll do my best to do so.
I just finished reading the piece on beehaw as a community and how you try to manage disagreements or things that are inappropriately said shortly after being approved today.
It really moved me and made me feel a sense of community already. I really hope the moderation strategy works out with the growth of the instance, because it seems like moderating at that level would get exhausting very quickly. Anyways, I'm glad to be here and excited to see what the future will bring :)
Thanks for the add here! Excited to try the space out and see how the community feels and runs. I mostly lurk but really enjoy passively participating in discourse.
On a side note - is there a good android app anyone would recommend? I tried downloading Jerboa but it keeps crashing on open.
Hi. Can you add "How do I create a community on Beehaw?" to the FAQ? I've been trying to figure it out for a couple of days, and haven't found anything about it.
Thank you to all of you who put the work in to make Beehaw what it is ❤️
The co-op / democratic governance idea sounds fascinating. I'm Finnish and we're big on co-ops (or were, at any rate), and I'd definitely love to see that particular ethos spread to site governance.
Oh and random hosting tech question, do you have an autoscaling setup at the moment?
Brand new user here. Big thanks to those that stood up this community. I was approved within minutes! I was shocked. I am excited to be a small part of this friendly project.
Hey yall. Excited to be here and check out the Beehaw community! Obviously I'm like many others looking for something move on from reddit with. This and Tildes seems to be a great fit for me! Looking forward to seeing everything going on here and hope to find some great conversations and insights.
Major long term lurker from Reddit here, like 10+ years lurking. Lemmy / Beehaw actually gets me to post however and I love it! Not sure where the motivation has come from. A desire for a proper community perhaps? I've watched Reddit go through highs and lows over the years but weirdly I feel like I belong here. Hello and welcome to all other Lemmy / Beehaw users! :D
OK - just checking in - picked up on Beehaw from Lemmy a couple of days ago and what a breath of fresh air!
To that end I've just wiped and deleted my two accounts at the R place after ten and a bit years. It turned into a pile of toxic garbage - bots and trolls in all of the subs I was in.
I am really happy that this space here exists and I can be here. I already created an account at another instance, but noticed that the people there are already trying to create a new Reddit, including the downsides. So having a more controlled instance focused on being nice to each other sounds really wonderful.
Question about “front page” of Beehaw: who makes the logic for Active, Hot, New etc - is this part of Beehaw, or common functionality provided by Lemmy?
I do miss something more like “Best” I think from Apollo, and to see more new threads. I’ve subscribed to a number of communities over the last few days, but every time I go to beehaw.org to see the latest (yeah, a pattern from Reddit that might not fit that well here), after a few days now I see mostly the same threads, or at least the same as yesterday and the day before.
Would it be more up to the functionality in an app to provide a more customized front page, set a default sorting, hide posts I’ve already read etc, or is this functionality we can suggest for the instance to implement?
I applied 26 hours ago and never heard anything back. I get an eternal spinner if I try to log on. Does that mean my answers were not up to snuff and I'm not approved? I hope that's not the case. At least the fediverse means I can still enjoy the content of beehaw.
Perhaps a stupid question, but as a new member what should I expect from de-federation? I completely understand and agree with the rationale for splitting off for now, but would this mean if I wanted to browse something on another instance, I'd need to make a separate Lemmy account?
In jerboa, when I read a post from another instance, if I downvote a comment, it says "downvote disabled". Is this a bug, or can I really not use the downvote button on other instances because I am registered here?
So I've started to get familiar with some of the other instances that show up in my "all" feed. Lemmy.ml, lemmy.world are the main two. But what is blahaj.zone? I see that one quite a bit but no one has ever talked about it.
Hello all! Signed up for a few different sites yesterday, before the crush of today, to see which ones got some staying power. Kbin's incredibly slow right now, Reddit's not just blacked out but down, and Beehaw's over here in the corner rock solid. Think I've found my new spot!
I've been trying to sign up for the last 5 days or so.. My first application went through but then I guess I got stuck in limbo because it never let me sign in, now every time i attempt to re apply it just spins and spins.. Definitely a bummer.
I’m having trouble signing up for an account. Just spins. Tried phone, tablet, and laptop. I assume influx of people is crushing it but wanted to see if maybe it is something else. Any suggestions?
Excited to be part of the community here! ((: Really appreciate how deliberate and intentional beehaw is about how it does things and I'm enjoying exploring Lemmy a lot more than my dabbling with Mastodon in the past (which gave me some reference for the fediverse but never really stuck with me since twitter style microblogging was just never my style).
I'm so glad to have found a reddit alternative that I actually want to use. I just joined yesterday, but I'm really liking it so far. And I love the general air of friendliness y'all seem to have cultivated here!
Really fast registration approval, it's nice to see an admin who cares for their community. Still kinda lost with Lemmy but so far so good and I look forward to interacting with everyone.
Hi, quick question: Would you consider adding a community for content creators/streamers? Having a small positive community like this is ideal for small creators.
If no, could you recommend where I should try to foster such a community?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was wondering how downvoting works across instances.
So, when I go to a community from another instance, I still don't have access to the downvote button. Is that a bug? It's not a big deal either way, but I was also wondering if someone from another instance comes here, can they downvote us?
I'm a bit confused on lemmy instances. I thought I saw that you can join an instance with an account you've made on another one? For example, some people will have "theirname@beehaw.org" on other instances. How does that work exactly? You can't just sign in?
After years on social media (going back to MySpace days) I still don't have the hang of it. I have been on FB since 2004. I tried Twitter in 2006 for about 8 months. I also did the Identi.ca thing too back when. Reddit from the early days and Lemmy since the first few months after it appeared. Mastodon was the first I really enjoyed and now that I have been lurking here in Beehaw with my Lemmy.ml account I am happy to switch over.
So, I was looking into a thread on lemmy.ml with some community recommendations for reddit refugees, and it seems there isn't a standard way to link communities in an instance-agnostic way?
For a start, it doesn't seem like the posting interface automatically recognizes community links (so if I write /c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml, it automatically becomes a link to that community), so it seems you need to manually format the text as a link. So in order to have /c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml, you need to write [/c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml](/c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml). Is it correct, or is there some straightforward trick I'm missing?
Moreover, it seems like not all communities are accessible from beehaw? Like https://lemmy.ml/c/nomanssky clearly exists, but accessing it from here as /c/nomanssky@lemmy.ml returns an error. Can someone clarify what's happening?
Question about how this whole thing works: downvotes are disabled in this instance, does that mean that being a member of Beehaw means I can't downvote, or does that mean that posts and comments within the Beehaw instance can't be downvoted?
Is there a way to message the mods/admin without messaging them directly (individually)? Can't seem to find the option.
Only curious because for some reason, my account got labeled "bot account" next to my comments and I have no idea why. Maybe because I posted from Jerboa or something? It's weird.
Not a bot, beteedubs. (Yes, yes, that's what a bot would say, I know.)
Stealth edit: Yeah, even this comment. Am I like not fully approved or something?
i couldn't sign up using a 3 letter username i just got the spinny button problem. at least for me it seems to be broken in firefox on linux, signing up in another browser worked. other instances running 0.17.4-rc.1 work however.
I’m curious how Beehaw and other instances are protected against spam and other types of automated abuse. When someone eventually tries to flood the community with “how I made $100,000 in one week working from home: spammy-link-yall.com,” is it handled manually or are there protections in place?
I apologize if this has been answered somewhere but I have difficulty reading large amounts of text. It's literally bad for my health.
This should be easy questions though. I know instances can choose to de-federate other instances so that we don't see their content. Here are my questions:
is this blocking automatically mutual?
If it's not, and users of an instance we can't see can see our posts, can they comment?
I ask because I've been noticing the comment numbers don't match the actual number of comments and was just speculating as to why.