Like many of you, I woke up this morning to discover that our instance, along with lemmy.world, had been unexpectedly added to the beehaw block list. Although this development initially caught me off guard, the administrators at beehaw made an announcement shedding light on their decision.
The primary concern raised was our instance's policy of open registration. Given my belief that the fediverse is still navigating its early stages, I believe that for it to mature, gain traction, and encourage adoption, it is crucial for instances to offer an uncomplicated and direct route for newcomers to join and participate. This was one of the reason I decided to launch this instance. However, I do acknowledge that this inclusive approach brings its unique challenges, including the potential for toxicity and trolls. Despite these hurdles, I maintain the conviction that our collective strength as a community can overcome these issues.
After this happened, the beehaw admins and I had a good chat about their decision. While our stances on registration policies might diverge, we realized that our ultimate goals are aligned: we both strive to foster communities that thrive in an atmosphere of safety and respect, where users can passionately engage in discussions and feel a sense of belonging.
Although the probability of an immediate reversal are slim given the current circumstances, I believe we have managed to identify common ground. It's evident that, even in separation, we can unite to contribute positively to the broader fediverse community.
In the coming weeks or months, we plan to collaborate with other lemmy instance administrators to suggest enhancements and modifications to the lemmy project. Primarily, our proposals will concentrate on devising tools and features that empower us, as instance administrators, to moderate our platforms effectively.
In the meantime, while I understand may not be ideal for everyone, users who choose to participate on the beehaw instance will be required to register a separate account on their instance.
Thank you all for continuing to make this community great!
The Beehaw moderator just release an update that is interesting and very good-willed. But I'm confused. I had no problem commenting in Nature and Gardening which is on the Beehaw instance. I thought this wasn't possible as a sh.itjust.works user?
You can comment there and I probably can see it. They can't because they're not pulling sh.itjust.works data.
That makes sense! Is there a place we can see instances that we defederated, if any? I was trying to find Container Gardening which is in instance "I use arch linux FYI" but haven't had any luck.
https://sh.itjust.works/instances shows instances .works is connected to, but I'm not sure of a way to find other instances that blocked this one. Although if they blocked us, then they didn't deserve us anyways :^)
It is possible, but Beehaw users won't see your comment (I may be wrong, this is still a bit complicated for me as well).
In fact, no one outside of your instance will be able to see it, because everyone else's version is in sync with beehaw, which doesn't get your comments.