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.
I really hope this doesn't sound extreme (especially since I'm technically a Kbin.social user) but I'm really only interested in Beehaw as part the larger Fediverse. If Beehaw leaves the Fediverse it'll just be another tiny Reddit/Lemmy clone, but without the strengths of either platform, and I truly believe that it won't be long until Beehaw goes the way of the traditional web forum.
I think there is a lot of value (to the community, at least) in Beehaw being a safe and friendly place within the broader Fediverse. The more strictly/seriously you all take that goal, the more moderation is required to achieve it, of course.
In the end, I think that it's probably a lot of work to "clean up" the Fediverse, so I can understand why it may seem easier to just leave. But I also think that it's possible that you've lost a sense of perspective with regards to the positive aspects of federation that made Beehaw appealing in the first place. At the risk of making a bad/cheesy analogy, we've seen examples in history of countries trying to isolate themselves from the rest of the world in order to simplify things or preserve their own ways of living/thinking, and it really doesn't work or benefit them in the long run.
The internet was founded on the basic premise of connecting people, even though we've all seen that doing so brings about various challenges and some potential for conflict. The fediverse brings us back towards a truly open and connected internet, and in my onion that's where technologies like Mastodon, Pixelfed, Lemmy, Kbin, etc., derive a lot of their charm and utility. As someone who has dabbled in this stuff for years, I can say that Lemmy was not very useful to me when it was just a handful of small echo chambers, Beehaw was the first "threadiverse" server I joined because I really felt that it was offering something new, different, and much-needed to the ecosystem, and I'll be more than a little bit disappointed if you all decide to leave.
Exactly my thoughts, honestly for me all that ain't Fediverse is a downgrade... if any I'd like old forums to join Activity Pub somehow lol.
I don't this is an extreme take. Lots of Lemmy users would be sad to see Beehaw leave even if the reasons for leaving are understandable to them.
For me, the value of Beehaw was that there was a place on the internet where people could converse with mutual understanding and without judgement. I think such a space still exists here, but has faded a little when mixed in the context that Lemmy as a whole has gotten a bit more combative and falling into the same ragebait kind of traps Reddit conversations tended to go.
Through Beehaw I also became more knowledgeable in the LGBTQ+, disability, neurodivergence and feminism spaces, just by reading the posts and only occasionally adding a comment seeking better understanding, to which my questions were answered openly and honestly. I don't want Beehaw to grow just for the sake of growing, but having Beehaw around I think will help internet users at large be able to learn about and sympathize with these causes simply by being there.