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[CLOSED] a Beehaw survey on some policy and the site's vibes (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/support@beehaw.org

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good morning, Beehaw

this morning we have a survey for you, which will run for approximately three days. it contains three questions on site policy (plus an optional explanation field), and two questions about the site's current vibe (plus another optional explanation field).

you can find the survey here.

some caveats to this survey

you likely have some priors for how this "should" work, and i would like you to leave those at the door. to be up front:

this is not a referendum—it is more like a Wikipedia vote if anything. we're looking for a consensus or a synthesis of the community's opinions with the practical limitations we're working with, not a first-past-the-post winner.
this is not (currently) a democracy, and you should not expect public results from this. we talked this part over as an admin team and we don't see much value in publicly releasing the results of a survey like this. if we do release the results publicly, we'll be announcing that before it happens.
the same caveats just mentioned will apply to any surveys like this into the foreseeable future. i'm sure everyone understands that in online spaces it is very easy to manipulate surveys like this; accordingly, it is not a great idea to take them at complete face value until you can audit votes. since we don't have a foolproof, private system for doing that yet, these caveats are necessary to make any kind of vote involving site policy work.

(we do eventually want to create a foolproof enough private system, but this is way on the backburner and i'm guessing most of you prefer having an imperfect way to chime in on the site's direction than none at all until this system is created)

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[-] DeForrest_McCoy@beehaw.org 50 points 1 year ago

Never be afraid of using the DEFED hammer on those that deserve it. You guys are doing a Fantastic job of keeping this HIVE balanced and free of garbage extremist instances like shit.just.works, Lemmygrad and The general obnixiousness of hexbears.

Thank you for you for giving us such a nice community. Keep up the good work.

[-] HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I want to emphasize the “on those that deserve it” bit. That’s the part angry commenters will misinterpret or pretend to forget.

Anyway…

I have an account on kbin. It can be interesting to compare a thread when viewed here vs. being viewed there.

Usually, a thread viewed on kbin has more comments - but many of them are crude, stupid, and antagonistic. The same thread viewed on Beehaw has a much more readable comment section, because of thoughtful defederating.

Ideally, we wouldn’t have to defederate from anyone, but I don’t think we’re losing anything of value.

Somebody was ignorantly making fun of Beehaw recently. I responded that I only want civil, mature conversations instead of arguments with trolls. I like the idea of a well-moderated instance that has a general guideline of “be(e) nice”. I want mods to have the flexibility to do their jobs effectively.

[-] ecirmada@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago

“Value” - i feel you’ve hit the point perfectly.

People are possibly perceiving a value loss in defederation, when in reality, letting in (on average) low value comments/content/whatever dilutes the instance’s value.

[-] Cube6392@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago

Oh has sh.itjust.works started exibiting an extremist bias as a collective? Last time I was paying attention to them they were the sort of misguided centrist types whose instance was vulnerable to getting overrun with extremists. Sad to hear it happened, but not really all that surprised

[-] acastcandream@beehaw.org 22 points 1 year ago

Forums that fashion themselves as centrist are always prime targets for ring wing asshats, sadly.

[-] Cube6392@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago

People gotta learn every internet community that's lasted long term has had strong moderation policies for a reason

[-] acastcandream@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

Exactly. Don’t let people weaponize free speech against you!

[-] MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Update: The survey provides this answer.

~~What's wrong with sh.itjust.works? Good faith question, genuinely curious. I don't know much about the instance and in taking a quick peek, I see a lot of poking the hexbear but nothing else immediately sticks out.~~

~~Lemmygrad and hexbear I'm familiar with why they're problematic.~~

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[-] acastcandream@beehaw.org 46 points 1 year ago

this is not a democracy

Seriously, huge applause for this. Beehaw is already operating 10x more intelligently than most forums I frequent. Y’all clearly know how to deal with bad actors

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[-] xilliah@beehaw.org 34 points 1 year ago

Thanks for not using google.

[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 34 points 1 year ago

FYI to whoever flagged me forgetting to uncheck required for the last box: i fixed that, thank you for flagging it

[-] newtraditionalists@beehaw.org 28 points 1 year ago

Thanks for putting this together and taking the time and energy to get our feedback.

[-] anon6789@beehaw.org 23 points 1 year ago

Wherever I find myself questioning the Beehaw restrictions, I browse All on lemmy.world. I can read All here with no real regrets. Anywhere else... Ehhhhhh

[-] abhibeckert@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When I browse All on Beehaw I see a bunch of topics that I'm not even remotely interested in. I'm sure most of it is interesting to the members of those communities, but it's definitely not how I use Lemmy.

When I go to my "Subscribed" tab on lemmy.world, it's full of great content that isn't available on Beehaw.

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[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 21 points 1 year ago

pleased to report we crossed the 200 response threshold earlier; i suspect we'll have a pretty good sample size relative to the overall community when all is said and done

[-] Empathy@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago

Thanks for all the great work you guys are doing with this instance. This place feels nicer than Reddit.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I want to see the results... not because of democracy, but because of curiosity about what others think.

If you want to prevent a scenario of "51% vs 49%" discussions, may I suggest publishing the results with rounded numbers, like "more than 20% think that [whatever]". It would be informative enough as far as I'm concerned.

[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

If you want to prevent a scenario of “51% vs 49%” discussions, may I suggest publishing the results with rounded numbers, like “more than 20% think that [whatever]”.

i think you're unintentionally making a good case for why releasing results isn't useful here in any form: if we have to take active steps to distort or fudge how the data is presented to prevent sectarianism or people feeling like they're in a vast minority then it's just easier (and more productive) for everyone if the data is kept with us.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

Hm, maybe.

Personally, I wouldn't mind finding out my views were "less than 10%" as long as it's not a popularity contest/vote, it would actually interest me to find out why others might have a different opinion. My only concern would be data that could be construed as a divisive vote, instead of as a feeling to discuss.

On the other hand, I guess these topics have already been discussed, so maybe it would be redundant.

[+] ParanoidFactoid@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

[deleted]

[-] millie@beehaw.org 25 points 1 year ago

Honestly, I think defederating from some of the major instances is a big part of the reason it's as nice here as it is. Beehaw doesn't need to be a giant to have a place and a purpose, and it doesn't need to be the only Lemmy instance anyone uses either.

I think we all need to get past this nonsensical idea that everything has to be the biggest to be worthwhile. Nobody goes to a nice local restaurant and wishes they were at McDonald's. It's okay to just make something good and let it be. It doesn't have to explode to monumental proportions, and when it does that's not really that great a thing.

Federation is an amazing tool in large part because of defederation. If instances aren't using both they might as well all be screaming down the same meaningless content firehose, as far as I can tell.

[-] Auzy@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago

I totally agree. I came here to get away from the toxicity which is growing on Facebook and other sites.

If we're going to survive, we can't be yet another social network which grabs people who shout the loudest

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[-] Auzy@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've noticed some of lemmy in general is turning super toxic. At the beginning it was so positive, but it now feels like the wrong people have been attracted in some servers

Not sure which servers, but the reality is, if something isn't done, there is no point of me being here (it literally feels like the fatpeoplehate/thedonald crowd has started moving here)

In fact, the positive environment was one reason I donated to beeshaw originally. We need more places like this. Everyone does

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[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

Lemmy.world is full of people who don't want to "be nice", and are happy to drag anyone "to the dark side".

If there was a unidirectional way of federating, like "let people from Beehaw participate on LW communities, but don't allow LW users participate in Beehaw communities", then it could be a viable option.

Otherwise, just the (hopefully small) portion of bad actors on LW, would be enough to drown out Beehaw's communities and overload the mods. There are already signs of mod fatigue on Beehaw even without federating with large instances that used to be "free for all".

[-] Auzy@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

Exactly this.. I've noticed the same on Facebook too these days. Plenty of fake profiles where people are clearly trolling, and some are plain bigots

I'm not trans, or gay. But, even just watching some communities on Facebook and Reddit, you're totally right. It has gotten to the point they are proud they are "anti-woke", feel empowered and have made it part of their personality. Anti-Woke is just another way of describing someone who is controlling and abusive towards others, instead of accepting others. They'll attack anyone they can to make themselves feel more in control.

The community here doesn't need to agree with EVERYTHING others say, but it should be an encouraging community. And I think I'm not the only one to say, I'd happily donate to keep the servers running if we are going to be unique, and not another reddit or facebook.

[-] acastcandream@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If we weren’t supposed to defederate then we wouldn’t have the option. Nothing is stopping you from browsing it yourself anyway. You can browse world to heart’s content while the rest of us enjoy our quieter nook lol

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[-] wildeaboutoskar@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Done!

I respect your policy above but you may run into declining response rate in the long term without some kind of feedback, as there will be a 'what is the point' feeling. I may be wrong of course (and hope I am!), just something I've seen at work. I completely get your reasoning though.

[-] Jdreben@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

Thanks for doing this. Love this community.

[-] TimTheEnchanter@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

Answered! Thanks for taking the time to listen to our feedback!

[-] Ignacio@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

I did my part, and I like this kind of feedback. Keep doing a good job!

[-] misguidedfunk@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

Haven’t been around as much since school started back, but I filled the survey out regardless.

[-] aka_oscar@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

The following question:

In your opinion, has Beehaw gotten less enjoyable to use since you joined?

Has some answers that confuse me. The options:

No, the site has not gotten less enjoyable
Have not observed a difference

Sound identical to me. I could see that the former implies its equal or better than before, while the latter states its just equal. But there is another option: "Actually, the site has gotten more enjoyable", which clearly states its better than before.

If an option states no change, and another states improvement, I see no reason why there is an option which implies both.

[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

If an option states no change, and another states improvement, I see no reason why there is an option which implies both.

some people don't have the frame of reference, don't have the confidence, or simply have not paid sufficient attention to state one way or the other whether anything has changed--which is distinct from actually being able to say the site hasn't gotten less enjoyable. both options have been used fairly consistently to mean these, based off of the explanations box.

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