The issue they stated wasn’t with other federated communities, but with the users from those federated instances spamming their communities. Beehaw has a strict account policy and only want users they’ve personally vetted commenting and posting in their communities. So in effect they are blocking instances they’ve determined to be problematic by defederating them.
At least that’s my understanding of it.
The issue they stated wasn’t with other federated communities, but with the users from those federated instances spamming their communities.
Yes, I understand that, but this seems to be effectively the same. Why not leave the decision to the individual users?
Beehaw has a strict account policy and only want users they’ve personally vetted commenting and posting in their communities.
Well, the fediverse kind of seems to be the wrong choice for them, then. It lives from the federation. If you want to be isolated it’s just a plain old forum.
When you go to create an account on beehaw, they have a questionnaire you have to fill out with questions like “what do you plan to contribute to beehaw?” and then one of the 4 admins that run beehaw have to read your answers and then approve or reject.
I don’t blame them for being a small team running a forum and want to keep trolls and spam out, but it sounds like they are trying to have the best of 2 contradictory worlds. with the selective tight group of like minded individuals, but also have their communities reach a large audience and grow interaction. It just unfortunately doesn’t work that way.
But now these 4 admins stumbled into hosting the some of largest popular communities in the fediverse and are struggling to handle the bullcrap that comes with being popular on the internet.
But what stops a troll just writing whatever they think the Admins want to read in the form?
It just seems like security theatre, it provides the illusion that they are filtering their userbase, but in reality there’s no way for them to validate whatever anyone writes, so it’s pretty worthless.
I’d even say it’s more likely for someone that specifically wants to troll beehaw to fill out those questions and potential genuine users are more likely to just use another instance with an easier sign up process
Seems like you are missing the point a bit.
Because of the open registration policy of those instances and the many users they do not have the necessary tools and manpower to moderate harassing and offensive posts which go against their policy (which they can absolutely set as they want, since it’s their instance) so they block the users of those instances from posting and commenting for the time being.
So it’s not about isolation themselves just for the sake of being and exclusive club of people but because the moderators can’t handle the amount of traffic
Blocking all users from those instances still feels like overkill for me. Just let the beehaw users block the offensive users from other instaces if they feel they need to? That would be far more selective.
Doesn’t that just put the onus on blocking communities onto the individual user? If that’s the case, then why bother joining a community like Beehaw - which is marked as a Safe Space for folk?
Personally, I feel it’s within their rights to block communities with open signup rules, at least until better moderation tools are present.
The issue they stated wasn’t with other federated communities, but with the users from those federated instances spamming their communities. Beehaw has a strict account policy and only want users they’ve personally vetted commenting and posting in their communities. So in effect they are blocking instances they’ve determined to be problematic by defederating them. At least that’s my understanding of it.
Yes, I understand that, but this seems to be effectively the same. Why not leave the decision to the individual users?
Well, the fediverse kind of seems to be the wrong choice for them, then. It lives from the federation. If you want to be isolated it’s just a plain old forum.
Yeah I also thought it was weird to make a federated Instance and also try to have a human review application process. Sounds kinda silly to me.
Having a human review process is dumb in general - what are they actually reviewing?
When you go to create an account on beehaw, they have a questionnaire you have to fill out with questions like “what do you plan to contribute to beehaw?” and then one of the 4 admins that run beehaw have to read your answers and then approve or reject.
I don’t blame them for being a small team running a forum and want to keep trolls and spam out, but it sounds like they are trying to have the best of 2 contradictory worlds. with the selective tight group of like minded individuals, but also have their communities reach a large audience and grow interaction. It just unfortunately doesn’t work that way.
But now these 4 admins stumbled into hosting the some of largest popular communities in the fediverse and are struggling to handle the bullcrap that comes with being popular on the internet.
But what stops a troll just writing whatever they think the Admins want to read in the form?
It just seems like security theatre, it provides the illusion that they are filtering their userbase, but in reality there’s no way for them to validate whatever anyone writes, so it’s pretty worthless.
I’d even say it’s more likely for someone that specifically wants to troll beehaw to fill out those questions and potential genuine users are more likely to just use another instance with an easier sign up process
I mean, nothing stops them that I know of. I also think it’s a little pointless
Seems like you are missing the point a bit.
Because of the open registration policy of those instances and the many users they do not have the necessary tools and manpower to moderate harassing and offensive posts which go against their policy (which they can absolutely set as they want, since it’s their instance) so they block the users of those instances from posting and commenting for the time being.
So it’s not about isolation themselves just for the sake of being and exclusive club of people but because the moderators can’t handle the amount of traffic
Blocking all users from those instances still feels like overkill for me. Just let the beehaw users block the offensive users from other instaces if they feel they need to? That would be far more selective.
Doesn’t that just put the onus on blocking communities onto the individual user? If that’s the case, then why bother joining a community like Beehaw - which is marked as a Safe Space for folk?
Personally, I feel it’s within their rights to block communities with open signup rules, at least until better moderation tools are present.
Exactly my thoughts 👍.