I am one of the admins of Beehaw and I’m trying to get some feedback on our potential move.
Let’s start out with a little Beehaw history before judgements are passed, please.
A handful of us were beta testing Tildes when we decided to have discussions on a Discord server.
We decided that our ‘Northern Star’ or guiding principle would culminate as ‘Be Nice’ with purposefully vague/flexible interpretations. Our overall goal is to provide a safe space to disenfranchised persons.
We talked for a little over a year and some of our members became impatient. Then someone stepped in to suggest a couple of platforms that we could consider getting started with.
One of those platforms was Lemmy. None of us knew, at that time, anything about ActivityPub.
During the Reddit exodus (surrounding the API outcry and blackout), our instance exploded. We were, initially, crippled by the mass amounts of users seeking refuge.
Thankfully, someone stepped in and volunteered hundreds of hours of work to stabilize our instance and refine it further.
After many hours of talks, it became clear to us that our overall goal could be achieved outside of Lemmy/ActivityPub.
Right now, we feel that Lemmy and ActivityPub have downsides that are limiting us from achieving that goal.
I would say it’s probably the philosophy of the fediverse that limits them. There is a spectrum of opinions on every subject, including strong opinions and dangerous ones, sometimes both at the same time.
Having a safe space requires either control or exclusivity in my opinion. The fediverse affords you little control of instances outside your own besides outright defederation and banning of external users. Though arguably that lack of external control is one of the benefits of the fediverse as well. However, if their goal is a safe place for those they feel are disenfranchised and marginalized, they might be right that this isn’t the tool for the job. Though, adopting a different platform or strategy might limit their reach. I think that is their dilemma.
Aside from beehaw… The lack of a central control structure within the fediverse is fascinating to me. It’s reminiscent of the old internet, where everything was ran as its own little web island, and yet it has many of the benefits of the mainstream “mass market” internet of today. Over time, it will be an interesting experiment to study and be a part of.