I think it would be a real shame, and would fragment the fediverse as a whole - some of Beehaw's communities are some of the best on the Fediverse (and I really appreciate the work of the mods of communities on Beehaw), but the Fediverse / Lemmyverse is a lot bigger than just the Beehaw instance, and I really like being able to participate in communities from all over. Having to create accounts separately on lots of walled garden instances is probably not worth it, so I think it would make both Beehaw and the rest of the Fediverse weaker.

Overall I'd be sad about it, and discourage, but I'm sure the fediverse would live on despite it, in a weakened form.

Perhaps the real question is why would you consider doing that? It seems like a lose/lose for everyone. Would you be able to elaborate on what the exact problem you are trying to solve is? Perhaps the community could help you come up with a better solution.

To all the thoughts here already I’m going to ask something that may be wrong and may also be somewhat rude and or hurtful to the person/people it implicitly targets (which isn’t my intention unfortunately) … but which I feel is the tiny elephant in the room:

How much is the beehaw motive to leave the fediverse driven by a small and relatively unchallenged voice from technical person/people in the beehaw team who doesn’t like the fediverse and Lemmy for a bunch of technical reasons and who is certain that they can achieve better some how?

The relevance of this is that I honestly think the fediverse is somewhat plagued by the aggregate effect of the mentality of indy tech people to prefer to do their own thing and to find others’ work and cooperating with it/them insurmountable distasteful. Basically mass NIH.

Which is not problem on its own. Tech people do great things and being motivated to do what they want is pretty fundamental. Hell this is probably half of what’s going on with Lemmy’s development.

But beehaw’s goals are not technical, arguably not at all even to the point of being in spite of technical factors as a “safe space online for the disenfranchised” has intrinsic tension I’d say. And it seems that you’re very reliant on the technical heroes that have kept your instance healthy.

Which means their own technical tastes and motivations might hold too much sway and their promises might be too convincing.

I’m not sure this will help your reasoning, but I figured there was small chance that bringing this might help. The reality may be that the essence of the beehaw project requires fighting the nature of technology.

Beehaw seems designed with the intent of being a specific type of echo chamber. And there is nothing wrong with that. But the fediverse wouldn’t miss yet another echo chamber.

Do as you want.

Beehaw has already chosen not to be a part of the fediverse. There's no real purpose in asking us; only you can resolve Beehaw's identity crisis.

beehaw deeze nuts

Since you all defederated from lemmy.world I don't see any posts from Beehaw, so from a practical standpoint leaving the fediverse wouldn't affect me in the slightest. On a personal level, you all should do what you feel is best for you community and I wish you good health, good fortune, and good luck with whatever you decide.

Do what you feel you need to do. Beehaw was my first Lemmy instance, although I have since left. What I initially liked about it was that there was active moderation and the admins seemed to do a good job keeping things running. It was a chill place that didn’t really appeal to the more toxic types you run into on the internet. It was like a friendly little bubble and a good home base in the fediverse.

While I appreciated that toxic instances were blocked, I felt blocking instances simply because they didn’t have great moderation was a little too much. It meant I was missing out on a lot of good content too. I understand the decision but I realized then that the original Beehaw community was more content to be insulated than I was. For a lot of people there, it was more important to have their own tight community than to be part of the fediverse. There’s no hard feelings about it. I enjoyed my time on Beehaw and contributed to server costs. I found another good instance that’s better federated and manages not to have a bunch of nazi and racist garbage so it’s all good.

These conversations have been brewing for a while at Beehaw. I would imagine a lot of the people who don’t especially like the insulated approach have moved on to other instances or created alt accounts for when they want to interact with the larger fediverse.

I don’t think anyone will miss anything if Beehaw migrates to a non-federated platform.

Are you looking for someone to convince you to stay? Lol

I'd laugh lol.

I already mentioned this on an old Beehaw thread, that Beehaw's vision would be better suited to old-school forums, like phpBB, Invision etc (no Discourse please, it sucks). Forums are more conducive for long-term discussions and offer far better user access controls and mod tools.

General-purpose old-school forums are mostly dead these days unfortunately but I see an opportunity in Beehaw for them to make a comeback, and I would 100% support such an initiative.

As a non-Beehaw I would like you to stay because I like nice people. But I understand if you have to go.

it would be a net positive for the fediverse if beehaw left

I would guffaw if beehaw defawed

That would be great

I hardly frequent any of your communities, but I enjoy the contributions of most of your users and will be sad if they go.

That said, I would consider staying on - and contributing to - the Lemmy software regardless of federation. We are all experiencing the same issues with lack moderation and other features, and I hate to see effort go to waste.

Who?

Your website will rot on the vine.

Most of the topics in interested in have moved off of Beehaw and communities have grown elsewhere. I probably wouldn't even notice if Beehaw left.

I say do what's best for you and fuck what everyone else thinks.

I'd miss you guys. I've jumped in on conversations on your instance a couple of times and it always seems like a nice place

I started on beehaw but left for the current one, as I felt it was less about being nice and more about toxic positivity, very retrictive.

And since than I have not even once seen a beehaw community.

So id say go ahead, neither side likely will miss much, if anything.

When you say "leaving the fediverse", do you mean leaving the platform/protocol altogether, or just defederating from everywhere?

Either way, I would think it'd be a loss for the community and the broader fediverse, but ultimately it's your decision. There seem to be some free speech absolutists ITT, but personally I think taking the approach of aggressive defederation is perfectly valid.

I'm curious, what benefit do you see in total seclusion?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Walled gardens rarely survive long enough for it to matter, so do what to wish.

I recall beehaw having some good communities when I was first on Lemmy this summer, but I haven’t seen much from there on Kbin or the lemmies I use - presumably because beehaw defederated for whatever reason. If you’re not going to be connected to the largest instances anyway, what’s the difference?

Sure, having a standalone forum is a legitimate thing to do, like it always has been since the start of the internet. Seems like it would be harder to grow the site without the network effect of the rest of Lemmy though.

I'm on kbin, but have enjoyed the discussions I've had or read on beehaw. I've mostly lurked.

You're clearly trying to get social media right, and I respect that. Obviously it would be a loss for the fediverse if you left, however you are volunteers, it is your community. You owe the fediverse nothing. You should put the safety of your own users first.

If you do leave the fediverse for good, please let us know. I would consider joining beehaw or another forum/community to join/follow some of the discussions I've seen on beehaw. Especially discussions on sensitive topics that are harder to have in other parts of the fediverse.

The one thing I will say, is that leaving the fediverse will make you less known/accessible to people who need a safe online community. Of course, I suspect it'll also keep out some of the people who cause more moderation and safety concerns. So it's quite a dilemna.

Have you considered making the internet a better place and simply deleting it?

The fuck are you asking non bee haw users for?

I replied to another user, but I'm sharing it in a main reply to add my voice to the base level comments.

I want a safe place to be, while looking out into a wider sea of content (albeit through the filter of Beehaw’s defederation, which I really appreciate). When the trolls and the assholes get too much, I like to be able to retreat back to just Local feed setting and be safe again. If beehaw was to be a separate platform, I’d lose that.

Beehaw is a shining beacon in an ocean of content, good and bad. I’d love that beacon to remain, so more people can find safety here if they need it.

From Beehaws docs on defederation:

We are simple with defederating: we do not allow hate speech, and we must consider our own limits when it comes to moderating. If an instance allows hateful speech or in our judgement has users who are too much for us to currently manage given the state of Lemmy, we defederate with it.

If the goal is to limit hate speech and provide a safe space on Beehaw, then I think you should defederate from the fediverse. I think however the value in providing a safe(r) platform for engaging with the rest of the fediverse to be more valuable, but I am personally in no need of such a safe space myself.