2y ago

Federation, Defederation, and You - FAQ and Megathread

Regarding Beehaw defederating from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, this post goes into detail on the why and the philosophy behind that decision. Additionally, there is an update specific to sh.itjust.works here.

For now, let's talk about what federation is and what defederation means for members of Beehaw or the above two communities interacting with each other, as well as the broader fediverse.

Federation is not something new on the internet. Most users use federated services every day (for instance, the url used to access instances uses a federated service known as DNS, and email is another system that functions through federation.) Just like those services, you elect to use a service provider that allows you to communicate with the rest of the world. That service provider is your window to work with others.

When you federate, you mutually agree to share your content. This means that posting something to a site can be seen by another and all comments are shared. Even users from other sites can post to your site.

Now when you defederate, this results in content to be no longer shared. It didn't reverse any previous sharing or posts, it just stops the information from flowing with the selected instance. This only impacts the site's that are called out.

What this means to you is when a user within one instance (e.g. Beehaw) that's chosen to defederate with another (e.g. lemmy.world), they can no longer interact with content on another instance, and vice versa. Other instances can still see the content of both servers as though nothing has happened.

A user is not limited to how many instances they can join (technically at least - some instance have more stringent requirements for joining than others do)
A user can interact with Lemmy content without being a user of any Lemmy instance - e.g. Mastodon (UI for doing so is limited, but it is still possible.)

Considering the above, it is important to understand just how much autonomy we, as users have. For example, as the larger instances are flooded with users and their respective admins and mods try to keep up, many, smaller instances not only thrive, but emerge, regularly (and even single user instances - I have one for just myself!) The act of defederation does not serve to lock individual users out of anything as there are multiple avenues to constantly maintain access to, if you want it, the entirety of the unfiltered fediverse.

On that last point, another consideration at the individual level is - what do you want out of Lemmy? Do you want to find and connect with like-minded people, share information, and connect at a social and community level? Do you want to casually browse content and not really interact with anyone? These questions and the questions that they lead to are critical. There is no direct benefit to being on the biggest instance. In fact, as we all deal with this mass influx, figure out what that means for our own instances and interactions with others, I would argue that a smaller instance is actually much better suited for those who just want to casually browse everything.

Lastly, and tangential, another concern I have seen related to this conversation is people feeling afraid of being locked out of the content and conversation from the "main" communities around big topics starting to form across the Lemmiverse (think memes, gaming, tech, politics, news, etc.) Over time, certain communities will certainly become a default for some people just given the community size (there will always be a biggest or most active - it's just a numbers game.) This, again though, all comes down to personal preference and what each individual is looking to get from their Lemmy experience. While there may, eventually, be a “main” sub for

(again, by the numbers), there will also always be quite a few other options for targeted discussions on

, within different communities, on different instances, each with their own culture and vibe. This can certainly feel overwhelming and daunting (and at the moment, honestly it is.) Reddit and other non-federated platforms provided the illusion of choice, but this is what actual choice looks and feels like.

[edit: grammar and spelling]

33 comments

There are just so many words to excuse defederation when it just comes down to technical limitation (not all QoL and moderation tools are ready yet) and power users insisting on curating their precious communities.
Is it really that hard to get that most people are upset because most people just want a high quantity of contents in the most efficient dose possible? This is why Reddit grew to what it is in the first place. Reddit was never really about quality of content. It has always been about user driven contents over curated contents.
The inconvenience of defederation is exactly the strife with the whole situation. Communities splintering is not exactly something new, it happened many times on reddit before. The problem is that this is a really crappy time for defederation: when people are still new to this platforms, when there are many power users and mods still exploring this platform as alternating option, when a lot of QoL tools have not been deployed for an expected experience, when a lot of communities still have not have its helpful members start their contribution, etc.
I suppose these kinds of things ought to happen anyways, as people are still figuring things out. But to regard this as anything but a shit show is blind imo.
- Unfortunately, the inconvenience is something of a catch 22. Do we allow everything through for the sake of convenience? What happens when extreme content that is NSFL gets posted? What happens when illegal content is federated, or hate speech that indicates action will be taken is made? What happens when you observe a pattern of this behavior from a common source? Content must be moderated for things to be "safe" and the rate that unsafe, nonaligned content was coming in wasn't sustainable.
  Choosing to defederate wasn't taken lightly and it was done reluctantly. It was discussed for two days after observing systemic effects from those instances and after reaching out to the instance admins for alternatives.
  I see you're posting not from a beehaw account, which means you likely haven't seen @Gaywallet@beehaw.org 's post on what it is to be a community and the framework to get there. This posts may help you understand this instances stance on things and what our instances users are hoping for is to build.
  All in all, sorry you're not happy, but we're being careful for our community.
  
  I do use beehaw and saw those posts. I do not support the overall goal of beehaw, though that is not related to the content of what I posted above. Imo, Beehaw as a curated communities should not try to play both sides and handle the situation poorly - which does confuse the overall communities here. If they choose to go walled garden mode, then they should commit to it.
  Regards your first point, and partly why I do not agree with beehaw overall goal, I do not think all of what you listed (and what I heard a lot from beehaw or similar closed communities) are such a problem as people are making it out to be. Reddit itself is terribly vile as all of the contents you listed there already exist on the platform. The reasons why you do not see those on reddit on daily basis are 2 folds. One, the tools on reddit that filter those contents are rather decent - which is something lemmy does not have, yet. And two, those types of contents do get naturally filtered by the internet communities itself - something that happened on reddit many many times.
- Totally fair point, but I also think you are highlighting something really important - Lemmy is absolutely not ready to "replace" reddit, from a pure scale and number of users perspective...not even close. This is not at all an admonishment or knock on anyone working their butts off (as devs, as instance owners, as admins, as mods - almost all as volunteers!), just a statement of fact. I will admit, as a user of that platform for ~15 years, at some point, I kind of stopped paying attention to just how many people were there. This technology community within Beehaw, for example, is currently ~20k strong and there are a few other communities across the lemmiverse of similar size - in contrast /r/technology has, after an exodus, ~14 million subscribers and is not even considered among the most popular subreddits. So yes, it may feel like a shit show, and honestly, I won't say it isn't, but that's how new, emergent technology usually goes, generally, and we (collective we, not just beehaw, all of us looking for our new home) should be mindful of that, which I know is easier said than done.
- When you make a community whose key promise is providing a safe space for marginalized groups, is it not your duty to actually make good on that promise?
  To Beehaw, following through on that is more important than growing as fast as possible. People who want growth at all costs shouldn't use Beehaw.
  
  This is the best way I've seen it said. Quality over quantity.
- This also just is the time defederation happens most. When populations grow faster than people can manage.
  Taking on the responsibility of hosting a community website means doing what you think is best for they community. For a place with clear rules and established norms, that means upholding those rules. And if you can't uphold them against the sheer number of people flooding in, then it means reducing the number of people.
  No one website is responsible to the network. This is not a power trip. Though this is about people protecting their "precious communities", as you so judgementally put it. Because they set up their site to create a coherent community.
  If you way to be a part of it, you can apply to join. If you don't, then you're not entitled to interact with them.
  
  I do not disagree that defederation will happen. In fact no one actually even know how federation would look like here at all. It's all experimental at this point.
  In fact, Kbin did defederated from the network once. Unlike beehaw, it was a lot shorter, the purpose was clear and handled quickly, without so much drama. What I am saying is that the situation is handled like crap. All these talks and it just reminds me of the same old reddit mods power struggle than what people are trying to paint federation as.
  I do intend to interact with communities that I do want to interact with - just as how I did it on reddit before - once actual community members can move over from reddit without being tangled in this faction wars. You cannot just ignore that a lot of people def do not want to leave reddit to lemmy due to these drama.
  This seems like a snipe at me for no reason. I have no interested in "interacting" with the big boys here while they are doing their own things and I do not have the interest nor expertise to fix their issues. My time and interest would better be spend on hobbyist communities that I do like to interact with as I do previously on reddit.
Beehaw admins really seem like a bunch of cocky and snoby people. First the requirements for registration - need to write a short essay why you are worthy of joining the sacred community. Now this, leaving fediverse which looks like trying to separate from cousins living outside of their town. Just defederate and vanish in obsolescence of interwebs.
- The account registration process exists to weed out bots. We're not the only ones to implement this kind of sign up. An essay really isn't required, unless you misunderstood the purpose of the sign up. We just tied it to understanding what we consider are our rules for our instance.
  We haven't left the fediverse, posts and comments to and from beehaw still flow to the vast majority of instances, and we do wish to rejoin these two specific instances at a later date once we have the right processes and tools to work though the problems we encountered.
  If the admins were cocky or snobby, they would have defederated without any form of announcement or transparency on what was being done and why.
  
  Can we please get rid of these people who insist on remaining uninformed and then going out and spreading their ignorance by attacking others? It's contrary to the vision of this instance to allow them to continue this behavior.
- Funny the thing about the whole short essay thing, because I basically only wrote "I wanna try Lemmy and I want an active instance where I can be active in"
  Beehaw didn't left the fediverse, it defederated from two Lemmy instances over the more than 20000 that exist in all the fediverse. The number of instances that Beehaw defederates from (which, of course, is bigger than two, as there are intances that are globally defederated) is tiny in comparison with the size of the whole ActibityPub -based fediverse.
  Make sure you understand how the fediverse work before resorting to lying.
- You don't have to write a short essay, I didn't write much more than "I heard about you on reddit and I wanna check it out" and I got accepted
  
  That was my answer for why I wanted to join, too! And I answered the "what will you contribute?" one pretty simply too, with the same things I try to bring to any conversation: my knowledge and empathy wherever they can be helpful.
  I took the questions as the same kind of very basic filtering that my husband does for his tractor enthusiast Facebook group; he's not looking for essays, he just wants to know people will actually read (and follow!) the rules and not be jerks.
- I think with the registration questions they're just trying to solve two things: preventing bots from signing up, and preventing trolls. It doesn't seem so bad, really.
- "A short essay" is required? That's a blatant lie.
  I wrote "it was on the recommended list at join-lemmy.org" and got accepted.
ITT: People not understanding that if they don't like the rules on one instance, they can use literally any other instance and that problem will evaporate.
- Yup. That's what I like about the Fediverse.
As much as I understand beehaw admin has every right to defedorate with any instance, and I respect and appreciate beehaw admins looking after the community.
However, it seems this instance is no longer for me. I want to see more content by more people. There needs to be a balance of content quantity vs content quality. I personally think that beehaw is leaning too much towards quality for my personal liking.
I understand your why, but in the end, I think defederation is probably going to do more harm than good. Lemmy.world and beehaw are both large instances, and for a whole group on one, a non-negligible amount of content just disappeared. Sure, they could just make new accounts somewhere else, but there's no way all of them will. For those that won't, the whole of Lemmy just got a lot less valuable.
I think that ultimately, large amounts of defederation, or just large instances defederation each other, is going to harm Lemmy and the fediverse as a whole. More people might migrate to smaller instances. Some will collapse under the strain, some might become big, follow the cycle and sew more division within the fediverse. A lot of people will get tired of juggling accounts and return to more toxic, but easier, centralized alternatives.
Of course, just not defederating anything isn't a solution either. Well, I mean, it is in a technical sense, but it doesn't get to the root of the issue. My best idea would be some solution that allows users of certain instances to still see content and subscribe to communities, but limit their ability to interact. Think something like sliding defederation. Admins would be able to set what users of specific instances can and can't do, from voting, commenting, submitting down to total defederation for the most extreme cases.
Of course, the best code I've managed myself is a semi-functional python module, so...

33 comments