hey folks. here’s a new FAQ on the community, since the currently pinned thread is a bit haphazard and crammed now, and we’ve had more time to go over stuff.
What is Beehaw?
in summary, we’re a community that wants to cultivate a sense of real belonging to something, to foster meaningful conversations, and to ensure everyone feels valued and respected in a way that isn’t the case with other social media out there. we’ve thought and written a lot about this. if you’d like more than that summary, we strongly encourage you to read the following three essays, which explain how this community is run, what we priortize in running it, and why we’ve designed it this way generally:
This sounds very cool! How do I join?
you don’t need to write a whole essay, however: please answer the question fully, and try to engage with at least some of the content above/on the sidebar before you register.
this is not personal, but we’ve grown a lot in the past week and are primarily interested in users who really care for the philosophy of our community. if you don’t answer the question fully, you will likely get caught in registration limbo (see below).
How long should I expect to wait to be approved?
anywhere from a few minutes to a day. in general, try logging in after about 24 hours.
if you haven’t been approved within 24 hours your application is almost certainly in limbo because you didn’t answer our entry question to our satisfaction. this doesn’t mean we’re rejecting you, per se, but it generally means we didn’t think you engaged with the content above/on the sidebar. we finally have a hack solution to denials devised and automated, so as of now if you’re a new registration you should eventually get a denial email (and have the username you chose wiped, so you can reapply with it). if you’re in registration limbo you should also eventually get an email, although we have no idea how long it’ll take to get.
if you have been approved and you used an email to sign up you should receive an email for that, although it might be marked as spam. we’re still trying to get Gmail to consistently take our emails, so again the 24 hour rule is best if you’re unsure or haven’t received one.
if you have issues of this sort, please report them in the following thread!
I’m in! How can I keep Beehaw running, or otherwise contribute?
our instance is 100% user-funded. you can one-time donate or become a monthly donor here. you can donate anonymously both ways. as far as we’re aware cryptocurrency is accepted by OpenCollective, it’s just more laborious and you’ll probably have to contact them to clear it.
if you have volunteer labor or advice you’re willing to give us on how to keep the site running smoothly, we also generally appreciate that. our Matrix and Discord communities are the best way to offer that stuff to us.
How do I help keep the community running smoothly?
be considerate! think about the things you say and how you want to say them; be kind and charitable; don’t assume the worst of people; but above all: Be(e) nice!
it might seem trite, but genuinely we’ve found there is no better distillation of what we want to accomplish here than that ethos. if something makes you feel like that ethos is being violated, err on the side of caution and report it (on desktop it’s the flag button in the three dot menu on any post). it can’t hurt. so far though we’ve found most people kind of know what we mean, and we’re hopeful you’ll be able to pick up on that too.
as for non-moderation ways you can keep things running: contribute to discussions! share stuff you find interesting! contribute your expertise and help out folks when they ask for it! it’s okay—and very understandable—to lurk based on the toxicity commonplace on other social media, but we really do try to make this space as welcoming as possible to everyone here and we hope you’ll find it a safer place to come out of your online shell.
What else should I know?
we always take feedback. while we can’t promise any changes, you can provide thoughts and comments on just about anything on the site in Beehaw Support, or on Discord or Matrix (where we maintain real-time chat). we try to get a sense of what the community wants and needs all the time, so we’ll frequently be asking for input from you to help inform our decisions.
downvotes are disabled on this instance and will probably always be. we find them unproductive. communities cannot be made by users on here. we do take feedback on what gets made and when to make communities, as a part of the above point. you can always find a running list of communities we have at this link, or under the Communities button on desktop.
we are all volunteers, and this is not a job for us. we would like to not have it be one, so we can just be members of the community with all of you. please help keep it that way!
in the very, very long term, we aspire to become a co-op or similar, as a part of fulfilling our ethos.
as with the last thread, feel free to sound off on other questions you have. i, other mods, and community members will try to get to them as able.
Just wanted to take the opportunity to say that I actually kind of appreciate the sign-up process needing approval? I’m aware there’s no quick and easy way to prevent bots and bad actors from tarnishing otherwise comfy spaces, but even just having to apply kinda makes Beehaw feel a bit safer? c:
it’s a very good filter, yes–honestly now that the “denials didn’t previously get emails” issue is resolved rudimentarily on our end, we can probably handle up to a few hundred applications a day
The vibe around here is great, thanks for the approval! Very happy to be here 🎉
I really like the policy of no downvotes. Honestly, even on Reddit I think downvoting had long ceased to serve any useful purpose, and turned into a harmful tool. Anything that truly is bad content can just be reported instead.
I think no downvotes for something like Beehaw is great. But for anything that tries to push “open” above “moderated”, downvoting is critical. Otherwise you get bad-faith contributors that are propped up.
I’m coming around to like the policy, too. I was skeptical for a while before joining, but I think I figured out why I had that skepticism.
I think I’m used to larger communities/platforms not having a reliable moderation, and I’ve seen dislikes and downvotes as a directly user controlled means for a place to self-police its content. That’s not to say I’d think moderation would act in bad faith; I’ve had occasional points when I found myself in a moderator role, and I’ve always had the impression that we were trying our best. It’s more that I’d think larger platforms like YouTube and busy communities lend its moderation force to being spread too thin and having to make judgements quickly and with less nuance. Downvotes definitely can, and have, been used in bad faith by users, but I think I felt like their intended use case made their issues a necessary evil.
I think Beehaw is actively striving to be different in that way. I don’t think that means I should say this place is invulnerable to something like Mod Decay or Apathy—I’d think something as potentially impactful like this warrants a degree of vigilance. But the vibe I get so far is encouraging. I think that if Beehaw’s moderation stays the course, I’ll continue to see the downvotes absence not just as a non-issue here, but a benefit to how we do things.
Thanks for approving me! I was looking for an art community on Lemmy as a replacement of Reddit and as far as I know, Beehaw has the biggest art community on Lemmy!
Thank you very much for your efforts. I am happy to be here and am very excited to see how this platform will develop!
thank you to admins, this has been a a great experience, really has helped with finding a new place after reddit. The community here has been incredibly welcoming. I appreciate all the transparency and dedication.
I love you guys so much 🥲🩷
Hi bees! Great to be here with you guys.
Hi everyone. This is an interesting place. I like that good behaving is part of the community philosophy. I can also understand why the creating a community is not allowed. Overall I have the feeling this is a place of quality.
However, disabling the down vote button leaves me with an uncomfortable taste in the mouth. I understand why this is done. This is my first post here, so I will see myself how its going to work out and decide at later time if this is a good idea or not. At least down voting unpopular opinions is such a bad thing in other communities, which would be solved here. And it still is self regulating, where top or hot comments have the most likes and comments. While writing my own comment here, I start to like disabling the dislike button.
Oh and thank god there is a Preview mode (like Github). I just wish there would be a realtime preview mode on the side.
I joined back in April (then forgot about it…) so should I consider myself an early adoptor? Anyways, I’ll spend some time familiarising myself again.
I don’t have the authority, but I’ll say it anyway—yes, you may use that title to describe yourself.
Sincerely, One of the riffraff from Rexxit
Thank you all for your efforts! I really like the intent of the community here. I hope we can all flourish together :)
Happy to finally be(e) here! It was worth the wait for approval. 😊 I’ve been watching how the Beehaw team and community has been responding and taking action during this tumultuous period and I’m absolutely impressed. Looking forward to being an active member of this community.
Guys, I love the intent here!
What’s the best way to help?
What’s the best way to help?
donations are probably best if you have the money (here) but failing that moral support is always appreciated
Hi guys, new here, how does this: “communities cannot be made by users on here. we do take feedback on what gets made and when to make communities” work in practice? is there a space to request a thing be created? Like for example i like to talk about wrassling shows but there’s only a sports community.
On a semifrequent basis, we open up a thread to see what interest are present. We just had another round recently:
ah, thanks very much, that’s excellent!
Is there a wrasslin community? I can’t seem to find one
Following.
Happy to be(e) here!
