Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
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Hot damn, in just over a week. Data from https://the-federation.info/node/details/25274. Made in GIMP.
Thank you Chris, alyaza, Gaywallet again for making such a nice place and managing this explosion in popularity, to the mods and other people keeping it operating, and lastly to everyone joining, contributing, posting and commenting and be(e)ing friendly!
Loving Lemmy (and the beehaw community specifically) Even if all of reddit's issues are addressed magically overnight I'd still stay here. I feel like I can say what I want here without triggering some alt right douchebag
This is the moment for lemmy. The big issue this system had was it's viability. It was tiny. Like you'd look around at dead instances proudly reporting their double digit monthly user count with several day old threads and no comments.
I know I've taken a look at lemmy for a few times and decided not to take the plunge because while I wanted a smaller alternative to reddit, it was too small. We're at a point now where things are active enough to draw in a stream of content and the snowball rolling downhill will eventually grow into an avalanche.
I dont think a federated open source reddit alternative is going to reach the hundreds of millions of users reddit got, but that doesnt matter. What matters is there's enough people around to sustain a decent community.
I was here when it all happened
Keep on growing! With Apollo now confirmed to be shutting down by months end, I'll be moving here for good!
I came here myself yesterday. I'm worried it isn't going to be able to grow much however. Everyone seems to go to the same instance when wanting to join. Really should have some sort of home page for the service where users are presented with a randomly selected, general purpose instance to join. That way one can spread the load and new users won't have to deal with the confusing process of signing up.
That said, I'm new to the whole fediverse concept. This might not be a good idea for obvious reasons that I'm not aware of.
I don't know whether random is the right answer... We've already seen a little drama on the lemmy.ml instances based on one of the server operators preferences. I think people will naturally go to other instances. The server operators effectively determine what belongs and what doesn't in the instance, and that can change based on their whims. I am against a default but a random server selected automatically seems like a weird roulette.
The power structure of Lemmy instances is like a fiefdom, the admins hold the effective power to select what users and what discussions is allowed within their server they rule. Some rulers are generous and benevolent, some are strict, some are hostile, some are laissez-faire except for certain peculiarities. If you don't like any of them, then be the ruler of your own kingdom that you create and communicate with the other lords from your throne.
yeah. we're trying to really curb who we're adding at this point to "people who actually want to be here that align with our goals" so it's not completely overwhelming (our backlog of admissions is about 100)
Good luck with that, it's no easy feat, and I expect it to get especially crazy when many sub-reddits shut down on the 12th. Be as ready as you can, I'll try to help guide new users best I can as well.
as we've noted a couple times, an extreme option we can leverage is just not approving anyone and if it gets too crazy i'm pretty confident that's what we'll do (or we'll limit our approvals to a general number per day, and what happens happens. i think we might also be able to make the instance private, dunno.
I worry about how this is going to get handled. There are going to be a lot of people looking to check out Lemmy, and this could be a true pivotal moment for the platform. Like it or not, Beehaw is one of the instances that lots of people have been hearing about, and so you're going to play a part in that pivotal moment. Not allowing people to participate could drive them away. It's a tough situation. I don't envy you.
I've got an idea. Since during the sign up phase we answer questions, so why not add a question that poses a hypothetical scenario where the prospective member can answer in their own words what they would do in that scenario.
The scenario can be crafted to gauge someone's kindness, even if there are no right or wrong answers. For example, we can have the question be:
"Can you share an example of a recent action you took to make someone's day better?"
Or:
"Tell me about a time when you offered assistance or support to someone in need."
Or:
"Could you describe a situation where you went out of your way to show empathy or understanding to someone?"
Trolls and ne'er-do-wells are not as likely to give detailed, thoughtful answers to these sorts of questions.
This way it provides an additional way to screen applications so nice people migrate here.
While it will tend to exclude them, it's also highly likely to exclude others as well. As an example, I have ADHD, so often it is difficult to amass enough spoons to provide detailed answers to things like this.