I saw that this instance had a large number of users so I thought “more users->more content->more fun”. Apparently, I had to prove my value by answering 3 questions that showed my interest in their community and my value as a potential future member.
What could possibly be my value to a general purpose instance besides money? I’m a software/cloud engineer so I guess there are things I could help with, but my guess is they were expecting me to say “I can donate”.
I get it, they need donations to exist, but this upfront? And to a community I don’t even know? Maybe I’m imagining things and they were looking for something else?
Do all instances rely on donations? I’d like to contribute to the instances I enjoy at some point. But only if I feel at home with them, not as a prerequisite to join.
I believe they want to limit troll and bot accounts. I know that if I were hosting a community I would want to vet the members so that I didn’t have to spend all my time dealing with compliants and having to delete comments and ban people.
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This.
It’s like that with many instances. They ask you to fill out a form, answer questions or something similar to make sure you’re not some spam-bot. That’s it.
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This your first day on the internet? There’s plenty of shit people looking to nefariously invade spaces meant for other people.
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beehaw is a little more restrictive than other instances, not about money but about political alignment, they’re making sure you’re not being employed by some troll farm to tell everyone you don’t like the gays or dogwhistle terf shit
No, they are not asking for donations lmao. They just want you to prove you’re a friendly woke inclusive person looking to make their community better with your contributions to their rules, peace, order and love and who knows what else. Just read beehaw org admins’ comments and reverse engineer their opinion and regurgitate it onto an application.
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You say common rules but there are many instances without those
most servers have implicit rules, this one has explicit rules, simple as that, and they make it clear they’re a safe space unlike most others that try to look free but aren’t or are freer but get banned for allowing shit, beehaw is just clear about what it is.
Explicit policies are better than implicit policies. A code of conduct shouldn’t consist of unwritten rules. Maybe this is why you were rejected? It seems like you didn’t understand the purpose or content of their policies when you applied.
So I can see why people coming from centralized, for-profit platforms would assume everything is about money - because over there, everything IS.
In the fediverse (and the open source parts of the internet in general) - people are doing things for free for others benefit. As such, they don’t NEED to cater to and attract everyone, nor do they generally have the time and money to run something that will require full-time effort. They can be choosy. They can look for ‘their people’.
Do not take it personally. They didn’t even reject you, but they do want you to put more effort into explaining why you want to join. And if you don’t want to put in more effort and hate all these rules already then thats a good sign beehaw isn’t for you. Looks like you found a good alternative
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Eh its more like you showed up at someone’s block party and they don’t have all the bells and whistles of a nightclub, because they don’t expect as many people to even know they exist and they aren’t charging a entrance fee
beehaw is a “safe space” echo chamber - it caters to very special snowflakes. you’re not missing anything
I doubt this is about donations.
There is some stuff going on on beehaw, i am not quite sure about the details but essentially they defederated with some other big instances.
This means that they can no longer interact with those instances. And those instances can also not interact with communities on beehaw.
They can interact with other instances but are shielded from every comment and possibly even votes caused by defederated instances.
I believe this is a temporary trend that some instances are doing to protect their communities till better moderation tools exist. Not allowing new people in might be a part of that, Personally i am not a fan of this strategy but apparently current beehaw users are content with this.
I am on the fmhy instance myself, as far as i know we are not defederated with anyone so all of lemmy (including communities on beehaw) are open for me to see and interact with.
Beehaw does not really on donations, they are afraid of bring overrun by bots and assholes.
I didn’t need to give them a big intro, barelly anything tbh. I’m guessing you sounded or too douchy or to botty
I’m betting they saw his requested uname is also used on a sh.itjustworks (wherever the dots go ffs) account and that played a part, since they defederated with those guys. Just a feeling I get.
I really doubt this is the case. I have an acct on both with the same username and I’ve been pretty open about it over there.
Yeah, I’m on both, as well. Don’t think that’s the issue.
Ah well there goes my theory lol. Thanks for the info.
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They might be worried about their fill rate and got more strict with their applications.
Should’ve probably asked them. They are trying to be a more curated community. You are expected to read and obviously follow the rules, and reflect that in your short application text.
If it’s not for you that’s obviously fine. Just like it’s 100% within their rights to not want you. Don’t make a big deal out of it.
Beehaw is notoriously strict with their content and philosophical approach to federation. Last I checked they banned hundreds of instances. That’s not my style. I looked for a well moderated instance that left the banning to the user and kept the server up to date and running. In fact I think they still have no instances banned yet. VLemmy did make me register and wait for approval which happened that same day and it’s been a real pleasure.
I have accounts on other instances and Kbin and all instances seem to carry about the same posts when sorting by All. The fediverse requires the user to search a bit more for the community that fits them best, and that’s a good thing.
Try a few instances and platforms. Kbin is pretty cool but not really my thing, I love Mastodon and my instance (shout out to mas.to and @[email protected]).
It’s nit-picky but you don’t “ban” instances, you just de-federate with them. Individual users in a de-federated instance can still see posts, and can participate if they move to another instance.
It’s a way of preventing brigading, if a single instance is the source of a lot of problematic users. With better moderation tools, defederation well become less common.
It’s called blocked instances and Beehaw makes liberal use of the feature.
They are free to do so, I don’t see the issue.
Dawg even my clg didn’t ask this much… they saw that I passed my 12 class exam, and asked for a 10k INR to block seat(private education here is a bit like that)
What were the three questions?
Why are you signing up at Beehaw? What is it about this community that makes you want to join it? What do you want to contribute to this community?
There is also a request to read at least one of three posts that detail the moderation/general philosophy of the instance to a) evaluate it’s a place you actually want to participate in, and b) inform your answers.
Basically, go to beehaw.org and read some of the content you see there, learn a little bit about how they approach things, then make your case.
What is your name? What is your favourite colour? What is the average air speed of an unladen swallow?
What in this message made you think your rejection had anything to do with donations? Seems like you’re jumping to that conclusion without any evidence.
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The instance I joined had a boilerplate form asking why to rate-limit sign-ups. It said that almost all applicants would be approved, but this helped to control the growth. Got in with a very simple request that used humor related to the instance itself. I would expect this is similar in motivation.
I got in with 3 or 4 sentences about a month ago.
We can’t really guess as to why your admission was denied unless you post what you had written.
I’m not sure why you’d jump directly to the conclusion that your denial was based on money?
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I did not just say “nice things” in my application. I talked about my what goals were in joining such a community, mentioned how my values seemed to line up with what they seemed to be fostering, and talked about what I might be able to contribute to such a space.
Answering a questionnaire like that won’t keep out every bot or bad actor, but it certainly stops a large majority of fuckery from waltzing in willy-nilly.
It does have another reason: the current load on Beehaw from the influx of new users is absolutely wrecking things on its infrastructure. It was not designed to withstand the amount of users that have migrated over.
It’s honestly not that deep. Not to be rude, but you seem to be taking it very personal. I promise that it’s not!
The questions are intended to get you to stop, read the rules, consider if you want to be there, and to be earnest about it. Nobody said it was a mechanism to prevent bots. Just because it’s not 100% secure against fraud and botting doesn’t mean it’s useless either.
I thought the only logical conclusion for gatekeeping with those questions was the donations.
I fail to see the logic in that connection. The first fact does not in any way directly lead to the other. They want to curate a specific type of community and they have a very limited set of tools at their disposal. The fact that those tools are not foolproof doesn’t mean they’re part of some rouse to ask you for money.
It’s just so illogical to think those questions are any kind of real ethical filter.
You’re clearly missing the point of what Beehaw is going for, which may have been a contributing factor to your rejected application. You could always try again with a different identity, or since it seems you may not be what they’re looking for you could just move on and enjoy your time in the fediverse from your sh.itjust.works account.
You’re clearly missing the point of what Beehaw is going for, which may have been a contributing factor to your rejected application.
I know it’s harsh and kinda’ mean, but:
Hey, look! The questions are doing their intended job!
Let them play in their little walled garden.
