this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023

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Potentially unpopular opinion: It may be time to close registrations (temporarily). (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Cavalarrr@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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Hey kbinMeta.

Given the news that beehaw.org are defederating from two of the largest Lemmy instances due to issues with moderation, I thought it may be worth @ernest considering closing registrations here, for a while at least.
I've seen that a handful of other kbin instances have been spun up, however, kbin.social currently dwarfs their user numbers. kbin.social is currently sat at over 28,000 registered users, with the next highest, fedia.io sitting at around 3,000 users. I may be incorrect on this, but as far as I'm currently aware, @ernest is the only admin, I believe he may have mentioned that he's taken a couple of additional trusted users on board, but at this time, I can't find receipts to back that up, however, I am aware of the immense pressure that @ernest is in to keep things not only running smoothly, but also moving forward.

The workload overwhelmed me, and I couldn't read all your messages.

This is in relation to account deletion requests alone, and understandably, this explosion in popularity and userbase was not only unexpected for @ernest, but possibly also for the platform itself:

Kbin was designed with small instances in mind.

~~Apparently fedia.io have already disabled open resgistrations due to usercount~~, (although that may be unverified, as this post from the fedia.io admin doesn't suggest that, but still food for thought.). [This is not the case, they just aren't federating, as confirmed by Jerry, thanks! I think Jerry's comment is still very relevant to the topic at hand, however.]

Now, I've already seen a handful of comments denigrating beehaw.org from some of the defederated site users, as well as users local to kbin.social whose accounts were made after the defederation. This is more than likely to result in kbin.social also being defederated from beehaw.org, if not others. I completely understand that this is the nature of the fediverse, and that no one instance is going to be completely open with every other instance, however, I think it's worth considering that we "have our own house in order", namely in the shape of more site-wide moderation, instead of keeping the floodgates open for every reddit refugee or otherwise.

I'm well aware that many may disagree with this, but I think it's something to consider.

Edit: Edited title of post. I just want to clarify, I don't mean close registrations for good, just while things calm down a little bit / ernest has chance to get a solid moderation / admin team in place.

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[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's up to ernest ofc but imo closing signups kinda feels "un-kbin". fearing defederation from beehaw is just silly. they will do what they will do, and imo it's pointless to try and center kbin's actions on those of an entirely different site and instance.

if the influx of people is making it hard to do admin stuff, then I guess it might be necessary, but simply to "spread users around" I don't really support. If people want to come to kbin.social, let them come to kbin.social.

[–] Cavalarrr@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I may have missed the mark on my point in the main post to be fair; It's not about fearing defederation from beehaw.org, it's more about ensuring we don't get overran by people with ill-intentions before the dust has settled, and whilst the site doesn't have the manpower in place to keep things like that under control.
Currently there's nothing stopping someone from the communities beehaw has defederated with from signing up here and going on a fullblown hate campaign because they disagree with the ideals of the beehaw admins. Everywhere they go, those local instances are then looking at "ih8beehaw@kbin.social", and if nothing is done to prevent that, then it colours the rest of kbin.social users in a bad light. The more bad users you get, the more likely you are to experience widespread defederation, and lose out on a lot of what should make the concept of the fediverse great.

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that's understandable, though I think the fear is unwarranted. lemmy users want to stay on lemmy. they don't want to come to kbin (even to troll). and I think the few that might end up here will just be drowned out by good faith kbinauts. I think it's already the case that we are getting a good image and reputation in the fediverse.

naturally open signups means that all types will come here. but as I said, that's kinda what makes kbin kbin. we're also federated with "problematic instances" like lemmygrad. if someone has an issue with kbin being open to everyone, then they will naturally block us no matter what we do.

beehaw is just that: I think they'll end up defederating from many instances, not just the two they did yesterday. because what they want is fundamentally opposite to the idea of federation.

lemmyworld and sh.itjust.works users are content with the beehaw block because in their eyes, beehaw sucks. why would they want to participate in those communities? lemmyworld isn't closing their signups just to try and get on beehaw's good side again; despite their current reputation in the fediverse.

I think the bigger issue for kbin isn't necessarily whether or not other instances "like us", but rather whether or not we as an instance can maintain the "kbin culture" of civil discourse, neutrality, helpfulness, etc. I think that spirit and culture is far more important than whether or not a few bad apples start getting other instances wanting to defederate.

ultimately, I'm not worried about it. kbin isn't exactly a large instance (we got the "literally who" treatment from beehaw lol). so I don't think one or two people will really be an issue even if there's a full "beehaw hater" who comes on here to troll them. because one user can simply be blocked by beehaw. defederation resulted because they felt there was too much coming from lemmyworld and sh.itjust.works. And that's not due to a few bad apples, but a culture clash as a whole.

Idk if you've interacted with those sh.itjust.works guys, but it's obvious to me why beehaw blocked them. Their culture is just completely at odds with beehaw. Whereas kbin culture I believe is not. If a large amount of "beehaw haters" start flooding kbin and changing the culture to be one of toxicity and vitriol, then I do think we'd start having a problem. Otherwise I don't see it as an issue.

[–] Cavalarrr@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

lemmy users want to stay on lemmy. they don't want to come to kbin (even to troll). and I think the few that might end up here will just be drowned out by good faith kbinauts.

Given the much higher number of Lemmy instances, you may well be 100% correct on that, that is, even trolls may just decide to 'stick with what they know' and continue to use a Lemmy based instance.

if someone has an issue with kbin being open to everyone, then they will naturally block us no matter what we do.

Also correct, however, I understand that if a post is local to kbin.social, and had comments from lemmy.world users, in addition to kbin.social users, and a beehaw.org use came to the post, they wouldn't see any of the comments from the defederated users. That is to say, so long as one instance doesn't federate with another, they will never see posts from that instance, regardless of where they are.

I'm not saying that won't still prevent people defederating with kbin.social purely because we're open / federate with another community they specifically defederated from, but there's less reason to if kbin.social maintains a quality userbase.

I think that spirit and culture is far more important than whether or not a few bad apples start getting other instances wanting to defederate.

If a large amount of "beehaw haters" start flooding kbin and changing the culture to be one of toxicity and vitriol, then I do think we'd start having a problem.

Another agreement from me here, however, the point of this post is to start a discussion around whether or not we can prevent being overwhelmed with bad apples too early on in the platforms lifespan (although I appreciate we've already addressed this above).

As has been said, at this point, it's entirely up to @ernest, but I think it's worth looking at potentially taking a couple more people on to assist with the moderation side of things.

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

even trolls may just decide to 'stick with what they know' and continue to use a Lemmy based instance.

Yup. there's a ton of lemmy instances that aren't blocked by beehaw, so it's likely any trolls would just use those in the first place.

however, I understand that if a post is local to kbin.social, and had comments from lemmy.world users, in addition to kbin.social users, and a beehaw.org use came to the post, they wouldn't see any of the comments from the defederated users. That is to say, so long as one instance doesn't federate with another, they will never see posts from that instance, regardless of where they are.

Think of defederation as "blocking" an instance. if lemmyworld users and beehaw users come to a kbin magazine, lemmyworld users will see everything as proper because they didn't block anyone. beehaw users will see an altered version that hides/removes lemmyworld posts. Lemmyworld users can interact with us like normal, while beehaw users can interact with us, but they won't see anything that lemmyworld users are doing on here. Lemmyworld is blocked from beehaw so they won't get updates from beehaw. Meaning beehaw communities won't sync for them, and beehaw users won't see lemmyworld users/communities. But lemmyworld users will see beehaw posts on kbin magazines.

I'm not saying that won't still prevent people defederating with kbin.social purely because we're open / federate with another community they specifically defederated from, but there's less reason to if kbin.social maintains a quality userbase.

Keep in mind that kbin is federated with some popularly blocked instances, like lemmygrad. we federate with everyone afaik. the swiss neutrality of the fediverse tbh.

Another agreement from me here, however, the point of this post is to start a discussion around whether or not we can prevent being overwhelmed with bad apples too early on in the platforms lifespan

Right I think this is the bigger issue (and less so the drama bout other instances). In terms of lemmyworld users coming here and causing problems.... I don't think it's an issue. kbinauts largely don't have an issue with lemmyworld (we're not crying to block them). and lemmyworld people can interact with our stuff just fine.

however, a larger influx of users from elsewhere (such as what happened with reddit) can potentially change culture. but I think things are still early enough that kbinauts can decide how we want the culture to be here. and I think the consensus seems to be: neutrality, civility, polite discourse, and trying to achieve mutual understandings. I'd say we're doing a good job in that regard :)

[–] gus@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Totally unrelated to this discussion but my curiosity got me:

beehaw users will see an altered version that hides/removes lemmyworld posts.

What would it look like for someone on beehaw if the comment chain went like this: kbin comment>lemmy.world comment>kbin comment? Would beehaw still see the 3rd comment? Or will it kill everything after the lemmy.world comment, kbin or not?

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

What would it look like for someone on beehaw if the comment chain went like this: kbin comment>lemmy.world comment>kbin comment? Would beehaw still see the 3rd comment? Or will it kill everything after the lemmy.world comment, kbin or not?

theoretically beehaw will see the kbin comments, but not the lemmyworld comment. as for how this looks in their ui/site idk. it may just end up hiding everything that's a response to lemmyworld unless you directly access the url for the later kbin comments.

think about what happens on twitter when someone replies to a tweet that is later deleted. on twitter it just says "this tweet was deleted" or something like that, but you can see the replies still if you have the url. I think this might be the case but don't quote me on that.

Basically: all kbin posts are still syncing with beehaw. lemmyworld posts are not. how that displays in their ui is unclear.

[–] Nepenthe@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

however, a larger influx of users from elsewhere (such as what happened with reddit) can potentially change culture. but I think things are still early enough that kbinauts can decide how we want the culture to be here. and I think the consensus seems to be: neutrality, civility, polite discourse, and trying to achieve mutual understandings. I'd say we're doing a good job in that regard :)

That's my only concern here, that's leaving me on the fence. Beehaw defederating kbin would leave me neutral/annoyed at best. Other places will fill the void they leave or we'll do it ourselves out of basic necessity.

But while I do agree trolls from lemmy are more likely to stay there (they already got used to jerboa, etc.,) all they'd be looking for is ease of access. If most lemmy instances start making access harder to combat their own issues, they'll look for somewhere that doesn't.

That doesn't have to be here, but they don't particularly care whether it is, and the fact we do federate with everyone would be seen as a major plus: access to all the worst parts while still retaining the ability to troll everyone else.

It's not here yet and we can build and enforce the culture that we currently have, but it strikes me as likely a when more than an if. And once they do think of us, that kind of culture...doesn't necessarily spread like chickenpox, but it corrodes things.

A matter of years ago, people on reddit were personable and they continually had to live in an atmosphere with more and more shallow assholes, so they adapted to an asshole role.

That Ernest is the only one really suited to address this atm does make me uneasy. He's already swamped enough

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

It entirely depends on the ethos and direction ernest wants to take this instance. Personally I'm fond of the "open signups, federate with everyone" approach that kbin currently has. If people do not wish to federate with everyone, they can go join another instance that defederates itself from the ones they don't like?

In terms of culture, I do think things will inevitably shift and change as kbin grows. that's an unavoidable part of growing a community. Though I do think having clear guidestones and ethos will help direct people's default assumptions about the platform.

Keep in mind that defederation is a strong action and one that has huge impact. It's not something that results from just a small amount of trouble makers, but as the general larger community as a whole. Beehaw defederated from lemmyworld because they do not like the culture/behavior that lemmyworld users have. lemmyworld can't really resolve this without really changing what they're about. at which point I think a lot of their users would end up leaving.

It's naturally the case that some people will have "clashes" with other people, culturally speaking. you can either try to change yourself, you can block the people you don't like, or you can try to tolerate and accept both clashing cultures with a "agree to disagree" mentality.

beehaw took the stance of blocking. they didn't want to yield to lemmyworld's culture and userbase, nor did they wish to tolerate and accept lemmyworld users in their communities.

kbinauts I think have been pretty good at doing that last option: accepting and tolerating those of different cultures and beliefs and agreeing to disagree. However, that mindset is utterly at odds with the way beehaw does things. In that a regard, I do think some instances may end up blocking kbin simply over philosophy of moderation. But we'll have to see.

From my kbinaut eyes, lemmyworld users are not problematic. sh.itjust.works users are not problematic. I have no issues with those guys. beehaw does. I don't think I'll ever come around to beehaw's way of doing things either, which is why I don't join that site. If kbin starts taking a similar approach to beehaw, I might just end up leaving kbin for another instance.

Troublemakers who spam are indeed sometimes a problem. but unless you get to the point of the culture being on the level of 4chan, personally I don't see a need to defederate.

I think beehaw kinda set themselves up for mass defederation, due to only having 4 mods for the entire site, which is simply not able to tolerate growth that the rest of the fediverse will see.

[–] KoreanPerson@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If those bad actors in sh.itjust.works and lemmy.world are willing to make an account at a new instance just to send hateful messages on beehaw communities, then it wouldn't matter if kbin.social closes new registrations because they can just go to any other instance that has open registration to send those messages to beehaw communities.

if the issue is popular instances having higher numbers of bad actors, then thats an issue for beehaw/other safe spaces. Rather than an issue for kbin (at least right now). Either way, Kbin is not advertised nor planned to be a safe space (from my understanding of ernest's posts). if there are bad actors then they can voice their hate/opinions and get downvoted/reduced. I don't think anyone on kbin.social cares if there's a minority of bad actors that might "color the site in a bad light". Especially since those bad actors aren't here as of right now.

The solution is for safe spaces like beehaw to continue defederating from popular instances to keep their space "safe". This will continue to happen whether kbin.social closes registration or not.

[–] towerful 1 points 1 year ago

The defederation is unwanted on both sides, and is temporary.
The tooling to deal with those types of toxic users hasn't been developed yet.
Even read-only defederation doesn't exist yet, or an allow-list users from those instances. Anything more fine-grained than a full block doesn't exist.
And to be clear, this is about bad-actors posting abhorrent stuff.
Even for admins dealing with user reports from other instances (apparently) requires a lot of work to follow up.
Within the scope of Lemmy, everything going on is new, everything is unprecedented. There are lessons to be learned from other projects, but there hasn't been time to implement them (indeed, until a week ago there hasn't been a requirement to implement them).

I absolutely agree that kbin should be concentrating internally to make sure everything is how you want it, because whatever you've done so far: it has been working. You guys are awesome. Just have to make sure that's sustainable!

[–] iNeedScissors67@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So far the userbase for kbin has been widely respectful and friendly. If that changes via trolls making multiple accounts to stir shit up, I'd advocate for restricted signup processes. Right now, probably not necessary, but I can certainly see a future where it is.

[–] Cavalarrr@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

My thinking re: closing registrations for a time, is that if currently the only person that can action warranted sitewide bans (e.g. users actively using hate-speech in multiple posts in multiple magazines) is ernest, then there may be a point where there's simply too much to keep on top of, given everything else he has going on.
These concerns may well be completely unwarranted, and I'm well aware that even if kbin.social were to be defederated from a number of instances, that once "the situation" was under control, they could be re-federeated if agreed with the other instances. It would just be a shame to hamper our own community by being relatively powerless against a potential influx of bad faith users whilst ernest is busy being awesome and actively improving kbin as a whole.

[–] effingjoe@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm surprised he didn't close registrations when he had to invoke cloudflare.

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it'd be nice if ernest could write up a little bit about his moderation and platform philosophy. it'd really help clarify where things are headed and what decisions might be made. though the dude is super busy rn. it's insane how many hours that guy is putting in.

[–] QHC@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From what I have seen so far, I am confident he wants to and will eventually do this, he is just completely overwhelmed right now.

I would encourage you to read his recent "apology" post to get a sense of how he is approaching his role as admin. So far, he appears to be saying and doing all the right things from my perspective.

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Yup. I've had some interactions with him already and I read his apology post. Judging by how kbin is, the about pages, and his apology post, I have a feeling he's "one of us" in the sense of being a tech-first, "free speech but no legal issues please", and transparent admin. Everything I've seen from the guy makes me think kbin is in good hands.

His apology post is a bit silly because IMO there's really nothing wrong (forking and reusing code is remarkably normal in software dev) but it seems the original code devs were upset about lack of credit/licensing? and so he posted transparently and is working to make things right. at least that's my understanding (I didn't dig into the drama there).

I have a feeling this "openness" is part of the ethos of ernest, as well as kbin as a whole. So I think the vibe we're all getting here is accurate: essentially the classic ethos of Aaron Swartz (co-founder of reddit, creator of markdown and rss), or similar to Internet Archive's ethos (tech-first, info, sharing knowledge).

In this sense I have a feeling that:

kbin will try to avoid closed signups as much as possible and keep things open (unless there's a severe problem)
kbin will try to federate as much as possible with every instance
kbin will encourage platform neutrality allowing various ideas, discourse, beliefs, and views to be posted
kbin will try to stay on the legal side of things, removing illegal content if/when the need arises.

I guess we'll see when he does get around to writing the ethos/manifesto post. But yes, the guy is clearly overworked and overwhelmed right now, so there's definitely no rush. Dude's doing a fantastic job so far.

[–] jerry@infosec.exchange 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Cavalarrr @ernest I did what all the cool kids are doing and disabled federation on fedia.io. The problem isn't really the local users as much as all the content being federated in.

[–] Cavalarrr@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Thanks for clarifying! Was the choice to defederate mainly down to a flood of content from other instances drowning out the fedia.io community, or the nature of content coming in, for example?

[–] lohrun@fediverse.boo 2 points 1 year ago

There are other kbin instances that have been popping up, you can see here: https://kbin.fediverse.observer/list

I just opened user registration on my instance earlier today to help lessen the load on kbin.social and the other instances.

I actually had asked in the kbin matrix chat earlier if I should even open user registration in the first place because I don’t want to be defederated with. Defederation truly feels like the nuclear option especially while we are trying to grow this part of the fediverse

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