Beehaw Support

The process to ask simple questions like these is not a barrier for users looking for honest conversation.

That is one of the facts I did choose Beehaw, because it shows the will for maintain a non-toxic community.

It's good to ask users to write a bit about their thoughts to a) make it a bit harder to register bot armies, b) make users read the rules, and c) disincentivize unfriendly users from registering. Just the delay in registration is probably enough to make the majority of unwanted accounts seek out some other place.

The registration said registrations would usually be approved within day. Mine took a few dsys, which is very understandable, but unless I'm the exception the estimated time could be set to a bit longer to give mods time to approve people.

The registration process and their statement on wanting a community based on kindness, respect, etc is why I signed up on Beehaw in the first place. No trolls and such to deal with, dealt with that enough on R*ddit. So, I like it lol

A lot of comments from people with social anxiety; as someone with social anxiety and aspergers, figured I may as well throw my thoughts into the ring.

I've been through the "approval process" dance a few times now, both for Mastodon and Lemmy and honestly, I don't really find it that bad. The secret is internalizing that mods have so many applications to get through, so they won't really scrutinize your language or overanalyze it to too much. I know easier said than done, but really, the fact that you're putting any amount of thought into it is probably more than most people.

Honestly, I think approvals is a good system and should be the norm for social media sites; it slows down trolls/bots ability to make accounts, and IMO is better than all the alternatives. Email is problematic, capchas aren't really accessible, and screw Instagram requiring you to take a photo of yourself when you sign up. One site I signed up for actually wanted you to ask another user to "vouch" for you as not a troll which means talking to scary strangers.

I think there is a "cultural" miscommunication though. A lot of us are deeply ingrained in "fediverse culture" where this sort of thing is the norm, and so we intuitively understand that it should only be a sentence or two.

However, if you look at where non-fediverse people have seen this type of requirement before? Job applications, university applications, that sort of thing. I think this is why people think that they need to write long, intricately detailed posts saying why they deserve to join what feels like an exclusive club.

I think Beehaw could make it clearer that they are only looking for about three sentences demonstrating that you've read the documents (actually, do you need to fully read the documents? It's a bit unclear), and that you aren't being "graded". Out of interest though, would "I just want to lurk and read posts" be acceptable as an answer to the third question?

It was quick and easy. It also gave me a bit of comfort knowing that they're at least doing some vetting to ensure we aren't overwhelmed with bots, trolls, or other messed up individuals.

I wrote like 6 sentences. Got accepted in like 16 hours. Just said I disliked the authoritarian left on the main instance and prefered the sense of community Beehaw provides.

I probably wrote "too much" as I was thrilled to find a place which is working towards kindness and community :)

My general rule of thumb is that things tend to go better if every owner, admin or mod team utilises the approaches which work best for them. If an instance is functioning well, I'm going to start from a place of trust that what they've made a good choice for themselves and the existing community. It's up to me to decide if it's also a reasonable choice for myself or if somewhere else would be a better match.

I just went through the registration process and I really liked it. It didn't go smoothly because of technical problems (the spinning wheel of doom), but this can be fixed.

The fact that users have to read, think and write about the beehaw philosophy makes it far easier to avoid trolls.

Didn't felt like an interview at all, I don't think the "what do you want to contribute" question was there when I signed up 2 weeks ago, but I remember the other 2 and it took me 2 or 3 sentences it was literally just "I heard great things about beehaw, people seem great and the ones shitting on lemmy on reddit right now are sounding like the people I'll want nothing to do with in the future and they're making here soumd even cooler, so I want in."

It would take me zero effort to add how a sentence or so about how I like to help and see here grow and not devolve into a toxic mess.

Also, I know a lot of people don't use facebook these days, but many groups now have a vetting process like that now and the chillest ones will always, without fault, have something that with 3 questions and one that will just force you to read the rules to find a random word password in them. The ones that don't turn into a mess real fast. So that's not even a niche thing, the "normies" do it with no problem.

I honestly have not tried to sign up for beehaw so I can't comment on the registration process itself in detail, but I do find that they're intentionally trying to be picky a little strange. It seems to me that beehaw is trying to build a community that isn't actually all that well suited for a federated setup. Which is fine but like, maybe they should just make a forum?

Vetting users with a questionnaire is a good idea, allows admins to see who they should let in. What and how a person answers the questions tells a lot about the applicant.

I was just accepted yesterday. I have social anxiety, so a younger, less self-aware version of myself would never have even submitted it. But thank goodness I've gotten better at this type of thing. Instead of over-analyzing and writing a huge essay, I timeboxed my response. Thankfully, it seems to have worked.

From what I can tell, I really do align with what the admins are after, here. I hope that it continues to work well.

Took me 5 minutes, was approved a couple hours later. just answer the questions honestly.

I wasnt expecting it. But it made me think about my motivation for joining above and beyond "an alternative to Reddit". It took a couple of minutes thought while standing in the post office queue! Instead of mindlessly auto completeing another registration page, I actually spent a fraction of my day thinking about why i was doing it. I found it quite fulfilling.

I like the registration process, it acts as a filter against unwanted users.

I enjoyed it, I was able to share myself and what I expect of myself as a user. I do not get to be expressive very often being mostly a lurker.