I can only say that I spend less time on beehaw because there are communities on both of those instances I want to interact with. This isn’t really an argument to refederate because as an end user I can filter the noise and focus on the communities I want, but I know admins don’t have that luxury. It’s more of an impact statement. I like beehaw, and I don’t want to leave, but I do probably spend more time with my other account just because there’s more activity I’m interested in there. So I fully support whatever decision gets made and certainly support this community, but I can’t be the only user whos spending less time here than I otherwise might.

Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position!

• Monty Python

There is a type of group-think that can emerge when people look for a safe space. In fact, it almost has to happen because part of being safe is staking out topics that cannot be “both-sided”, but the nature of a voting based platform seems to actively amplify the tendency to drown out good faith voices. Discussion is almost based on people having differing views, otherwise there’s nothing to say. I don’t know who’s old enough to remember Metafilter, but it is that type of thing that drove me away from there many years ago.

I don’t have an easy answer to it, however.

There are a handful of communities I want to interact with that are defederated from here. I scan beehaw, but I don’t find myself interacting because I can do my commenting elsewhere, and as already observed, there’s a lot of news that I just don’t care to discuss. I get it and I don’t think an instance should be refederated because of me, but it creates just enough friction for me to impact my daily usage. It’s a pity because I love the idea of a co-op style social network governed by users, but that also means it might go in directions I don’t like and federation makes it so easy to jump ship that it’s a real tightrope to walk for admins.