There are different opinions on Beehaw’s registration process. I kind of see how some people would find it dissuasive, specially after most of us are coming from Reddit. But I still think it’s very practical, at least for the time being.
Btw, this is only my opinion as a new user, I don’t know any of the admins/mods. Link to my original comment.
I’m really glad they ask a screening question. It takes like max 30 seconds of your time to form coherent thoughts and add them to the form. I want to have discussions with folks who are capable of doing that.
Leaving Reddit made me realize that being a part of a truly affirming & thoughtful space is still possible. I’m so used to taking all the racism and classism and transphobia for granted - like “oh I’m on the internet, of course people are complete garbage.” What if we all had a stake in making spaces that actually serve us? What if we were ALL a little more invested in contributing? Seeing all the folks coming from Reddit complaining about how the Fediverse is just infuriating & and impossible to understand kinda shook me, too. I was like that for the first like 3 hours of trying to figure out what the Fediverse is - “why isn’t there just one fucking website and I can search all the fucking communities and see them all in one gd place holy shit I hate this, way to make it unnecessarily complicated” - and then I went and read about it and figured it out (somewhat). I put in a little effort. Realized, holy shit, I’m so fucking apathetic after years of companies spoon-feeding me shit in exchange for my personal data. Like “just make it easy whiiine yes accept all cookies yes you can read all my messages and contacts whatever just open the damn app” and it’s like. Fuck it doesn’t need to BE like this. We don’t NEED to just put up with this shit.
Life is always kicking my ass and sometimes writing 3 coherent sentences after a week of working and not enough sleep is just too much. Like I’m constantly burnt out and sometimes, it really is too much. But if we all did even .5% more, if we thought about what we were doing and put even that .5% more effort, if we committed to thinking and contributing just .5% more, maybe we could really make shit happen. I think it’s worth a try.
So yeah, I wrote a few lines on my application. Come on y’all, we can do this.
If I reply with “Absolutely this!” I guess it would be a low effort, but I can’t honestly think of anything to add to your great reply!
I went through this same journey, word for word, in my head. Thank you for articulating it!