Compiling this data was not as hard as I expected, let’s go through the data and the shiny graphs!
Age of Beeple
Most are above 24! Seems we got an older average age compared to a lot of social media. It would be interesting to see how many came here with experiences from independent forums before Reddit.
Where Beeple reside
This one’s a big graph. Though we can notice most people are from the US. Would be nice to see more countries represented though a big part of it likely has to do with language. (You will need to open the big graph in another tab, it’s too big to show properly.)
Gender identity of Beeple
So, as expected, mostly men. However, less than expected which is nice to see. There should be outreach to at least equalize this.
Sexual orientation of Beeple
This is kinda surprising. It seems we managed to get a lot more LGBTQ+ people than expected considering most of you all come from Reddit - so this is nice to see. This is most likely because of our focus on a safe space.
Whiteness of Beeple
As expected, mostly white which is unfortunate. I think there’s outreach to be done in that regard as well.
Neurodivergence of Beeple
We seem to have a really surprising amount of neurodivergent people! Definitely nice to see.
Beeple with disabilities
I… have no idea how to interpret this data so I’ll just say, shiny graph.
Beeple’s awareness of the Fediverse
Most knew about the fediverse but still a good 20% had not heard about it so glad to see you all managed to find your way here!
How Beeple have been dealing with Beehaw
It seems most people feel relatively confident in their ability to use Beehaw and most people seem to enjoy it. That makes me really happy to see. Feels rewarding, feels good.
Conclusion
I wanna thank everyone for the feedback about the survey and its questions - we’ll do better next time! I’m glad we did this survey because it shows the areas to work on in terms of outreach! Thank you all for your participation!
I just want to pipe in and and say thank you for caring about diversity. Lots of discourse here about how that’s hostile to white people. In my opinion purposefully misinterpreting “unfortunate” to mean “white people not welcome” is a perfect representation of why WHY diversity matters.
Because as a POC it’s clear to me that there are valid reasons why a white-dominated community can be… Uncomfortable. Like the very comments here that push back and pretend that race isn’t a issue and that POC are racist ones for caring about it. Not bothering at all to understand where it’s coming from and why it matters.
Edit: I didn’t write this at first but I can’t bite my tongue anymore. White people who get hositle over this have suffered from main character syndrome for way too long. You feel unwelcome because some online community simply wants more diversity? Why is it that in your mind one more POC means one less white person? Speaks more about your world view than anything else.
I’ve felt unwelcome my entire life because people resent my intrusion into their white bubbles. The whole point of Beehaw is that it’s inclusive. I’m a snowflake who wants her safe space.
it’s a good indicator we are going to continue to ask that question on the survey forever, for what that’s worth. very clearly a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” question because oh god, some of the responses here
I’m so glad that the mods aren’t getting steamrolled into submission. I was having a bad mental health day today and some of these comments really bothered me. Immediately my reddit-trained mind was like, oh, you dumbass snowflake. Touch grass.
But then I was like, fuck, the whole reason I’m on Beehaw is because it’s supposed to be different here. Thanks for continuously affirming my belief in it 👍
To be clear, we’re also aware that repeatedly being exposed to this kind of conversation can be demoralizing as well. I watched this happen on another website where the just asking questions crew would show up in every goddamn thread about every identity that wasn’t ciswhitemale. I remember a specific thread asking for women to talk about what’s hard for them, which was both dominated by male voices before any women showed up and then when women actually talked about the problems they experienced (and deeply couched their language, I might add), they were met with an endless line of men insisting “that’s not me”.
So to be absolutely clear, we value your voice and we don’t want to lose the community we’ve built here either. If this is ever frustrating to see, please vent about it. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I’m trying my best to avoid tone policing (I’ve already screwed this up a few times, and I apologize deeply to anyone I scared away), especially on issues which directly effect or marginalize your experience. I think it helps a lot to have such a diverse set of responses, because often people are unaware how deeply frustrating and exhausting fragility and managing other’s emotional state can be, especially when you are on the receiving end of marginalization.
The most refreshing thing here has been to be able to respond and be backed up in my response.
Personally the most demoralizing thing about having the conversation taken over is often not being able to respond/take it back. At first I was afraid to say that this is just one more example of white people main character syndrome, because I was like, ugh, I’m going to get a bunch of comments of how I’m the actual racist one for generalizing all white people.
The justaskingquestions crowd makes me feel crazy for getting upset, and then villanizes me for being the upset one. But obviously I’d get more upset than them, they’re the ones erasing me.
So normally I just slink away from these places, whether it’s online, or my (supportive) boyfriend’s shitty white family, or my uni alum groups, or my workplace. And that’s the most demoralizing part, that they can say whatever they want and I have no recourse other than to leave.
So it means a lot to me that I don’t have to leave here. That I can say my piece and have it backed up by the mods, not bullied & downvoted into submission.
I genuinely support people asking in good faith. Some white people just don’t understand and they want to. But by the 2nd or 3rd response it’s very clear which are in good faith and which are simply camouflaging their intolerance. So thank you for shutting the latter down.
For me, a concept that really helped me feel like I’m not crazy for being upset, is microaggressions. I’m white, but a woman, and I always was bugged by how upset I’d get by sexist shit. The people saying, ‘there are no women on the internet’ and ‘go make me a sandwich’ etc.
Each one of them is no big deal-- but it’s not just one. It’s dozens upon dozens upon dozens… for your whole life. If I went my whole life in full equality with men, and one asshole said, ‘go make me a sandwich’ I’d be like, ‘wow, what a weird asshole’ and shrug it off. But it’s not one time, and it’s not in a life where I have equality with men.
It’s the whole concept behind the water torture where one drop drips on your head, over and over, for days upon days. Only it’s your whole life. And always, there will be people saying, “It was just a joke” or “it’s just one water drop, GOD.”
I wasn’t sure if pointing out all the JAQing off would be appropriate. I always knew they were coordinated, but they just showed up so fast! 😩
I’d like to respectfully ask that you don’t hide behind the excuse of people acting in bad faith. I think that section, as written, is actually difficult to interpret in good faith. The charitable interpretation of it is that we need to be intentionally welcome and aware of POC in the community, but that is just factually not what that sentence says. It just says that it’s unfortunate most of the people here are white. It just seems like an intentionally inflammatory way of phrasing the meaning.
This has been addressed ad nauseum in this post.
You are bringing social connotations to the definition of the word unfortunate, ones which are influenced by your background and upbringing. The person who used the word clarified how it was meant to be used. Your ‘charitable interpretation’ has been definitively proven already. We’ve asked for people to treat each other with good faith in this space and have requested that you ask questions rather than assume bad faith unless it’s unequivocally clear they are spreading hate speech - this is outlined in our philosophy docs and is generally nice behavior.
I understand that you are upset, but I’d ask of you and anyone else reading this to stop creating the same conversation again in another place on this post.
we could have used the most flowery, cushiony language possible to explain how we want a more diverse community and i am confident it would change almost nothing–but in many ways, it’s been much more revealing of people’s insecurities and hangups that need to be overcome to have phrased it that way.
[edit: on re-reading, the sentence that followed it that said “I think there’s outreach to be done” is clear, even if I think the words could have been ordered better for flow, and connect this more directly and closely to the “unfortunate” comment.]
Yeah, I think as written it implies too much to be interpreted unambiguously. I agree, the charitable interpretation is “we need to do more” but that’s an inference that is drawn from my pre-existing understanding of beehaw’s management and vision, and maybe a sprinkling of trust in their intentions.Without explicitly stating “unfortunately we failed to reach minority communities,” my feeling is that it leaves a lot of room for accusation of other parties for the “unfortunateness” of the situation or misreading of future intent, and personally I think that just leads to unclear communication.This post and that phrasing were in full context, however. Why would pre-existing knowledge not be relevant?
It is possible I set an unusually high bar for specificity, and when I read it back actually the following sentence “I think there’s outreach to be done in that regard as well.” does give appropriate grounds for interpretation. I’ll strike or retract the paragraph because with what I know now, I don’t think what I said was accurate any more.
Personally though, I do think that the clearest communication is done with a lower reliance on context. What may appear obvious to some may simply go over others heads. I don’t think that pre-existing knowledge is entirely irrelevant, but I don’t think it should be completely relied upon either.
I read the sentence as it’s unfortunate that there isn’t more diversity in the population. I don’t think that’s negative or insulting or that it needs an excessive amount of context to understand the meaning of it. We all read and interpret differently…
Thank you for writing this!
As a straight white male it’s a bit hard to feel your words carry any weight in discussions like this.
I’m here trying to be an ally to ant decent human being who might feel they need one! <3
I actually think your words carry a lot of weight, both bad and good. As an ally you can advocate for and support. As a POC it can be exhausting to always have fight. You can’t live our lives but you can help carry the torch when we’re too tired to do so. And other white people care more about what you have to say.
The reality is as a white man you have outsized power. You can use that to dismiss and berate, or you can use it to understand and support. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for doing the latter. Your words are extremely important in this discussion.
Yeah, it’s easy to forget. A former boss of mine had a great coffee mug, it said… paraphrasing here but basically “when you’re used to privelege, equality can feel like oppression”.
I’m so happy to part of corner of the net that actually try to love your neighbor instead of hating everyone and everything.
I just don’t understand why you would want to waste the little energy you have to be an ass.
Basically… “Don’t be a dick” - Wil Wheaton
(Of yeah… the biggest fucking irony… got to love all the white folks working on a tan while still hating people of color. I mean. What the fuck? Almost everyone love a tan… but that’s just working on getting the skin color that bugs you… nutters)
Ok, sorry for the rant. I’m a bit drunk at the moment. Love you guys!
I like to say that everyone deserves white privilege… Including white people! Thanks for showing up and trying to be a good person!
o7
As a fellow snowflake, I’ve got your back.
A bunch of snowflakes makes a blizzard ;)