I saw that this instance had a large number of users so I thought “more users->more content->more fun”. Apparently, I had to prove my value by answering 3 questions that showed my interest in their community and my value as a potential future member.

What could possibly be my value to a general purpose instance besides money? I’m a software/cloud engineer so I guess there are things I could help with, but my guess is they were expecting me to say “I can donate”.

I get it, they need donations to exist, but this upfront? And to a community I don’t even know? Maybe I’m imagining things and they were looking for something else?

Do all instances rely on donations? I’d like to contribute to the instances I enjoy at some point. But only if I feel at home with them, not as a prerequisite to join.

  • @webghost0101@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
    14•1 year ago

    I doubt this is about donations.

    There is some stuff going on on beehaw, i am not quite sure about the details but essentially they defederated with some other big instances.

    This means that they can no longer interact with those instances. And those instances can also not interact with communities on beehaw.

    They can interact with other instances but are shielded from every comment and possibly even votes caused by defederated instances.

    I believe this is a temporary trend that some instances are doing to protect their communities till better moderation tools exist. Not allowing new people in might be a part of that, Personally i am not a fan of this strategy but apparently current beehaw users are content with this.

    I am on the fmhy instance myself, as far as i know we are not defederated with anyone so all of lemmy (including communities on beehaw) are open for me to see and interact with.