When you go to create an account on beehaw, they have a questionnaire you have to fill out with questions like “what do you plan to contribute to beehaw?” and then one of the 4 admins that run beehaw have to read your answers and then approve or reject.

I don’t blame them for being a small team running a forum and want to keep trolls and spam out, but it sounds like they are trying to have the best of 2 contradictory worlds. with the selective tight group of like minded individuals, but also have their communities reach a large audience and grow interaction. It just unfortunately doesn’t work that way.

But now these 4 admins stumbled into hosting the some of largest popular communities in the fediverse and are struggling to handle the bullcrap that comes with being popular on the internet.