Chat

I dunno, ask Colin about the opinion he expressed not me. I was just disagreeing that his comment said anything to the effect that "we shouldn't talk about Lemmy's shortcomings."

I'm not even convinced they are saying that the devs shouldn't share their opinions here as well.

The exact phrasing was:

"not a good sign to find myself on a platform where fellow admins are criticizing the developers like this."

Not:

"not a good sign to find myself on a platform where fellow admins are criticizing the developers."

Those aren't the same statement.

Personally I think that it probably is good for the admins to discuss their concerns about software development of Lemmy both directly where that will have an impact on the development and here within the community.

But I think in both cases, because they are representatives of Beehaw, that should be in the form of productive criticism that is explicit about what they think should be different and why.

This post is more about emotional venting about their frustration without even spelling out explicitly what they are frustrated about. Which is productive in the sense that it's important to process one's emotions and discussing them with your peers is a way people like to do that. However, I actually don't think it is appropriate for the administrators of an instance to do so in that context because it potentially sets a negative tone for the discussion between the admins on behalf of the Beehaw community and the people actually working on the software about what Beehaw's needs are from that software. This could actually undermine having Beehaw's voice heard in an effective way to help get these issues resolved.

I think that this post acknowledges that there should be a line drawn between official communication by the Beehaw administration and their personal venting as a user (ie by titleing it "informal PSA") I think it might be better to just not make it at all, process those feelings off-site, then come back with a more formal, detailed and specific, and more neutrally worded statement instead. It's not the end of the world or some unforgivable sin to have made a venty post about how they feel but I do think it would be better to handle things slightly differently in future and it is good for people to share that feedback.