We are now at 28.5K users (see https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list). The top 10 instances also got a decent boost in user count. With the exception of beehaw.org which defederated, the Fediverse is thriving ๐ฅ
but their goals are not realistic if they want to be a platform of any significant size.
As I understand it, they don't care about being big, they care about having a community of people that align to their principles.
Problem is, if you don't pay too much attention to their server description, you might not realize what their principles are.
I think they got so big because many people were just trying to join any instance under the massive influx, without thinking much about it, and beehaw became much bigger than they intended to be (or expected).
Now that they have defederated from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, people "not intended" to be there are leaving, that should bring them "more down" than they currently are, I think that's what they actually want.
Beehaw controls their sign-ups. What they don't like are people they have not vetted commenting on posts in their communities. They don't like it because some people were 'trolling and spamming' and they can't keep up with the moderation.
They have 4 admin ls trying to do everything and they are not going to open up until they get moderation tools that make it possible to run a large site with just those 4 people.
Basically, they don't have a philosophy of running a server that is compatible with being in a federated environment.
Whether that's compatible with federation or not, I don't know, but I honestly couldn't care less and I don't get why some people still think it's a big deal.
There were 2 big communities of value on their server but there are already growing alternatives elsewhere, so everything is fine in my book, that's the beauty of the fediverse IMO.
You're right, it's a problem for new users unfortunately, beehaw should be quite more explicit on their server descriptions and rules.
Not sure about delisting them, that would be detrimental to those actually looking for a place like that, but they surely shouldn't recommend people to go there as a general instance, it's not just about federation, even if they were federated, that place is not for everyone.