As a long time Reddit user, there's something about Lemmy and the fediverse that feels really refreshing and new. I think it has to do with a few things......
I noticed two things, along with all the good answers in this thread:
There is no such thing as Karma, and I hope it will never be implemented into the fediverse. The reason is that on Reddit Karma was handled like a currency, an in order to obtain Karma, the general quality of the content declined, as a result of Karma-farming. Also it was used as a threshold for posting comments in certain communities. Imagine you could join an instance only when you have a certain ammount of a Karma equivalent. That is something I don't want to see.
At this moment there are mostly tech savvy users (former heavy Reddit users) here, who are interested in creating content and participation. Also these folks are helping each other. It feels like a little community. I think, the threshold to join the fediverse is still too high for the average mainstream user. Maybe it will be easier to get started when there are mobile apps.
Hey all, I recently left reddit like many of you. I have a question regarding lemmy and the fediverse on the history of banning and defederation. I have noticed several posts calling for varying communities to be disconnected. were these removal requests as prevalent before the mass migration? Usually I am all for communities...
Most instances also defederated from lemmygrad (commies) so its not generally politically left either.
IMO, Stalinists aren't exactly tolerant either. You're still talking about a totalitarian and authoritarian viewpoint, even if they're on the left on economic matters.
IMO, if your point is to make a community welcoming, then you have to get rid of intolerant voices. That--broadly speaking--means that you have to remove people advocating for any kind of absolutist, authoritarian rules. It's easy to see at a macro level, but it's all fuzzy at a micro level.
Personally, I prefer individual users being empowered to easily block instances over instances blocking stuff "for" the users in most cases. Issues:
Users from other instances can still require mod actions. Moderation time is limited. Defederating from more problematic instances can be necessary if they cause more trouble than can be easily dealt with.
It is important for instance owners to achieve a coherent "front page" which includes the wider fediverse. I’m unsure if it is possible to ban individual instances from the frontpage while still allowing users to specifically visit them as they want.
Some instances are legally ambiguous or even contain content fully illegal in some countries.
Note that if you click on an instance, it will show you the various admin reasons for why people defederated.
The one I saw someone asking to be removed (exploding heads) seemed to be more normal discussion with a big extra dose of edgy humor magazines and swear words. This includes various slurs and straight up racism. This very much falls into the category of "I don’t want those here, but I’d prefer if users can still visit them" for me.
Specifically, admins and community moderators of that instance were the problem. This seems like it would quickly fall into the "unfeasible to moderate on a case-by-case basis" category. Therefore, the nuclear option of defederation may be necessary.
I have to say that there's a level of irony in asking for bans and central controls on content on a platform that in its very nature decentralized and supposed to be empowering.
There isn't any irony. That's the whole point of the decentralization - it empowers everybody to be part of the communities they wish to be in, and not participate in those they disagree with. We have the power to leave any instance where we disagree with the admins and move to a new one.
some of those mods are likely thinking that moving would destroy the community they worked so hard to manage
they aren't wrong. It will massively deflate their community. That's an ineivtability of how lurkers on the internet work. They aren't there for community, they are there for easy passive browsing.
What can we do to help them transition?
"we" as in the common person? It won't be a fast track. There will need to be a steady supply of content for a certain topic, and a stream of discussion. Unfortunately the best way to help as a single person is to basically become that sweaty forever online person. The first step to the Network Effect is to generate enough content to engage with.
If "we" have developers or artists that can be one bigger step to help out. contribute to making apps and extensions to either bridge the gap or overcome current shortcomings of these federated instances. Even amongst techy communities there is a lot of confusion to how instances work. So some app to make it dead simple to browse and comment (while later allowing options for power users) is key. Sync committing to working with Lemmy/KBin is definietly a bit help.
Most of the rest is up to the instance admins. SEO, improving features, getting good moderatiors, etc. None of that is in out control, we can only give feedback
This can be alleviated a bit. If one person searches for an other-instance community by URL, it will become available for all other users through a normal search. So over time this becomes less of an issue, particularly if someone takes out some time to seed a bunch of these for their instance.
What is this about having to copy and paste a link to find subscriptions from other instances? I literally just pull up the community browser and set it to "all" and then search.
That's cause over time people have added communities to your instances repitoire over time. Network effect, essentially, making it easier for each new user. Tbh, if new users are on a bigger instance this should be a non issue.
You don't need to do that if that community is already federating with your instance. If its not, it might take a little while for the federation to actually start after you make the search (based on the server infrastructure of your instance and the remaining queue). Try searching again after a bit and it should be there. These quriks should be solved as instances become more stable, and Lemmy/kbin gets further developed.
Yes, that will show you all the communities/magazines that your instance has already discovered and have started federating with. But if it is a community that hasn't been discovered by your instance yet, you will need to search with the link for it to start federating. And once even a single user from an instance does that, the community will be visible to everyone else as well.
On Lemmy, if nobody is subscribed to a community on your instance, it doesn't appear in that view.
In order for it to appear, someone with an account has to go to the search bar at the top right of the page and type in the URL to the community manually. Then it'll appear after an initial search.
On large instances like Lemmy.world, you can almost guarantee someone has already done this for most popular communities - but newer/smaller communities may not appear because nobody on your instance has searched for them yet.
For smaller instances, there are likely multiple communities missing and you'd have no idea until you went to look for them.
For Lemmy, if nobody is subscribed to that community on your instance you have to copy the entire URL. E.g. you need to search for https://instance.social/c/sub in order to find !sub.
Once one person on your instance searches for it, then you can find it by searching !sub.
I don't know why Lemmy works like that. Kbin doesn't have the problem; you can find things by searching @sub@instance.social no matter what.
I created a community few days about combat footage. It got banned 12 hours later for violence. Now I can’t seem to create a new one. How can I fix this ?
I think it has someting to do with allowing NSFW content. Many instances do not want to host NSFW content, as it is too much effort to moderate. You should look for an instance where NSFW content is not restricted (I believe lemmy.world allows NSFW content) and try to create the community there.
I’ve already started seeing a lot of redundant communities being made here that have already existed on other Lemmy instances, and lemmy.ml is at risk of centralization and overload, so now is a great time to raise awareness of other instances....
PopHeads and fans of pop music rejoice, I have an entire instance just for you. Come and post all of your pop music theories, favorite tracks, costumes, memes, snarky comments, and all other related things. Hell, create a new community if you like!
Will be creating more as interest demands, or create one of your own, we know there’s already a few fans of Camila Cabello there and I know I love CRJ :)
Oh, and to ease the stress, my registration is currently open for any lurkers
How does one follow a community from another instance. for instance, beehaw’s gaming community I would like to follow, but when i am there, it makes be create a separate account.
Strong moderation abilities, and instance admins like ourselves who actually ban white supremacist communities and not sit on their hands about hosting the largest one on the internet, for years.
edit: like just today, we had a few TERF communities try to set up here. It took us less than a day to ban them. Its not difficult.
You can view if user created communites are enabled on your instance here; lemmy.ml/api/v3/site
That link outputs a wall of text, but all the Instance settings are at the top after "local_site". Optionally you can format the output with a json formatter like jsonformatter.org which makes the output easy to read.
In the case for lemmy.ml, you see ["community_creation_admin_only": true] which means users can not create communities. You can check other instances for one that does allow user created communities. Just replace the root name in that link and get the settings there.
The instance I'm on does allow user created communities. Some instances actually state their settings in the sidebar for convenience, the one I'm on does that.
This is a pretty bizarre question to me personally.
First of all, we don't have to do anything. If you mean you were wondering if people will lynch you for using emojis, no clue. Try it and find out.
Second of all, the whole "build my personality to fit in" is exactly backwards. The whole point of the fediverse, instances, etc is that you find a community to fit you, not the other way around.
Third of all, this isn't Reddit with tens of thousands of comments making anything more than a "yes" or "no" irrelevant. People actually have the time and space to consider things and answer them more fully here when there's less spam.
Finally, the whole idea of a "mob policy" sounds concerning.
What I think could make Lemmy superior to Reddit is the ability to create themed-instances that are all linked together which feels like the entire point. I've noticed that a lot of instances are trying to be a catch-all Reddit replacement by imitating specific subs which is understandable given the circumstances but seems like...
I don’t agree. If I like LOTR and giraffes I don’t want to create an account on both “instance groups”. I want to do like today and create a single account, then subscribe to the communities I am interested in wherever they are.
To me it sounds like you are sort of mixing up community location and community discovery. This is sort of the case right now because instances have a list of local communities but I think that it is best that they are separated. For example on Reddit I don’t generally find new communities by scanning the entire list of communities. I usually find them when someone mentions a related community in a comment of a community that I am already in. Or when I stumble across a community when searching the web. When you discover and subscribe to communities this way it doesn’t really matter where they are hosted or if they are grouped. You can organically discover things that interest you over time (although I agree that it can be a bit slow to start).
It's a very good thing to avoid what happened on Reddit that a big istance is moderated by people that don't think democratically and rule against other people's will deleting posts and banning everyone they don't like.
With federation, you can choose the instances and communities you like the most, the ones with better moderation and so the kindest one will probably prevail :)
Why does Lemmy feel so fresh compared to Reddit?
As a long time Reddit user, there's something about Lemmy and the fediverse that feels really refreshing and new. I think it has to do with a few things......
banning and defederating communities
Hey all, I recently left reddit like many of you. I have a question regarding lemmy and the fediverse on the history of banning and defederation. I have noticed several posts calling for varying communities to be disconnected. were these removal requests as prevalent before the mass migration? Usually I am all for communities...
Call to action - renewed protests starting on July 1st (www.reddit.com)
The latest from /r/ModCoord.
I don’t understand people who say they can’t figure out Lemmy or KBin
Does federation have a bit of a learning curve? No doubt....
People of color / BIPOC / antiracist / decolonial communities?
Any communities or instances focused on non-white folks or information/news/organizing against racism and colonialism specifically?...
My first community was deleted and now i can’t seem to create a new one. How long til I can create new one ?
I created a community few days about combat footage. It got banned 12 hours later for violence. Now I can’t seem to create a new one. How can I fix this ?
This community is not for support! [Please report support posts]
There’s been an influx of content surrounding lemmy here. Some of it is open ended:...
What is your favourite Lemmy community, which is not on lemmy.ml?
I’ve already started seeing a lot of redundant communities being made here that have already existed on other Lemmy instances, and lemmy.ml is at risk of centralization and overload, so now is a great time to raise awareness of other instances....
How do I reach the right people here on Lemmy?
Hi!...
r/The_Donald has been banned on Reddit, what's to stop those users turning Lemmy into what became of Voat?
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What's the mob policy on Emojis here on the fediverse?
Like a lot of people here, I'm coming from the rexodus and I was just wondering if we still have to lynch people using emojis in their comments?...
Are we using Lemmy correctly?
What I think could make Lemmy superior to Reddit is the ability to create themed-instances that are all linked together which feels like the entire point. I've noticed that a lot of instances are trying to be a catch-all Reddit replacement by imitating specific subs which is understandable given the circumstances but seems like...
How do we deal with similar communities on different Lemmy instances?
Say what you will about reddit, at least an established subreddit was the place to gather on the topic, ie r/technology etc....