I made a blog post discussing my biggest issues with Lemmy and why I am kind of done with it as a software.
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Well said. I don’t disagree with a single point you made, and some of it echos concerns I’ve had since day 1. And extra points for calling out
.mlas lemmygrad-lite. I think I’ve called it exactly that as well.The only thing I really have to add is on the topic of toxicity. Like you, I’m an instance admin and have a bird’s eye view of a lot of behavior patterns. I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here. I won’t guess an actual number, but I would say it’s not insignificant.
I’m firmly the latter case: I want to be here, I want this to succeed, and I’m trying to put in the work toward that result. And I’ve interacted with lots and lots of people in the same boat. But, like you, I’m also growing disillusioned for many of the same reasons.
On the bright side, I’ve gotten much less rusty as a developer after having to write scrips and tools to fill in the massive gaps in moderation features.
The only thing I really have to add is on the topic of toxicity. Like you, I’m an instance admin and have a bird’s eye view of a lot of behavior patterns. I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here. I won’t guess an actual number, but I would say it’s not insignificant.
That’s unfortunately a big issue with alternative social media platforms and without tools to combat them it goes bad really bad. I agree completely.
Honestly coming here and starting my own instance and providing help for other instances and stuff has reignited my long lost love of computers and open source stuff. The passion for it is thankfully coming back.
That was me with developing. I used to do it as my day job before moving to infrastructure - now all I develop at work are scripts and the occasional lookup tool.
I do kinda wish I’d chosen something other than NodeJS to be my daily driver, lol, but it does what I need well enough. Haven’t really had a base it can’t cover (yet?).
I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here.
Dude yes, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I worry that users curious to leave reddit are going to go to a big instance, see concentrated worst-parts-of-reddit, and decide it’s not for them.
In theory, decentralization enables freedom from the average user being forced to put up with toxicity. But we don’t really have that (yet) until the ratio of jerk to non-jerk improves.
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the reality is that with a lower population of users is that there aren’t enough other voices to drown out these people
Yep. That, plus the jerks are always the loudest among any crowd.
That’s one of the big perks of running my own instance. It’s been a site rule from the start that it’s absolutely not there to be a refuge because you’re banned elsewhere. And I do ban toxic accounts (local and federated) very quickly. Lol, if .ml is “Lemmygrad-lite” mine can probably be described as “Beehaw-lite”.
There are a lot of good points here, I appreciate the time you put into it.
As an end user of both Lemmy and Mastodon, it’s always an eye opener to see how developers greet user requests and suggestions with curt or snarky replies. Even “Why don’t you open an issue on our source tracker” will often effectively shut down suggestions from less tech savvy newcomers.
My own concerns are more on my own level, though. It resonates with me when you write —
The Fediverse has its own existing cultures that thrive here. And when you enter a space that already exists you need to be mindful of that to prevent issues from occurring.
I’ve seen a few user migration waves, and I think your description of (some) Lemmy users who just want a drop-in Reddit replacement is on point. Mastodon has had its share of Twitterati who surged in trying to recreate their previous circles and tone. Obviously, it’s a generalisation but we do need to face the problem.
The transition from a walled garden environment like Reddit or Twitter — moderated by professionals or enthusiasts, and algorithmically curated — to a federated space with carefully cultivated etiquettes will never be like simply picking up a conversation in another UI.
I’d be interested how a project like Sublinks would/could accommodate the existing fediverse cultures, and hopefully bridge the cognitive gap that seems to exist between threadiverse and fediverse?
Even “Why don’t you open an issue on our source tracker” will often effectively shut down suggestions from less tech savvy newcomers.
How should developers handle feature requests? Keep in mind there is a need for the whole team to see the suggestion and it’s also good to have a place to gather feedback and further discuss.
These are some really good points. I’m personally more interested in the development of PieFed than SubLinks due to the focus on making it easy to contribute, the developer cares about usability and mod tools, its in Python, and the dev posts dev blogs and answers questions on mastodon https://join.piefed.social/blog/
Piefed looks very promising indeed
Does anyone know of any Sublinks instances? The main page for it speaks in present tense, but I haven’t found any active instances. (aside from the demo, of course)
I apologize for my stupidity:
this is me
It hasnt been released yet, still working towards parity (but getting there soon)
The first instance using it will likely be sublinks.art and some other instances will be switching over from lemmy when it hits parity like programming.dev and literature.cafe
Alright, thanks!
Very interesting post, very long but also interesting. I also agree with most of the points.
But I wonder why there is no mention of /kbin which has been a compatible alternative to Lemmy even during the Reddit exodus. It’s also written in PHP which many people should have a much easier time to contribute to than Lemmy’s Rust.
I’ve heard Kbin has been having major issues lately, the single dev is not the most active. There is a fork called mbin which seems promising.
They are different from Lemmy, though, and not for everyone. But variety is good.
Domain blocks are always publicly visible.
Mod logs are always publicly visible in the public mod log.
What? It is crucial for the users, not a bug.
It can become a source of targeted harassment, as it has on the rest of the fediverse before.
Censorship and targeted sliencing of users are the source of bad moderation. To top it off, the mod can target and harrass the banned user and we wouldn’t know bc of censorship if allowed.
targeted harassment
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It is about the anonymity of moderator, not about modlog
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Quit this job as moderator if you can’t take it
if the social prescription to harassment of moderators is “quit because you’re a baby” then you’re going to have many fewer pleasant spaces on the Fediverse in which to exist—because yeah, a lot of people will just quit. i am agnostic on the public modlog overall, but this is an obvious concern with it that i’m not convinced can just be dismissed idly. i obviously have better things to do than a thankless, payless job in which harassment would be dismissed like that.
Yes, very well said. I think this form of checking out is what’s happening to Reddit and why moderation there is increasingly just doing the bare minimum of spam removal and letting toxic users run roughshod. Why put effort in if it’s just going to cause strife?
It especially leads to harassment of vulnerable people. There’s many aspects of moderation that is done here that if implemented in other fediverse software would become a vector for Kiwifarms level harassment.
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This blog post by a Lemmy user who accidentally uploaded his ID and dealt with the nightmare after describes in great detail the ridiculous steps instance admins need to take to remove images from the backend image server that Lemmy depends on. (as well touches upon the developer behavior aspect I will highlight later.)
You misgendered the author of that post, they use they/them pronouns.
Do they? The linked blog’s biography is written with masculine pronouns.
I couldn’t find their pronouns listed anywhere, but it was my bad to assume regardless. Fixed it, my apologies.
I’m relieved to hear you’ll still be running your instance despite these issues! Are you thinking of potentially moving the Literature Cafe forums to Sublinks?
I definitely hear you on the moderation difficulties… with the Fediverse being as far-reaching as it is, good moderation tools are essential and it seems like Lemmy simply doesn’t have these available.
I will migrate it to sublinks as soon as I can.
OK, I’ll stay posted for the new site!
Me too!
Many users on Lemmy seem actively hostile to the idea of decentralization in a way that feels self defeating. They don’t want a better alternative to Reddit, they just want Reddit 2.0 and attempts to sway them towards something better feels like pulling teeth.
Yes! I don’t think it bodes well for general adoption when so much of the Lemmyverse is hosted on two essentially “Reddit 2.0” (by that I mean loosely moderated) instances. Assuming half the population of the Lemmyverse are people banned from Reddit for poor socialization, it means new users considering switching are most likely to first encounter a pure concentrated form of the worst aspects of Reddit userbase.
Beehaw is the only “general” instance I know of who’s mods and admins seem to be actually up to the task of keeping their communities from becoming wholly exhausting and it’s because they didn’t allow themselves to balloon up beyond their ability to self-moderate.
The link offers a download instead of serving an HTML? I’m on mobile Firefox (I doubt it matters).
It might be an issue with the activitypub plugin, https://jewy.blog/b/1T try this shortlink version instead
That link had no issues loading the HTML
I’m getting the same
This post summarizes my thoughts on the issues with lemmy perfectly.
The Community
lol. Well, honesty is a good thing. I hope you find a better fit wherever you end up next.
