I made a blog post discussing my biggest issues with Lemmy and why I am kind of done with it as a software.
Yes! This blog post is fantastic. I read your article through this archive link (since my phone is being finicky with the direct site) and loved it and I’m glad you wrote it!
You totally nailed it on every point and voiced a lot of things I’ve noticed and concerns I’ve had.
On the topic of non-anonymous reports: I’ve definitely already found myself hesitating or declining to make reports I feel should be made purely because they’re not anonymous. Sometimes because the people I want to report are admins. I’ve already had weird situations of people following me around to other posts because they disagree with me and I don’t want to add to that type of thing. Although I can understand that there are some potential upsides to being able to tell who is making reports, like to prevent misuse or spam… I dunno.
Thanks a lot for sharing it with us here! and thank you for the warning at the top about mentioning CSAM - and for calling it CSAM and not the other, worse, seemingly more prevelent term. I appreciate it and I appreciate you! :)
On the topic of non-anonymous reports: I’ve definitely already found myself hesitating or declining to make reports I feel should be made purely because they’re not anonymous. Sometimes because the people I want to report are admins.
My instance had a similar situation where a user on a large instance (not beehaw) was reported, and the reports only encouraged the person, who posted the reports publicly and called upon others to join. The admins were slow to deliberate, ultimately took no action, and although I think they mean well, do not strike me as up to the task of running a large social media platform.
Requiring individual users to block the largest instances (and their communities) in order to peacefully use a platform is just Reddit with extra steps. Without decentralization we just have, as the author put it, Reddit 2.0.
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
-
It is about the anonymity of moderator, not about modlog
-
Quit this job as moderator if you can’t take it
There is still censorship in many instances. Just because it’s transparent doesn’t change anything about the fact that it’s happening. I doubt more than a small fraction of users even regularly look at the modlog.
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.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I feel the same way about Lemmy software, instances, and the Fediverse as a whole. Appreciate your post and efforts.
Maybe Sublinks could be(come) that new platform you guys have been searching for, re: Beehaw thinking about leaving Lemmy? 🤔
I just hope it will be compatible with the available Lemmy apps (Voyager in particular) 😓
Edit: Or PieFed I guess 😊
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.
Community managers - sometimes just talking about your issue with someone will help tremendously in figuring out how to put it and they often can just do it for you. That said, Lemmy devs do not value work being put in the issue tracker - they have admitted to not reading it. People who cannot contribute code are just entirely ignored and have no power in the project’s direction.
I suspect the small size of the dev team and the general nature of an OSS project means there aren’t swarms of people around volunteering to be community managers.
Small projects your sway with the project is directly proportional to your ability to submit pull requests. It’s just a sad fact that it’s easier to say “I wish we had feature X” vs. “Here is a pull request that implements feature X”.
At least with OSS you are getting what you paid for (nothing!), vs commercial companies where you pay for the software and they STILL ignore you.
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
Do you know if Sublinks will be compatible with existing mobile apps like Eternity?
