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Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

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Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#461

Post by asutekku »

justAnotherNET wrote: post #308
TulliusCicero wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moderate a couple of subreddits and agree moderation is a disaster. For popular subs, moderators are basically swamped in a never-ending avalanche of shit. Even if you want to be a good mod, doing so for the long haul is an insane time commitment. The fact that being banned from one sub doesn't usually get you banned from another sub is totally understandable, but combined with how easy it is to make a new account,…

The mods only have themselves to blame. They create insanely broad rules allowing them to ban anything and then limit mod positions to concentrate their power. The role of mods is to delete off topic submissions and remove illegal content. Nothing more.

And deleting off topic submissions and removing illegal content is what they do the most. Just because you read that some seemingly related post got removed, does not mean everything the remove are those.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#462

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #235

I have to say, at the very least, the UI is a breath of fresh air compared to new Reddit. New Reddit is just...I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just feels awful to look at.

> the UI is a breath of fresh air compared to new Reddit

I agree. I find this interface extremely readable (It clearly displays "JavaScript is required for this page") and simple to use; I close it and move on to something that actually works. Very minimal and intuitive. I approve.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#463

Post by mcintyre1994 »

rolleiflex wrote: post #151

We have something similar to this, Aether. https://getaether.net . (code at github.com/nehbit/aether) Always glad to see more eyeballs on the space, so I wish then the best. Here are a few differences I can see at the first glance: - Aether is decentralised (as in torrent) this appears to be federated. That means Aether truly has no servers and every user is a peer, while federated means there are smaller ‘Reddits’ a…

This sounds pretty interesting, but is it a lot of work to moderate a home server yourself?

> You are the home server, so no one can control what you see. We call this user sovereignty

I’m wondering what I’d have to do to just bare minimum make sure no illegal content gets onto any hardware that I own. Just to use the obvious extreme example, I don’t want to see any illegal pornography, which in addition to not wanting to see I’d have to report to authorities, which I’d presumably have to explain the presence of, which I’m guessing worst case involves them confiscating my devices for some time. There’s a practical benefit to me in having some middle manager taking responsibility for making sure that never gets to my network.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#464

Post by f1refly »

_8j50 wrote: post #27
mahathu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's only one thing that can change my mind a little: if you guarantee email is not and will never be required to sign up or use a feature. I'm not trying to play the devils advocate here, just genuinely curious: Why do you (or anyone else) have such a strong opinion on not using emails for signing up? Usually, when a service requires me to enter an email, I have no issue with using a service like 10minutemail an…

I have spoken about this many times on HN. It comes down to this: email is being used in many nefarious ways and it is an ancient protocol with many insecurities. Anonymous email works for a bit but then every service worth using starts banning the providers. Both reddit and HN prospered as a result of not requiring email, that should tell you a lot about how horrible it is. It's on the same level as social security…

>email is being used in many nefarious ways and it is an ancient protocol with many insecurities

Yes. But this doesn't make it a bad protocol to use. Email is one of the best things that remain for individiuals who value their privacy. It's pretty much the only popular messaging tool that doesn't require a phone number and isn't tied to one vendor.

>Both reddit and HN prospered as a result of not requiring email

This is untrue. HN and reddit prospered because users wanted to use the service, not because they don't require email to set up an account. If you have any evidence that suggests otherwise, please tell me, I'd be very interested in resources on that topic. To contradict your point: Pretty much every other website, regardless it it's a small one man operation or a giant company require email or even a working phone number, and those seem to be doing just fine.

>Email was not meant to be abusef this way

Well, how is it "abused" in it's current form? It's electronic mail, so people use it as such

>and I have seen first hand how it can be used against people

And how would that look like

>Email abd phone number collection is a modern tech evil for me

You should strike email from that list. Phone confirmation is the real problem, because it is tied to your identity in most of the western hemisphere now. However, there's still plenty of serious email providers where you can start a trial account to sign up of whatever requires it, just don't use the usual blacklisted expiring address suspects. I can highly recommend mailbox.org, they provide a very good service and have a 30 day trial period for new accounts.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#465

Post by mcintyre1994 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #146
as1mov wrote: post #60

One thing that stands out to me is lemmy has public modlogs[1], this is a great feature in my opinion. Something that should be more common. Quite a few people on reddit are frustrated by how opaque moderation is, but looking at the meta community of power users that seems to mod the bigger subs, I doubt the devs will ever copy this feature. [1]: https://dev.lemmy.ml/modlog

I moderate a couple of subreddits and agree moderation is a disaster. For popular subs, moderators are basically swamped in a never-ending avalanche of shit. Even if you want to be a good mod, doing so for the long haul is an insane time commitment. The fact that being banned from one sub doesn't usually get you banned from another sub is totally understandable, but combined with how easy it is to make a new account,…

Has anyone thought about building something like Twitter blacklists for Reddit so a group of mutually trusting subreddits can share their list of who they ban (for reasons not unique to their own rules) to a list then all ban that person/account proactively?

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#466

Post by alpaca128 »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #443
hanniabu wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huh, I hadn't used new reddit in a long time, I actually took a look now and it seems like it has improved significantly. The UI itself isn't horrible, it's the UX. It's incredibly bulky and slow, and some user links have been hidden while others completely removed.

New reddit must be the slowest website out there, on mobile where I'm not logged in it takes ages to load. Then ages to kill all sort of pop ups that force me to use their app. I believe they don't care about UX and speed of the site, it's all about the app. They measure app downloads, not the experience on the site.

I still am in awe regularly at how damn sluggish the site is. Even with an ad blocker it is at least an order of magnitude slower than every other website I've seen.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#467

Post by fwn »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #447
jimbob45 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got to give people a space to consider both sides of every argument. Better to cordone off that space than have that discussion elsewhere. If you tell someone NEVER GO INTO THE LAST DOOR ON THE THIRD STORY, they’ll endlessly wonder what’s inside. If you show them that it’s your amateur paintings, they’ll never care again.

This is either misinformed or just directly a bad faith argument. Leaving these communities around is, indeed, very much like letting a wound fester. There isn't really any doubt now that people can use platforms to radicalize others to extreme and often dangerous viewpoints. What's being banned is not a rational space for discussion between reasoned gentlemen, it's a place where people escalate emotions and whip eac…

No. Our parent made a valid argument.

The differences between your stance and our parents stance emerge from different world views not from different information levels or a difference in academic rigor. (Or faith!)

> There isn't really any doubt now that people can use platforms to radicalize others to extreme and often dangerous viewpoints.

What you actually said here ("people can use platforms to radicalize") is true but also trivial. They can use platforms for all kind of things.

More broadly:

It's neither proven that the possibility of radicalization is a problem related to new technologies nor that censorship is a tool effective in mitigating it. Last but not least there's the philosophical question: it's not even clear that this problem we're perceiving is something that should be mitigated on a technical level.

That is very much an ongoing research project and will continue to be for a long time as long as communities continue to adapt to new communication technologies.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#468

Post by lazyjones »

ashtonkem wrote: post #341
TulliusCicero wrote: post #235

I have to say, at the very least, the UI is a breath of fresh air compared to new Reddit. New Reddit is just...I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just feels awful to look at.

My biggest anger with new reddit is that it just doesn’t work. It’s rare that a video will play twice without a reload, infuriating if you want to share a funny video with a spouse, and it will regularly go into a mode where all videos stop working until a complete reload happens. This has been a consistent drag on my reddit usage now that my primary consumption of sites like this is via my iPad, and I suspect I’m no…

It's the same on desktop Safari... The video playing experience is just awful.

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#469

Post by TheMightyLlama »

wojciii wrote: post #449
Afforess wrote: post #24

How is lemmy going to avoid the fate of the last reddit alternative (voat)? Voat attracted the communities banned from reddit, e.g the worst of the worst: jailbait, creepshots, beatingwomen, etc. The users most interested in an alternative to reddit are on average, the exact wrong type of user to help with the growth of a healthy community. I don't see any information on how being "federated" solves the hard problem…

Some subreddits were banned because other disliked the content. Like watchpeopledie. While the sub was disgusting banning it was for me the last nail in the coffin of social networks which decide what is the best for me. While I still use Reddit I'm looking for an alternative without the built-in censorship.

This is a really good point. Today most (if not all) social media platforms seem to be relying on a central or centralised moderation system. Meaning that the limits of the Overton window are defined by a small set of people rather than the community itself. Here, I purposefully state 'the community' rather than 'representatives of the community' as these are two very different things. Reddit for example is moderated by 'members of the community'.

If we're to take reddit as an example moderation happens by individuals rather than all members of the community. And as such it is open to abuse whether it happens or not.

I thought about this for a long time and decided to write up what I would consider to be an acceptable framework for any given social media platform which would:

1. Help define the Overton window in a more organic fashion

2. Allow the platform to function within different jurisdictions.

3. Remove the overhead of central administration and opinion checking.

If it helps, I wrote it up here: https://gist.github.com/TheMightyLlama/bb77a05d3dde4da251142...

Re: Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development

#470

Post by supuun »

ashtonkem wrote: post #341
TulliusCicero wrote: post #235

I have to say, at the very least, the UI is a breath of fresh air compared to new Reddit. New Reddit is just...I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just feels awful to look at.

My biggest anger with new reddit is that it just doesn’t work. It’s rare that a video will play twice without a reload, infuriating if you want to share a funny video with a spouse, and it will regularly go into a mode where all videos stop working until a complete reload happens. This has been a consistent drag on my reddit usage now that my primary consumption of sites like this is via my iPad, and I suspect I’m no…

Yeah, video playback sucks both on desktop and mobile websites
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