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Lemmy instances that are focused on mirroring Reddit content?

I've posted before about my fediverser project, and I am now looking to see who is interested in participating.

The short description is that it does the following:

  • it runs a lemmy instance which will be the home of bots that mirror accounts on reddit.
  • The admin of this instance can choose what subreddits are going to be monitored from this instance. Let's say that these are the "source" communities.
  • For these selected subreddits, the admin can define where the posts from these subreddits should be posted in the other lemmy instances. We can, e.g, map posts from /r/selfhosted to !main@selfhosted.forum or !selfhosted@lemmy.world .
  • You can choose whether to mirror the posts only or the whole thread with comments from reddit. Each of these will be authored by the account that mirrors the original reddit user.
  • (WIP, optional) responses to the reddit mirror accounts will create a comment on reddit with a link to original lemmy thread.

So, now I finally got to deploy the first lemmy fediversed instance, and I'd like to know the following:

  • which subreddits you still follow but would like to bring to the fediverse?
  • For instance admins and community mods, what communities you would like to be the destination of the mirror posts, and would you be interested in having the posts only or the whole thread?

Bear in mind that this is NOT advised to be done for the bigger subs. The idea here is not to create a huge army of bots and overwhelm the fediverse, but mostly to create a migration path to those who rely on the more niche subreddits.

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128 comments
  • Isn't this like stealing, guys? No, not from Reddit - from authors. Ask for a consent before mirroring anything, for the love of Fediverse. Cheers!

    • The better question would be whether this constitutes fair-use. Because it's certainly not stealing.

      • TINLA: factors for fair use don't seem to align, though.

        • Such use does not characterize commentary, parody, etc. and is not transformative.
        • Post may prove to be substantial on its own, especially if it's an art piece.
        • Most of the work (individual post) or crucial parts being used.
        • Since there is most likely no thorough link to the author's website or profile, they lose the audience - nobody will go to look up the same post twice, not through Google and Google Images, especially.

        About that last point: solvable by manually gathering authors' links or making a hyperlink to respective Reddit profiles.

        • Adding a link to the original profile is quite easy and it would help alleviate the issue.

          Also, keeping in mind that one of the goals of such a tool is to get people on reddit to be aware of the alternatives... the easiest way to let people on reddit to file a claim and/or to remove copy they don't want copyrighted would be to let simply let they taking over their mirrored instance by proving they own their reddit account. And if this tools becomes popular enough to the point that redditors start signing up to the fediverse because the copied instance is getting significant viewership, then mission. fucking. accomplished.

          • It does not merit a verification of the author, when you hold their content encaged somewhere they did not approve yet. You say it's to increase registrations on Fediverse and for the brighter future, but please remember to deal with this ethically. Creator deserves to know first that your mirror (or whatever ends up being) intends to seek engagement with their piece.

            Linking to original, as we both proposed, is an aftermath. Top three factors also need to be addressed if you claim fair use.

            As an alternative, asking for consent and delaying repost is not a rocket science.

            • you hold their content encaged somewhere they did not approve yet.

              I'm failing to see how their content is "encaged" anywhere, and I'm failing to see how this would be any different from what, e.g, the Internet Archive does.

              • You only need to recall where it took the Internet Archive, no matter the intent it has. But let's presume for a minute that a lot of it is educational: does unsolicited art reposting constitute an educational purpose, commentary, criticism, news, or a parody? If all that fails to meet, at least work with the portions that you're taking.

128 comments