Long post about lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml

Wrote this as a comment, but was too long. Feel free to disagree.

I think that lemmygrad should be defederated, but i think that lemmy.ml should not be defederated, not for now anyway. The vast majority of people on lemmy.ml are not tankies, and politics or tankieism is not a major topic of discussion on lemmy.ml.

Idk if this is true, but I heard that they suppress anti-ccp views, but as long as they don't defederate from other instances, you can always just post them here or on whatever other instance and they'll still be fully visible from lemmy.ml (i'm pretty sure this is true but not 100%, still pretty new to all this fediverse stuff). If they did however start defederating from every instance that allowed truth about "left" auth governments, then yeah ok you can defederate. But that is not what lemmy.ml is doing, at least not right now.

There's different rules based on instance, this will probably be a sticking point and has the potential to derail lemmy entirely if every instance is only federated with the "correct" instances. Lets say lemmy has 100,000 users, its not that much yet but for example. If there's 10 different "networks" that only talk to each other from that same network that has the same rules (obviously, bigotry/"don't be an asshole" rules need to be enforced for every instance), that site is doomed to failure vs if there's 1 network with everyone talking to each other and generally agreed upon default communities for each topic, or even the idea of "multireddits" in whatever form.

I'm not saying federate with every instance, I'm just saying it should be a HIGH bar, not a low bar like a differing signup policy. Being focused on porn makes sense or even if an instance was 50% porn, that'd make sense. Or obviously if there's bigotry, extremism or violence coming from an instance. Which lemmygrad.ml passes, but lemmy.ml doesn't.

If you defederate based on small things, then there'll be 10 gaming communities, 10 NFL communities, 10 "ask reddit" communities. Which is not sustainable obviously. This was one advantage of reddit, it was a "hub" that had 1 (maximum 2 if a split, there was never 3 that were totally equivalent for any topic) forum for literally every topic in the world. A single for profit company controlling pretty much every equivalent to a 2000s forum on the web was very convenient, but was always going to end badly.

Beehaw.org just defererated lemmy.world and shitjustworks, because of the open signups policy (as opposed to the waist high fence of a few paragraphs explaining why you're not an asshole)

That's a major mistake imo and i don't think I'll be using that account as my "main" anymore. Not like I dislike the instance or anyone from it, but a lot of lemmy is now invisible entirely from there.

TL;DR defederating should be used only when you are fundamentally opposed to the core of an instance. Otherwise the lemmy universe will fracture and fail

41 comments

Just to update you, we have now defederated from lemmygrad.
- Just out of curiosity, what changed the decision?
  
  I'm naive to the complexities of tankies and their beliefs, and was unwilling to defederate over political issues that I am only familiar with at a surface level. Doubly so, given that no queer folk were highlighting them as a source of ongoing queerphobia
  However, I did a deep dive in to some of the content on lemmygrad, and it crossed the line to more than political differences. (Which to be fair is what people had been telling me)

Have Lemmygrad users been causing problems on other instances? It seems to me it doesn't make sense to defederate for political reasons unless that instance is being actively belligerent. I haven't personally seen Lemmygrad users causing problems, but I also don't hang out in political communities much so I guess I wouldn't know.
- Defederating Lemmygrad seems to be fairly standard in most other instances, so in most cases, I don't think they could cause problems if they wanted to.
  Defederating for political reasons is something I want to be completely against, but I do also feel that at a certain level of... I guess extremity, it kind of ceases to be a political discussion. This is an area where I think those of us who used to spend most of our time on reddit are kind of spoiled, we were all kind of used to the 'far left' being defined by bernie bros and generic socialists as opposed to tankies and mao apologists.
  I worry about where that line is drawn, but I guess with the fediverse, we all get to choose.
- Agreed. We should always prioritize openness. That comes with its own set of problems, but ultimately, it's the best way.

I think we should only defederated instances that are actively harming this instances community in a way that cannot be handled any other way.
We all have personal block buttons that can be used to handle communities and individuals we don't want to see, and we have other less extreme tools at our disposal to handle a lot of things like this.

I disagree. I think that we should only defederate instances that are actively bigoted.
- Idk if i said it right in my post, but that's what I'm trying to say. Probably about 1000 words too long and confusing lol.
  
  I'm not convinced Lemmygrad reaches the qualifications to be defederated by that standard, though. I don't agree with them politically on a lot of things (besides being anti-capitalism), but I read it from time to time to expose myself to alternate viewpoints, and I haven't seen any bigotry there. On a quick scroll, the first thread I can find about LGBTQ+ stuff, for example, is quite supportive. I think I'm missing something, in which case, please let me know!
- so you agree

I hold a differing viewpoint
Lemmygrad, like any community centered around a particular political ideology, faces challenges in maintaining effective moderation. However, it is evident that they are making concerted efforts to moderate their platform and proactively address instances of bigotry. This aligns with the approach we adopt within our own community.
Lemmygrad enforces a comprehensive set of rules that explicitly prohibit various forms of bigotry, including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia. Furthermore, they have implemented measures to prevent and remove content that falls under the category of pornographic or sexually explicit material, even if it is labeled as not safe for work. Additionally, Lemmygrad explicitly disallows the propagation of dangerous Nazi ideologies, such as right-deviationist factions like patsocs, nazbols, strasserists, duginists, and similar groups.
While Lemmygrad operates as a socialist instance with a specific ideological focus, it is important to recognize that the community is not a monolithic entity. Within Lemmygrad, there are individuals who engage in discussions that encompass differing perspectives, including those who acknowledge and do not deny certain historical events.
While political disagreements may exist, it is evident that Lemmygrad is dedicated to ensuring an inclusive and respectful environment by actively moderating their platform and taking measures to prevent and remove instances of bigotry. Similarly, we strive to foster such an atmosphere within our own instance.
- I appreciate your comment. 💙💙💙

Nah that makes sense. Learn from the mistakes of early mastodon. Defederate only in extreme cases else you end up with a bunch of accts for no reason and it becomes unusable.

I personally think it's only really worth defederating instances that are actively stirring shit in other instances. Otherwise, we're adults, I think we should be allowed to look at instances with different politics if we want to. I do hope Lemmy adds the ability to block entire instances for users, though.

If you dislike a community, block all their communities yourself. I personally think defedding is only necessary when the userbase of another server is actively harassing the userbase of a different server, or they hold alt-right beliefs.

I generally agree, but I do somewhat agree with Beehaw's decision as long as it is actually temporary. They say that they just don't have the moderation tools required to handle the influx of low quality posts from those instances. Considering the ballooning of active users on all 3 of those instances (Beehaw, lemmy.world, and sh.itjust.works) I could definitely believe that. Paring down the amount of potentially rule breaking posts until you have the tools necessary makes sense.
The idea that every instance can just cut ties for whatever reason, though, is scary for the reasons you have outlined.

Beehaw.org just defererated lemmy.world and shitjustworks, because of the open signups policy (as opposed to the waist high fence of a few paragraphs explaining why you're not an asshole)
That's a major mistake imo
My understanding, from reading some other comments, is that beehaw.org is heavily aimed at providing a safe space for the LGBT crowd, and weights restrictions on speech and access to content in favor of achieving that.
That is very much not what I am looking for. However, I am also very sure that it is what some people do want.
So I think that it's hard to say that it's a mistake. I mean, if that's what people on the instance want and what the people running the instance are trying to provide, how can one say that it's wrong?
- This is a thread about lemmy.blahaj.zone, which is also a safe space server. That's why we're discussing whether or not defederating with less-moderated instances is a mistake.
  
  Sure, but that specific portion of OP's comment was strictly about whether beehaw's decision was a correct one.
- My understanding, from reading some other comments, is that beehaw.org is heavily aimed at providing a safe space for the LGBT crowd, and weights restrictions on speech and access to content in favor of achieving that.>
  Is this actually true? And moreover does that have anything to do with them defederating? I haven't seen mention of this elsewhere. I definitely don't have a problem with it but I do have issues with people trying to make unrelated internet feuds about our ability to exist online.

Defedding should be a last resort.
- To be clear, defederating is not a last resort for Blahaj Lemmy. We will aggressively defederate from any instance that is a source of ongoing transphobia, queerphobia or other bigotry, even the "just asking questions" kind.
  
  (Replying to an old comment because I've been thinking about this a lot).
  Is there an equivalent on Lemmy to "limiting" like on Mastodon? I think you're right that part of the appeal of the Mastodon network was it's zero tolerance for "just asking questions" BS, but there are probably grey area cases

Beehaw.org just defererated lemmy.world and shitjustworks, because of the open signups policy (as opposed to the waist high fence of a few paragraphs explaining why you're not an asshole)
To my understanding, Beehaw defederated with those instances due to an ongoing harrasment campaign by a few of their users. The open signups were not the reason they defederated, but rather a factor enabling the harrasment; the user(s) would be banned from beehaw, and inmediately make an additional account to continue harrassment. Beehaw has been pretty open about the how and why of defederation, and to my knowledge theyve been working with the admins of shitworks to get to a place where refederating is possible.

Well at least the drama is making for good content.

From my understanding the defederation is that banned trolls could theoretically just bring 10 more accounts into existence which would be a major pain in the ass to moderate.
This issue will be resolved in due time I think when modding tools improve. It's an extreme step and Beehaw mods have said they would go to those extremes as necessary to keep the community the way they wanted. I don't think Beehaw admins and users have any beef with Lemmyworld or shitjustworks on the whole.
- the issue with this view is that it assumes the toxicity is 1. active, targeted trolling and 2. something that the people in question are willing to put significant effort into
  the majority of the time toxicity doesnt flow in due to any active effort to be toxic, "brigading" is in reality usually just folks flowing in from /all/

Just curious, is there a way for a user to block an entire domain like in Mastodon? I can go into an individual community and block that community but I don't see a way to block an entire domain.

Oh bother ... I have a Beehaw login that I can't use unless I'm on a PC browser, and now I can't interact with it from shitjust either?

41 comments