HistoryMemes is moving to Piefed.social

Hey everyone! We're moving to Piefed.social! You can find the comm at

(this link might work if you're on Fedia?) !historymemes@piefed.social

Hope to see everyone there!

Feed for all migrated comms here: https://piefed.social/f/pugmigration

Will I need to change my account to participate?

Nope! Piefed is compatible with Lemmy instances, so you can keep using your current account! All you have to do is hit 'unsubscribe' on HistoryMemes on Lemmy.world, and hit 'subscribe' on HistoryMemes on Piefed.social

After that, just participate as you normally would!

Why move the comm?

Nothing in particular against Lemmy.world - the admins here have made some amateurish mistakes, but I'm willing to accept that we're all human and running a big instance is not easy, especially for a volunteer team. The issue is with the Lemmy devs.

There's been long-standing tension with the Lemmy devs - namely, that they use their influence over their flagship instance - .ml - to enforce the removal of acknowledgements of incidents of genocide and imperialism that they like. If you're morbidly curious, !MeanwhileOnGrad@sh.itjust.works documents this, with things like acknowledgement of the Holodomor or refutation of the claim that Ukraine deserves to be genocided by modern Russia being removed by dev/admin fiat.

This places users who are not genocide deniers or supporters in an awkward position - namely, that either we refrain from contributing to the devs - damaging the longevity of the platform we're using - or that we contribute to them despite their horrific views - enabling them to continue spreading and creating a space for genocide denial.

With that in mind (and I was a Kbin user initially precisely because of my discomfort with the Lemmy devs - I hope Ernest is okay, wherever he is), I've been keeping an eye out for a viable Lemmy Fediverse alternative for a while now. Piefed's main dev has a good head on his shoulders, and it appears to be a robust platform. I think Piefed is ready, and I'm just medicated enough at the moment to make the effort of revving up the comms from scratch and writing up this screed.

Why Piefed.social specifically?

A good question. I considered Piefed.world, as the organization .world belongs to is larger than Lemmy/Piefed and robust. Anarchist.nexus was right out, on account of it being an offshoot of dbzer0, whose admins have chosen to indulge in very concerning Uyghur genocide denial and tolerating Holodomor denial on its instance. Ultimately I decided to give Piefed.social a chance on account of a coherent core mission statement in favor of democracy and rational discourse.

What will happen to this comm?

Well, I won't be participating in it anymore except to remind people of the move, and hopefully most users will follow suit and join the Piefed.social community. I'll stick around to remove spam, but that's about it.

36 comments

I am confused, maybe you can help me out. As a layperson about the technical details behind the fediverse, how are piefed and lemmy different from one another (from a user perspective, or is it just admin and mod tools?) and how are the lemmy devs leveraging their position over independent instances (outside of maybe blocking users from .ml or defederating or using their general influence to pressure people, and can't they do the same to piefed instances)?
- how are piefed and lemmy different from one another
  Think of "the fediverse" as a language spoken; Lemmy and Piefed (and Mastodon, Misskey, etc.) all speak the same language (ActivityPub) but they have different regional accents, so how the language sounds is a bit different depending on who you're talking with at the moment. Each speaker has their local idioms and slang, if you will.
  For Fediverse users, the interaction is mostly at (a) the web browser layer, and (b) the phone app layer. The piefed and lemmy softwares are written in different programming languages, have slightly different features and look slightly different in your browser - sort of how a Honda and Nissan are close, but different.
  Same for phone apps, but "not the same" since many fediverse apps support multiple services, like the Android app "Fedilab" - they can support many at once by speaking the ActivityPub language generically and implement custom features for each type on their own. (meaning independent development of the language, ensuring that the language itself, ActivityPub, is conformant).
  Edit: picture is worth a thousand words - view these two presentations of the same content, this post with our comments:
  https://lemmy.world/post/35434972
  https://piefed.social/post/1225683
  Colors, layout, element positions (links etc.) are all just a wee bit different between them but it's all just wrapping the same content in different views. I personally feel Piefed has a lot of work to do to make their webUI appealing to me and it's what keeps me from using it as I use the browser a lot.
- I am confused, maybe you can help me out. As a layperson about the technical details behind the fediverse, how are piefed and lemmy different from one another (from a user perspective, or is it just admin and mod tools?)
  From a user perspective there are a few differences - Piefed supports flairs, for example. Mostly it's the same concept, though, just a slightly different layout. I'm a layman and not code-oriented myself, so I couldn't give you the details, but I'm given to understand that the basis of the code of the two systems are different, though I have to admit to being unable to follow the arguments or judge their relative merits. Some arguments about the coding language of Piefed being better suited to big projects, something like that?
  There are some differences with admin and mod tools as well, including managing bans without having to use third-party tools. As a mod, the mod tools for Lemmy are incredibly sparse.
  and how are the lemmy devs leveraging their position over independent instances (outside of maybe blocking users from .ml or defederating or using their general influence to pressure people, and can't they do the same to piefed instances)?
  As outlined in the body text, the core of my issue is the position it puts users like me in. Either we're effectively freeloading with regards to Lemmy's sustainment and development, even if we have the resources to contribute, or else we're donating money to literal genocide deniers who use that money to cultivate an instance that suppresses acknowledgement of genocide and imperialism.
  
  Some arguments about the coding language of Piefed being better suited to big projects, something like that?
  Looks to me like piefed uses mainly python, and lemmy rust. So it would rather be the other way around.
  Anyway, understandable decision. And thanks for your memes!
  
  Either we’re effectively freeloading with regards to Lemmy’s sustainment and development, even if we have the resources to contribute, or else we’re donating money to literal genocide deniers who use that money to cultivate an instance that suppresses acknowledgement of genocide and imperialism.
  No, you can also donate money to independent servers like Lemmy.world and support them and the ecosystem without the awful devs.
  Independently to that, why do you use Piefed and not Kbin?

I don't think is a great move....
Good thing about decentralised open source software is that you don't have to have anything to do with .ml to use Lemmy. And .ml doesn't have absolutely any influence whatsoever to this community.
It's already difficult to create a nice space here without people deciding they don't like each other all the time and splitting each time they have a chance, to become smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and smaller...
As of for now I won't be subscribing to the new piefed community until is larger than this one. But overall I don't support the change. I think is completely unnecessary and detrimental to the fediverse to keep doing things like this.
Not that is possible to even subscribe as it seems that "subscription to the new community needs to be pre-approved". This community worked just fine, this is going to just make it smaller or even disappear over the issues this will cause.
- As outlined in the text body, it's not an issue of .ml's influence. It's an issue that continuing to use Lemmy as a platform places users in a position of either hampering the health of the platform (by opposing contributions to the devs) or enabling genocide denial and imperialism apologia (by contributing to the devs).
  Ultimately, whether you make the move with us is your choice.
  
  I get the reasons. I've been politically active enough time in my life to know how's the deal in "leftist infighting". It just saddens me, because it make impossible to have nice things in the alternative space, with everyone constantly fighting each other. Being in a history oriented community it's nice to bring the example of Spanish civil war, with the left worrying about fighting each other leaving a clear road to Franco to conquer the whole country.
  At the end I just want to have a nice space to share info, and memes, with people; without being subjected to a capitalist business that only wants my money. If the new space achieve that I will move there. But I express my doubts on this being the best route to achieve that. I already see that you have trolls there, moderation may become a burden, as shoots have been fired, .ml trolls may try their best to hamper both the new and the old space. My advice will be to get someone you trust to help with moderation asap. If possible in a different timezone so you can cover your sleep hours.
  I wish you the best. And if this succeeds we will see there.

Anarchist.nexus was right out, on account of it being an offshoot of dbzer0, whose admins have chosen to indulge in very concerning Uyghur genocide denial and tolerating Holodomor denial on its instance.
Not to dismiss this, but can I see a source on this claim?
- I made a post about this: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/52313315
  Unruffled did not deny the genocide. That reply was taken out of context.
  
  Thanks, this is a great explanation. I hate how people take stuff out of context
  
  Denying genocide and then walking it back later, whilst defending genocide deniers does not inspire much confidence in the walking back.
  When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.
- Unruffled denying Uyghur genocide
  Holodomor denial left up in a comm where the only two mods are dbzer0 admins, they both participated in the thread, the material was reported, it was specifically pointed out to one of them, and the comm regularly removes Zionist genocide apologia and denial under the (legitimate) justification that genocide denial is against the rules

The Meanwhileongrad link is working, but the new historymemes one isn't. At least, not here on fedia.
- Damn. It works from lemmy.world. Any suggestions for a fix or alternative?
  
  Steal the formatting from your meanwhileongrad link? That one works just fine. It's just your history one that doesn't display right.
  Here, check it out from my point of view; https://fedia.io/m/historymemes@lemmy.world/t/2659796/HistoryMemes-is-moving-to-Piefed-social

When my first Lemmy instance was lemm.ee, then I moved to lemmy.world and also got a dbzer0 account as a backup, then I read this post:
- Don't worry, you don't need to move your Lemmy.world account! The comm is moving, but you can participate as normal with a Lemmy.world account.
  
  I know, I already subscribed.
  But I wish I had made better choices for which instances my accounts belong to.

Why didn't you move it to an mbin instance?
- I considered it when I was looking around for Lemmy alternatives, but Piefed felt more intuitive to me.

36 comments