Hey everyone! Just wanted to create a post on different things going on in the instance

Matrix Space

Programming.dev now has a matrix space at https://matrix.to/#/#p.d:matrix.org . We had a matrix room before but a space is essentially a collection of rooms so we have sections for different communities, a support room, etc. If you manage a community and want a matrix room for it listed feel free to reach out to me

Instance Rules

I've collected together our instance rules and extended it to be a bit more clear. Here are the rules (and they'll be going on the sidebar as well)

• Dangerous content on the instance and federated instances including phishing, spamming, brigading, unmarked nsfw, doxing, etc. is not allowed and subject to be handled by the mods or admins
• Hate speech is not allowed on the instance or in instances federated with it. This includes remarks directed at sex, gender, orientation, disabilities, etc.
• Other content is up to the discretion of the mods of the community its posted in
• If a community has no dedicated mods it will be managed by instance admins until a mod team is found
• If a community mod team has gone inactive and no longer maintains a community new mods may be added
• Any federated communities that have shown they will not enforce these rules while their content shows up on our feeds will have their community removed from our instance
• Instances that continually encourage this type of behavior or are built to only do this type of behavior are subject to be defederated
• Certain content may be hidden from our all feed including politics and bot spam. (Not currently implemented due to lemmy limitations but will be eventually). This means it won't show up in all but you can still view it and subscribe to the communities to have it show in your subscribed feed
• Bots interacting in our communities must follow our Programming.dev bot guidelines (see below)
• If an instance is not being managed (due to owners being gone, etc.) it is subject to be defederated

Things that do not follow these rules will be handled. This currently includes

• Communities in exploding-heads will be removed from our instance
• Rammy.site will be defederated from due to the site owner being MIA

Bot Guidelines

1. Mark Bots as Bots Bot accounts should be marked that they are a bot using the checkbox in the user settings. This includes any automation in an account (if you automate part of your personal account, put what the automation is in your bio so people know)
2. Put contact info The owner of the bot and some way to contact them must be in the bot's bio (unless its an automated personal account, in that case the account itself it the way to contact)
3. Use mentions as prefix If a bot has commands it should use its mention as a prefix. (This will allow different bots to use the same commands without interfering with each other)
4. Dont spam Bots should not spam posts or comments. (If a bot command has been used its fine to do a response but dont drown out non bot posts in the local new sort.) Certain cases are unavoidable such as if you want to get a bot posting weekly threads in different communities at the same time but in those cases please contact me first to get it approved
5. Allow mods to opt in Bots participating in a community should be opt in so communities can choose what bots they want. If you want a bot to be allowed in a community please contact the moderators of that community first. EXCEPTION: If a bot is deemed to be a well behaving bot that brings net good to the instance it can override this rule as long as it has been approved by an admin. This can include things such as a tldr bot, remindme bot, link fixer bot, piped link converter bot, etc. If a bot has overriden rule 5 with this exception community moderators should still be able to opt out of the bot

These guidelines should bring us up to parity with lemmy.world along with allowing a bit more leeway within the instance since there has been some nice bots getting made that I dont want unfairly punished

If you have a bot you want whitelisted for the entire instance for the rule 5 exception feel free to dm me here or on matrix

And that's everything for this month. Progress on some features for the site is still ongoing. My laptop is currently being repaired but once I get it back I'll do a bunch of progress and share some updates here

If you have any suggestions for the rules, bot guidelines, new site features, etc. feel free to throw them down below