I made a blog post discussing my biggest issues with Lemmy and why I am kind of done with it as a software.
There are a lot of good points here, I appreciate the time you put into it.
As an end user of both Lemmy and Mastodon, it’s always an eye opener to see how developers greet user requests and suggestions with curt or snarky replies. Even “Why don’t you open an issue on our source tracker” will often effectively shut down suggestions from less tech savvy newcomers.
My own concerns are more on my own level, though. It resonates with me when you write —
The Fediverse has its own existing cultures that thrive here. And when you enter a space that already exists you need to be mindful of that to prevent issues from occurring.
I’ve seen a few user migration waves, and I think your description of (some) Lemmy users who just want a drop-in Reddit replacement is on point. Mastodon has had its share of Twitterati who surged in trying to recreate their previous circles and tone. Obviously, it’s a generalisation but we do need to face the problem.
The transition from a walled garden environment like Reddit or Twitter — moderated by professionals or enthusiasts, and algorithmically curated — to a federated space with carefully cultivated etiquettes will never be like simply picking up a conversation in another UI.
I’d be interested how a project like Sublinks would/could accommodate the existing fediverse cultures, and hopefully bridge the cognitive gap that seems to exist between threadiverse and fediverse?
Even “Why don’t you open an issue on our source tracker” will often effectively shut down suggestions from less tech savvy newcomers.
How should developers handle feature requests? Keep in mind there is a need for the whole team to see the suggestion and it’s also good to have a place to gather feedback and further discuss.
Community managers - sometimes just talking about your issue with someone will help tremendously in figuring out how to put it and they often can just do it for you. That said, Lemmy devs do not value work being put in the issue tracker - they have admitted to not reading it. People who cannot contribute code are just entirely ignored and have no power in the project’s direction.
I suspect the small size of the dev team and the general nature of an OSS project means there aren’t swarms of people around volunteering to be community managers.
Small projects your sway with the project is directly proportional to your ability to submit pull requests. It’s just a sad fact that it’s easier to say “I wish we had feature X” vs. “Here is a pull request that implements feature X”.
At least with OSS you are getting what you paid for (nothing!), vs commercial companies where you pay for the software and they STILL ignore you.
I mean, I essentially proposed to do this myself in private conversations with Dessalines but there was no willingness for a shared roadmap so it felt pretty pointless.
Domain blocks are always publicly visible.
Mod logs are always publicly visible in the public mod log.
What? It is crucial for the users, not a bug.
It can become a source of targeted harassment, as it has on the rest of the fediverse before.
Censorship and targeted sliencing of users are the source of bad moderation. To top it off, the mod can target and harrass the banned user and we wouldn’t know bc of censorship if allowed.
targeted harassment
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It is about the anonymity of moderator, not about modlog
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Quit this job as moderator if you can’t take it
if the social prescription to harassment of moderators is “quit because you’re a baby” then you’re going to have many fewer pleasant spaces on the Fediverse in which to exist—because yeah, a lot of people will just quit. i am agnostic on the public modlog overall, but this is an obvious concern with it that i’m not convinced can just be dismissed idly. i obviously have better things to do than a thankless, payless job in which harassment would be dismissed like that.
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👏👏👏👏👏
Well said. I don’t disagree with a single point you made, and some of it echos concerns I’ve had since day 1. And extra points for calling out
.mlas lemmygrad-lite. I think I’ve called it exactly that as well.The only thing I really have to add is on the topic of toxicity. Like you, I’m an instance admin and have a bird’s eye view of a lot of behavior patterns. I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here. I won’t guess an actual number, but I would say it’s not insignificant.
I’m firmly the latter case: I want to be here, I want this to succeed, and I’m trying to put in the work toward that result. And I’ve interacted with lots and lots of people in the same boat. But, like you, I’m also growing disillusioned for many of the same reasons.
On the bright side, I’ve gotten much less rusty as a developer after having to write scrips and tools to fill in the massive gaps in moderation features.
I’ve recently started wondering how many people are here because they’re too toxic for regular social media rather than because they want to be here.
Dude yes, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I worry that users curious to leave reddit are going to go to a big instance, see concentrated worst-parts-of-reddit, and decide it’s not for them.
In theory, decentralization enables freedom from the average user being forced to put up with toxicity. But we don’t really have that (yet) until the ratio of jerk to non-jerk improves.
it demands that I log in, to view the post??
I migrated over to writefreely, here’s the new link. https://my.jewy.blog/my-love-hate-relationship-with-lemmy
Cert expired yesterday (6/4/24) and needs to be renewed.
