I waddled onto the beach and stole found a computer to use.

🍁⚕️ 💽

Note: I’m moderating a handful of communities in more of a caretaker role. If you want to take one on, send me a message and I’ll share more info :)

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Joined 2Y ago
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Cake day: Jun 05, 2023

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Good point, the third guess doesn’t make sense. I’m going to cross it out


I don’t have an answer for you yet, but do you know/have info on why it was disabled?

Some guesses I have are

  • they grew a lot recently and are dealing with the influx of new users, and temporarily disabled it. They might re-enable it later?
  • it is in development and restricted to admins only for now? https://pixelfed.social/site/kb/import
  • it was disabled due to Meta’s recent policy changes, in which case yea you would need to find another instance

I’m not familiar with the feature, but I’d like to use it when I eventually move myself


It does help with it though

For profit platforms have more of an incentive to keep the bots going, for engagement reasons. Non profit managed ones should want to get rid of such bots?


Taking a look at the current sidebar, it might be nice to reorganize the stats section completely

What I’m thinking is:

By default it will only show some stats, where users can select what stats they want displayed in the settings. This way I can hide the stuff I don’t care about, instead of having to look through the already busy list.

**Statistics:**                       [✏️edit]

- Monthly Active Users: 4,000
- Total Subscribers: 30,000

[ v see all v ]

Then expanding the box will give the full list of stats:

[ ^ collapse ^ ]


**Statistics:**

Active Users: 

- By day: 800
- By week: 1,200
- By month: 4,000
- By year: 24,100

Subscribers:

- Total: 30,000
- Local: 12,000

Comments: 
- Total: 81,000
- Today: 510
- This week: 1,315

[... etc]

It opens up the possibility of including more items in that list. We could also replace the expand option with a link to a full statistics dashboard page.


Creating a bunch of accounts possibly to manipulate votes

Looking from the admin level, doesn’t happen that often. Vote manipulation is already something we keep an eye out for, and usually it’s done to highlight certain content (ex. pushing some political angle) rather than boosting one community over another.

you can stop seeing by adjusting your “Show Bot Accounts” setting

I like some bots, but I only subscribe to a bot-only community if the volume of posts is reasonable.


Alternatively, I think both metrics are helpful in different ways

  1. Quality over Quantity: MAU counts lurkers equally with active participants. PCM focuses on actual engagement.
  1. True Reflection of Activity: A community with 1000 MAU but only 10 posts/comments is less vibrant than one with 100 MAU and 500 posts/comments.

I’d say votes are also an important part of engagement. It helps differentiate between good and bad content. I’m more likely to join a community with a few good posts a day (or even a week) than a bot community with many posts a day. Going by how the subscribers counts change over time, I’d say this is a common experience.

  1. Spam Resistance: Creating multiple accounts to inflate MAU is easy. Generating meaningful posts and comments is harder.

While any abuse is bad, spam posts and comments are a bigger concern right now. AI generated spam / link spam is obnoxious and we deal with it often (as admins/mods). While someone could make lots of accounts to inflate MAU, it only really affects the community ranking against other communities and not day to day usage. Lemmy is already considering removing the trending section, and admins usually step in if a bunch of similar accounts are created at once.

  1. Easier to Track: No need for complex user tracking. Just count posts and comments.

I’m not sure I understand this point. Are the vote/comment/post calculations very resource intensive?

All that being said

  • I don’t see any downside to listing the info in the places you mentioned
  • If people want such a sorting option, then sure why not. Give people options

What ActivityPods effectively provides are automated mechanisms. They constantly check the contents of the Solid pod, and are notified whenever a change gets made.

Let’s say you’ve just made a post with your Fediverse app: a document representing a post is written in the Pod, then a dispatch mechanism acts as the user’s outbox and sends the activity out. Meanwhile, the corresponding inbox mechanism waits for replies.

What this could mean in practice is that editing a Fediverse post may be as simple as editing a corresponding file, while a mechanism pushes out an Update activity through your Outbox to make changes on the network.

I think I need an even more higher level explanation of Solid & Solidpods, but so far that sounds cool!

Would the data still live on your instance’s server or on user devices? If it’s the latter, how would it work if some people have really slow connections, or lose internet all together.


Yep I agree with you there :) It’s a useful tool, and it’s great that we have the option


But you’re giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There’s no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.

Somewhat yes

  • I think Threads doesn’t need that selling point because of the other advantages that it has
  • I find that when X defederates with Y, and people want to see all the content, all else being equal they will pick Y. Usually that means that Y = “We are happy to have X, but they chose to leave”

We saw a bit of that last July for how some people picked Lemmy instances


This is exactly how Zuckerberg wants you to think.

These conversations we’re having are all speculative, and we won’t know how things play out till we get there. Trying to predict the behaviour of large groups of people is… difficult

What I predict is that defederation will play right into their selling point. We’re going up against a behemoth of evil with enough money to bankroll creators into joining and promoting their platform. Defederating (when the majority of people don’t understand what that means) will end up with people joining Threads.

Threads has a very high (artificially inflated) user count, it’s by a company everyone already knows, and all instagram users already have an account. The strongest selling point we can have is “Join Mastodon, you can see all the same stuff but it’s run by a non-profit instead of Facebook” That doesn’t work if the selling point is “Join Mastodon to see different content”.

For what it’s worth, I’m actively using Mastodon and trying to inform any friends / family that are jumping ship to shift to Mastodon. Best case scenario, Mastodon takes off properly, Threads becomes a failed project by Meta, and we can nail this shut for good.


I agree, and I predict people will eventually pick instances that are doing what you suggested.

My understanding is that the defederation is to prevent MetaFacebook from getting to a point where they control the entire thing and then destroy it.

I don’t think defederating is the right move for that, but it’s a move


I think this comment chain is going in a circle while everyone actually agrees with the underlying point.

I cannot see anything bad here. Blocking an actively malicious actor should be the norm.

It might be true that they aren’t ACTIVELY being malicious currently. It’s also true that they have a horrible history, and they will likely be actively malicious in the future.

(I say ‘might’ because I seem to recall them being malicious towards the fediverse with secret meetings with admins, but I didn’t follow up on that)


imo it doesn’t matter for Lemmy right now one way or another, and maybe not ever. Being federated with Threads doesn’t do anything yet. Defederate or not, the only change (from my understanding) is about making a statement, or standing with other microblog platform instances that made a choice.

On mastodon however, I’ll likely either use a federated instance or run two accounts. It’s very likely that some person I want to follow will be on Threads, and until people can convince them otherwise ¯\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

What’s nice though is that if Threads is on activitypub, you won’t need to log in to see the content. It’s only if you want to engage with the content, and that can be done from a second Mastodon account.


Super cool, the worry of an instance dying will make people avoid smaller instances and pick the big stable ones. Having this safety net should help balance things out.

I wonder if this could work with threadiverse communities. We’ve seen communities disappear when an instance goes down. Could the communities also be saved like this?


Really cool! I’ve been waiting to see something like this. Excited to see it develop


results are now live - 2023 Instance Census for lemmy.ca
At the end of 2023, we ran a census on lemmy.ca. Analyzing the data took a little longer than I thought it would, but the results are now available! To see the post, you can do one of: - Use this link: https://lemmy.ca/post/15125231 - On mobile, your app should open it in your home instance - On desktop, you can use the InstanceAssistant extension to redirect the post - Open !main@lemmy.ca and see the pinned posts I didn't do a regular crosspost in case there is an error in the results. This way I only need to fix one post instead of many. Hope you enjoy :)
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Cool, that makes sense. I dont think there’s a way to search all of any federated system.

I wonder if searching for more content from a particular smaller instance makes it more likely to show up



If we're going to have an effective strategy against FB/Meta, we should clear up some misconceptions around defederation
((I'm not an expert, I've been reading up on things as much as I can. If there's an error, I'll happily correct it!)) --- TLDR: - Nearly all of us distrust Meta and have the same broader goals - We need to pick the best move to go against powerful companies like Meta - Defederation may not be the right move, and it might even help Meta move forward (and more easily perform EEE) - There are other options that we can spend our energy on - It doesn't matter for Lemmy (yet), this is more a conversation for Mastodon, Firefish and Kbin --- We've been getting a LOT of posts on this, but the misconceptions make it harder for us to decide what to do. **If we're going to try and protect the Fediverse against large, well funded companies like Meta, figuring out the right action is important**. We need to actually look at the options, consider the realistic outcomes, and plan around that. I'm willing to bet around 95% of users on Lemmy and Mastodon CHOSE to be here because we understand the threat Meta/Facebook poses, and we want to do something about it. That's not in question here. So in that sense, please be kind to the other user you are replying to. The vast majority of us share the same goal here. When we disagree, we disagree on the best path forward and not the goal. Wanting to stay federated DOES NOT mean the user wants to help Meta or thinks that Meta is here for our benefit. --- ### **Misconception: Defederation will hinder Meta's EEE** Not necessarily, and it might even help the EEE. Here's a link to some history of EEE, what it means, and some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish. I'd recommend at least skimming it because it's interesting (and because this isn't the only fight) Assuming Meta is doing an EEE move, they're in the embrace stage. That’s not about us embracing them, it’s about them embracing the protocol, which they can do whether we stay federated or not. Defederation can tell newcomers that the defederated instance is an island, and they’re better off joining the place where they can talk to their friends and see the content they want. We saw this early during the Reddit exodus with Beehaw, where many users hopped instances away from Beehaw. Meta can more easily embrace if more people actively use their platform. They can more easily extend if we're not around to explain why extending is a poisonous action. Being federated can allow us to encourage users to ditch Meta’s platform and join an open one (ex. Mastodon, Firefish, etc.) --- ### **Misconception: Defederation is the only move** Defederation is the first option that comes to mind. It sounds simple, it is loud and newsworthy, and it can be done with the click of a mouse. But if it is a bad action, then what are the good actions? 1. **Don't let them have a monopoly over the use of ActivityPub. Grow the other platforms**: The extend stage only works when the platform gets a near monopoly over use of the standard. That brings up the first action. If there are enough users, services and resources on things like Mastodon/Lemmy, then Meta (or any other company) can't just extend the spec without causing their users to ditch Threads to stay connected to the content they want to see. - Reach out to organizations in your area or line of work. Help them join Mastodon or other relevant Fediverse platforms. I'm sure the for-profit companies put money into this process, so brainstorm and reach out - Add your Fediverse accounts to the bio of your other accounts, and share posts from the Fediverse elsewhere As long as there is a healthy community away from Meta (ex. what we have right now), then they can't extend & extinguish. 2. **Protect the Standards** and share why it is important - Share posts from experts about strict adherence to standards, support regulatory and legal advocacy (interoperability requirements etc.), and educate other users about the risks. (I didn't want to say more here because I'm not an expert, I'm happy to edit more points in) --- ### **Misconception: We should still defederate because of Privacy Risks** Not necessarily (and likely not at all?) Meta is notorious for gathering data and then abusing that data, so this is an issue to consider. However, the way that activitypub works, the outgoing data is publicly available. Defederating with Meta doesn't prevent that, and federating doesn't give them any more data than they could get otherwise. --- ### **Lemmy instances need to decide** This is a big point: It doesn't really matter for Lemmy right now, one way or another. It's more of an issue when data start coming IN to Lemmy from Mastodon and Meta's Threads. See below --- ### **Legitimate risks from Federation with Meta, and more effective ways to counter them** * **Algorithmic Amplification**: Meta's history of using algorithms that prioritize engagement can amplify harmful or divisive content. These algorithms are not public like it is with Mastodon and other FOSS platforms. * **Misinformation and Content Moderation**: All Fediverse platforms will have to work on content moderation and misinformation. Platforms like Meta, focussed on profit and advertising, will likely moderate in a way that protects their income. Those moderation decisions will be federated around. * **Commercialization and User Exploitation**: Meta's for-profit nature means it's incentivized to maximize user engagement, at the expense of our well-being. Counters: - Promote user control over their feeds, and develop USEFUL but safe and open algorithms for the feeds - Flag content and users from risky platforms, with a little warning icon and explanation (ex. 'Content is from a for-profit platform, and it may ___') - Implement features so that users can opt in or opt out from seeing content from risky platforms. In particular on explore/discover/public feeds, so it doesn't affect content the user is following. - Develop strict community guidelines that can get Meta (and other companies) sent into the 'blocked by default' bins mentioned above. --- Final point: Evaluate things critically. Don't even just take my word for it. I doubt Meta or other groups care enough about Lemmy yet to spread disinformation here, and every post I've seen promoting defederation feels like a good faith attempt for something they believe in. But it's still worth thinking about what we're supporting. Sometimes what feels like a good move might not help, and could even make things worse.
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There are a few extensions, but I don’t think there’s one extension to rule them all yet:

  • !instance_assistant@lemmy.ca is what I use for Lemmy
  • There’s this one for Mastodon

That works for a Lemmy user, but it doesn’t help for sharing on other platforms or for users discovering content elsewhere


How does ActivityPub differ from what BlueSky is using? (AT)
I don't quite understand a lot of the details on how the implementations work. In what ways is AT better or worse than ActivityPub? Are there different versions of ActivityPub? Are there improvements coming to either to make them better (or compatible)? My current understanding is - AT makes it easier to move accounts (according to them), but AT is controlled and maintained by BlueSky, and they are a for-profit company that can mess with the protocol in the future, which goes against the central idea of decentralized social media What other cool technical details are there?
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I was wary of all the Twitter alternatives till I read about fediverse stuff, and government/ public services with their own instances is what sold me.

When you actually think about it, it’s so weird that governments and public services are beholden to a few centralized corporate platforms.


Early Access: Become a tester for Boost for Lemmy and share your feedback 🚀
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5478381 > Hi Boost gang, > > The first version of Boost for Lemmy is almost ready. If you want to test the app for bugs and give feedback before the app is published, follow this link https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.rubenmayayo.lemmy to enable an early access option on the Boost for Lemmy Play Store listing. > > Thanks for your patience!
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Your communities might be a lot larger than you think!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/5674368 --- The number of subscribers listed in the sidebar is only the number of users from YOUR instance that are subscribed. This might make you feel like a community is 'small' or 'dead' when it actually isn't. I also started to forget this till I was playing with the shields.io badges earlier and the numbers didn't match up. ##### Here are some examples: --- **!fediverse@lemmy.world** - My instance will see 310 subscribers - This instance will see **22.6K subscribers** --- **!canada@lemmy.ca** - My instance will see **6.03K subscribers** - This instance will see 1.49K subscribers --- Now my question is, what's an accurate way to see the total number of subscribers? Is it in the home instance for a particular community? If so, it might be worth adding the badges to the sidebars. ![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/fediverse%40lemmy.world?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers) (!fediverse@lemmy.world) ![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/asklemmy%40lemmy.ml?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers) (!asklemmy@lemmy.ml) ![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/games%40sh.itjust.works?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers) (!games@sh.itjust.works) ![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/canada%40lemmy.ca?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers) (!canada@lemmy.ca) ![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/communitypromo%40lemmy.ca?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers) (!communitypromo@lemmy.ca) ![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/houseplants%40mander.xyz?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers) (!houseplants@mander.xyz) To do this quickly, go to https://shields.io/badges/lemmy and enter: - `myCommunity@example.com` for **community** - `lemmy` for **logo** - `Total Subscribers` for **label** - modify the colors and style as you like You can also modify the community and instance here and paste it in: ``` ![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/fediverse%40lemmy.world?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers) ``` swap the `fediverse%40lemmy.world` portion
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Japan Earthquake Alert App moves from Twitter to Mastodon, currently has 488k posts & 19.9k followers
original article headline: "Japan Earthquake Alert App Says Sayonara to X" cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/333398 > Many people in Japan depend on the NERV service for earthquake alerts. Unfortunately, they'll no longer be able to receive them on X.
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