This is great but I still don’t think it fixed the issue that both softwares have, what do you do about wanting to share the same content between multiple same named communities without spamming?
I still really like the idea that communities can choose to federate with each other. You post to privacy at ML and LW and it shows as one post in both communities.
PieFed (and the Lemmy apps Sync and Connect iirc) can already do this, by blocking all users from the instance. It works much better than the Lemmy equivalent that would be better named as a community muting, since it still allows users to troll you in communities located on other instances.
I don’t want to block the users though, I just don’t want to be subject to their authority. Which means I can’t use their communities. Combining them into one big bag subverts my autonomy to do so.
Just don’t use public feeds and have your own private feeds split into topics you’re interested in where you don’t have communities you dislike included. You have all the autonomy you need. No one tells you to subscribe to that one specific feed that doesn’t curate the communities in the way you like. Just use it to organise your own subscriptions to have them by topics or catered for different moods of the day.
I missed this at first as well, but the “Create a Feed” button (colored almost the same as the background for some odd reason, using the PieFed theme) is accessible to you as a user, not simply an admin. So if you wanted let’s say [email protected] and [email protected] but not [email protected], then you could do that. You probably should name it something appropriate like technology2, but mainly I mean that you are not limited to Feeds created by other people: the whole point of this is that now you can create your own (if you want to that is, or perhaps someone will have already done so).
The whole point of lemmy is decentralization. Not being run off by bad mods. I agree that a lot of big instances have rude admins and mods but this idea is for similar communities with similar modding. If the mods agree then what’s the issue? A lot of big instances communities have the exact same mods anyways.
An example for my use case is I want to support slrpnk and post on their selfhosting com but I don’t want only 1 answer. Federating my post to all three big selfhosting communities would allow more interaction while still being decentralized in the sense of not instance dependent.
An example for my use case is I want to support slrpnk and post on their selfhosting com but I don’t want only 1 answer. Federating my post to all three big selfhosting communities would allow more interaction while still being decentralized in the sense of not instance dependent.
Stick to one community. Assess pros and cons of similar communities and choose one. Create meta posts to discuss the choice with other members.
Ironically, if Lemmy supported decentralization of communities in this way as PieFed now does, and as I guess Reddit did iirc, then you could post to a smaller community and people who were subscribed to such a multi-community feed would be able to see it.
However, there are many features of Lemmy that are even (far) more authoritian in nature than Reddit. Lacking both a modmail and hiding the account name of the mod who removed something of yours, plus not sending you any notification about the event, are three such examples, and there are many more where that came from.
On Lemmy, as on Reddit, a mod “owns” their community, and that’s all there is to it - there is no decentralization inherent in the system, at least at the community level. Where the decentralization comes from is the ability to pack up and move elsewhere if needed. Or course, you would be able to take none of it with you, nor be able to leave a message at the old place that you had migrated. As you see, decentralization, while nowhere close to a “myth”, is quite constrained - mainly I mean, that functionality is available to admins, more than mods. So nobody can tell you what to do with the communities on your personal machine, running the Lemmy software, which is open source.
Although PieFed allows for greater levels of decentralization in numerous ways, chiefly with the Topics and now the ability for users to create their own custom ones.
Although a caveat is that “cross-posts” - even those sharing identical URLs - between multiple communities are not collapsed in the listing of posts in a feed (yet, although as Rimu said it’s a high priority to add that).
This is great but I still don’t think it fixed the issue that both softwares have, what do you do about wanting to share the same content between multiple same named communities without spamming?
I still really like the idea that communities can choose to federate with each other. You post to privacy at ML and LW and it shows as one post in both communities.
Yes, that is high on the agenda.
Is there a plan to implement the possibility of a downvote free experience? Kind of like an instance disabling downvotes does on native lemmy?
Exciting! I’ll try to get my piefed running again then
This doesn’t appeal to me at all. The whole point of Lemmy is that I can avoid certain instances that have oppressive admins.
PieFed (and the Lemmy apps Sync and Connect iirc) can already do this, by blocking all users from the instance. It works much better than the Lemmy equivalent that would be better named as a community muting, since it still allows users to troll you in communities located on other instances.
I don’t want to block the users though, I just don’t want to be subject to their authority. Which means I can’t use their communities. Combining them into one big bag subverts my autonomy to do so.
???
Just don’t use public feeds and have your own private feeds split into topics you’re interested in where you don’t have communities you dislike included. You have all the autonomy you need. No one tells you to subscribe to that one specific feed that doesn’t curate the communities in the way you like. Just use it to organise your own subscriptions to have them by topics or catered for different moods of the day.
Maybe I worded it poorly, I know I can still do my thing, but I’m explaining why I would never use this unless it excluded certain instances.
I missed this at first as well, but the “Create a Feed” button (colored almost the same as the background for some odd reason, using the PieFed theme) is accessible to you as a user, not simply an admin. So if you wanted let’s say [email protected] and [email protected] but not [email protected], then you could do that. You probably should name it something appropriate like technology2, but mainly I mean that you are not limited to Feeds created by other people: the whole point of this is that now you can create your own (if you want to that is, or perhaps someone will have already done so).
The whole point of lemmy is decentralization. Not being run off by bad mods. I agree that a lot of big instances have rude admins and mods but this idea is for similar communities with similar modding. If the mods agree then what’s the issue? A lot of big instances communities have the exact same mods anyways.
An example for my use case is I want to support slrpnk and post on their selfhosting com but I don’t want only 1 answer. Federating my post to all three big selfhosting communities would allow more interaction while still being decentralized in the sense of not instance dependent.
Stick to one community. Assess pros and cons of similar communities and choose one. Create meta posts to discuss the choice with other members.
I disagree. Especially on coms where one needs answers. But I want to support smaller instances.
You’ll need to make a compromise between supporting the smaller instances or getting the wider audience.
Crossposting to both doesn’t help the small instance, most people will keep replying on the larger one
Ironically, if Lemmy supported decentralization of communities in this way as PieFed now does, and as I guess Reddit did iirc, then you could post to a smaller community and people who were subscribed to such a multi-community feed would be able to see it.
However, there are many features of Lemmy that are even (far) more authoritian in nature than Reddit. Lacking both a modmail and hiding the account name of the mod who removed something of yours, plus not sending you any notification about the event, are three such examples, and there are many more where that came from.
On Lemmy, as on Reddit, a mod “owns” their community, and that’s all there is to it - there is no decentralization inherent in the system, at least at the community level. Where the decentralization comes from is the ability to pack up and move elsewhere if needed. Or course, you would be able to take none of it with you, nor be able to leave a message at the old place that you had migrated. As you see, decentralization, while nowhere close to a “myth”, is quite constrained - mainly I mean, that functionality is available to admins, more than mods. So nobody can tell you what to do with the communities on your personal machine, running the Lemmy software, which is open source.
Although PieFed allows for greater levels of decentralization in numerous ways, chiefly with the Topics and now the ability for users to create their own custom ones.
Although a caveat is that “cross-posts” - even those sharing identical URLs - between multiple communities are not collapsed in the listing of posts in a feed (yet, although as Rimu said it’s a high priority to add that).
Thanks for taking the time to write this! This is well written and you make some excellent points.
Hiding mod accounts names is a weird choice and not notifying bans if even odder. Wonder the intention?
You make a great point with feeds! I didn’t consider that.