I was just reading this post https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1gmv76n/is_reddit_going_to_remain_the_primary_space_for/ and many barely see the fediverse as an alternative and they seem to have a negative bias towards it. Super ironic when it comes to the self-hosting community. Yes, some instances are problematic, yes, some devs might have had problematic views. But it doesn't really matter when it's federated and FOSS. I think it's clear-cut that the selfhosting community on Lemmy is a perfect alternative to reddit. Why is there such a negative bias?

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[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Actually it is. I don't have an Mbin account but supposedly if you go to https://fedia.io/d/lemmy.ml then you should be able to accomplish it from there. It's quite hidden though, isn't it!?:-P More details in this post: https://piefed.social/post/307636.

I'd be interested to hear how it works out for you - like on PieFed if you do that, it blocks the users but not the communities, and in Lemmy it blocks communities but not users. I don't know what it will do for you, beyond blocking users - but like, is it similar to a full defederation in blocking the communities as well?

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago (7 children)

No, that just blocks direct links to said instances. So it basically does nothing.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (6 children)

That... makes no sense to me.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This has been discussed with the devs & admins. You're basically just opening and blocking the domain itself. Look at the threads on that page. They are all .ml leading links, but posted in various other instances that are not actually .ml. So they're not an accumulation of actual .ml communities and their content, but content that is posted wherever that links towards .ml. It's like those domain filters on some websites (like Reddit IIRC) that you can click on to get a list of all submissions from that domain, like a news site for example, except only within the realms of the fediverse.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ah, so URL link-type posts pointing to that domain. Have you ever tried it though - might it also block users or communities from that instance as well, even if it isn't obvious just from glancing at that page?

I would try it myself but I don't have an account on any Mbin instance. But if you are positive that it does not also block users - as multiple people kept telling me - then I need to remove that wording from my post telling people that Mbin can do that.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, it's blocked pretty much since before I even switched from kbin.social to fedia.io. It does block neither the instance nor the users from there, hence why I have such a huge blocklist of communities. I block them as they pop up on my feed.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sorry to hear that. It sounds like you would have to switch to PieFed (which can do it but the UI isn't as polished, plus then it can't also read content from Mastodon) or use an app (which I thought none were available that worked for Mbin?), or as you say put in the effort for every single community and annoying user who is trying to push their agenda.

On the bright side, you've done it now so henceforth it is merely maintenance:-).

Thanks for letting me know.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There's one app but I don't use it as it do not have a compact view, only cards, and that would not replace anything on the desktop either. PieFed is about as bad as Lemmy imo. There is an open feature request for this on Github though, so hopefully it's just a matter of time.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

PieFed is odd in both having several features that Lemmy lacks - categories of communities, tags on posts, and most pertinent here, the ability to truly block all users from a specified instance without requiring admin approval (which neither Lemmy nor apparently Mbin offers) - while at the same time lacking in several fundamentals, e.g. user tagging such as @openstars@piefed.social generates no notifications, and the UI is highly difficult to work with for posts with many comments and especially deeper chains that are nested (there is no option to go one level up, the only choice is to start all over at the top level, at which point browser searching does not work when the comments are buried too deeply, as is our very conversation here).

Yes there is a request for a PieFed API. In the browser the display options are a List, a Tile, and a Wide Tile. Off the top of my head, Lemmy seems the most polished - e.g. there are many apps providing choices for how to access it - followed by Mbin and PieFed that each offer different feature sets.

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