this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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I have a number of Lemmy instances meant for discussion groups around specific topics. They are not being as used as I expected/hoped. I would like to set them up in a way that they can be owned by a consortium of different admins so that they are collectively owned. My only requirement: these instances should remain closed for registrations and used only to create communities.

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[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

It seems kind of slimy.

If you don't want the communities, stop squatting them. Having no users seems like just a way to keep costs down so you can hold onto more urls and is bad for the general ecosystem anyways.

[–] rglullis@communick.news -3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's amazing, there is always someone that will look at other people are doing and find the worst possible take.

I decided to reach out to other admins precisely because I got tired of hearing "you are running all these instances by yourself, who guarantees that you are not going to do something nasty with them or disappear if you lose interest?", even though I'm running all these instances by myself, keeping them up to date, posting regularly on a good number of them, trying to get more people involved for over an year and (most importantly) outliving a bunch of "community-based instances" .

Seriously, this crab mentality is the worst. What a disgrace.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Just coordinate the release of the urls and the transfer of the instance.

I'm skeptical about this since you are squatting on at least 18 urls while trying to get volunteers to create value out of them. Nothing leads me to assume you are being altruistic.

Edit: misattributed something, woops

It seems like you are waiting for the next influx to potentially monetize and trying to hold the most potential instances without putting any work or money into it. It's just my impression.

I also think instances without users are a terrible idea and I'd rather real instances come about organically instead created by people that actually care about the subject.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Just coordinate the release of the urls and the transfer of the instance.

This is exactly what I am offering. I want to transfer these instances to a consortium to own this collectively.

without putting any work or money into it.

Just yesterday I renewed 10 of these domains. That cost me ~400€. I renewed nba.space and nfl.community last month, each cost ~650€. Running all these instances is costing me ~200€/month.

I'm not even looking to dump these costs on the potential new co-owners, this is why I said that I don't mind keep running them.

It seems like you are waiting for the next influx to potentially monetize

First, we'd have to argue the implication. You are implying that any attempt at building anything that is financially sustainable is immoral, something that I said many times is completely misguided, and a point of view that is starting now to be shared by other prominent figures in the Fediverse.

Second, I am offering the instances to be co-owned precisely to assuage those concerns. By having other admins co-owning the instances, I'd hope that less people would be pushing those accusations against me.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just yesterday I renewed 10 of these domains. That cost me ~400€. I renewed nba.space and nfl.community last month, each cost ~650€. Running all these instances is costing me ~200€/month.

Thank you for providing the numbers, these domains are quite pricey if you have to pay 1700 € per year on domains alone.

[–] rglullis@communick.news -3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Stop thinking in terms of prices, and start thinking in terms of value. A three-letter domain for less than 1000€ is a bargain.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm thinking in terms of costs because those could prevent any admins potentially interested in joining you to do so.

Lemmy.ml still runs on a server which costs 80€ per month (https://lemmy.ml/comment/13507604). A .ml domain name costs 61€ per year on gandi.

Your hosting costs are 2.5x higher, your domain costs are 27 times higher.

Maybe you'll find other admins who agree with you that it's worth it.

[–] rglullis@communick.news -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Which part of "I am not asking for financial support" is not clear from the blog post?

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You are asking a consortium of different admins to collectively own those instances with you.

If the idea is that those other admins can take over should something happen to you, then it makes sense for them to assess whether the whole project is viable from a financial perspective, otherwise it would just lead to them closing most of the instances, which is just the same as them not owning those instances with you.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There are plenty of ways where people can enter into an equity agreement without having to pay directly with money.

can take over should something happen to you

Are you trying to get rid of me? Then why are you arguing as if (a) something bad might happen to me or (b) I am somehow unable/unfit to manage this?

No matter what I do/offer/propose, you will always try to find an excuse to rationalize your unwillingness to contribute to what I am doing, like I'm failing some type of BS purity test.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 0 points 1 month ago

Are you trying to get rid of me? Then why are you arguing as if (a) something bad might happen to me or (b) I am somehow unable/unfit to manage this?

I wish you the very best (as I generally do to all admins), but at the same time I'm doing some due diligence. As you mentioned earlier in this thread, other instances have disappeared overnight, and one way to prevent this is to have multiple people in charge.

No matter what I do/offer/propose, you will always try to find an excuse to rationalize your unwillingness to contribute to what I am doing, like I’m failing some type of BS purity test.

No matter what people tell you (you've got plenty of comments in this thread which are not from me), you do not take them into account.

This thread is 2 days old, it was the week-end, maybe people will jump in tomorrow or later, but at this very moment, it does not seem like you were able to convince anyone to want to join you in managing a pool of instances for 6500€ per year.

I feel like I have been discussing this with you several times. You have a certain vision on how to manage those instances, but until you find other people sharing it with you and wanting to work on this together with you, you won't convince people to move communities to your instances.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 0 points 1 month ago

Sorry, I can not let go of this. I don't know if you realized that the whole reason that I am doing this is because you kept pushing this idea that you'd be more than willing to contribute to different instances and that the only thing that is stopping you is that you'd be worried about me being the only person.

Even with me telling you that I have other people to take over my operations, you were doubting me.

Now that I am actually going forward and offering to get more people onboard, while asking for NOTHING in return, you are putting this bullshit, pretending to be worried about price of domains.

What you are doing is just Concern Trolling, and I am frankly tired of this. You have put no Skin in the Game, yet you continue to find ways to rationalize your senseless idea that this is going to grow magically without getting people to put significant resources at stake.

[–] mriormro@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

You sound like a grifter.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So are you willing to give up ownership of the url and have the instance be transfered to someone else's hardware?

Maybe I misunderstood where you are going with this.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 1 month ago

To be precise, I'm willing to give up some ownership. I still want to participate in its governance.

someone else’s hardware?

If a new consortium is formed and if the collective decision is to move it, yes. If the decision is to keep as it is, also fine.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well you definitely are breeding a welcoming culture here.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Please, spare me from the cheap rhetoric.

I've been for over an year offering alternatives, attempting to bring actionable proposals to the table, putting resources on the line (go take a look at the matrix room and you may find me telling people that I registered selfhosted.forum and I wanted to give it for free to the /r/selfhosted mods) and every time there is any type of push for concrete effort, I am met with apathy at best and suspicion at worst.

Everyone keeps crying about Zuckerberg/Threads/Venture Capitalists/Spez, but when push comes to shove no one wants to mobilize and put up a proper fight.

It's tiring and frustrating.