For example, if these guys are just going to nuke that content, another instance should have the opportunity to either fork it, or merge it with another community. Its mostly the same stuff as would have been in c/Politics here.

And what it does now, is it puts even more editorial power in the hands of fewer people (ones that ml probably) don't vibe with.

Classic boneheaded decision.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

We need… something like a “transfer, merge, fork, split” for communities.

People can do it currently. I've done it a few times, for all for cases. You just make an announcement on the community, or on !newcommunities@lemmy.world if you are splitting from a power tripping mod.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I meant in a technical sense. As in, hey here is a community with a mod on a power trip. I'm going to clone it, it lives here now: !somewhere@lemmy.world

For example, we could have cloned this sub and its contents and merged it into c/politics.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But then what prevents someone from cloning a community to 50 instances, or cloning 50 community to 1 instance? Seems like an easy abuse vector

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah idk. This was a criticism that I brought up of the fundamentals in lemmys structure early on: it selects for, effectively, clones of "whole reddits", when it should be set up to support more balkanized instances.

Basically, lemmy.ml's c/Politics is functionally redundant to .worlds c/politics; but thats by design.

What I think would be better would be adding tagging and taking federation a step further. Every post needs a 'tag'; we steal that part from mastadon. It can have many, but it needs at least one, say #politics in this example.

Then, on instances, federation happens both at the instance level but also at the community level; communities can federate with other communtiies. But all posts get #tagged on the way in the door. Communtiies can then federate or defederate at will, and if neccessary, a community can "branch"; for example, maybe they want to split off US politics from politics; then you grab all the posts with the #US.

As far as an abuse vector. Thats just hang wringing. IF your mods are that abusive for a large sub, you've got way bigger issues. Which, if it did ever happen, is something that "forking" would solve. Mod on a power trip? No problem. Fork the community.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 months ago

What I think would be better would be adding tagging and taking federation a step further. Every post needs a ‘tag’; we steal that part from mastadon. It can have many, but it needs at least one, say #politics in this example.

Tags also bring issues from a moderation perspective. Who can decide who can use tags to label which type content? Seems another way to have everyone spamming trending tags on all type of contents without control. I think tags work better on a microblog format than community format, where you can potentially reach out everyone following that community/tag much easily than crossposting each time.

As far as an abuse vector. Thats just hang wringing. IF your mods are that abusive for a large sub, you’ve got way bigger issues. Which, if it did ever happen, is something that “forking” would solve. Mod on a power trip? No problem. Fork the community.

I was more thinking about people wanting to ruin things by importing huge communities to small instances, consuming their space and resources, and making it confusing to people to know which one is the "legit" community.

And if you limit this feature to admins, then requesting communities is already possible from admins on most of the instances, so that covers the transfer. Fork/split (what is the difference, btw), as I said, can be done manually now.

Importing a community is the one use case remaining, but I see why it's not a priority for the Lemmy devs, there is bigger fish to fry at the moment (multicommunities for instance)

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

You just make an announcement on the community, or on !newcommunities@lemmy.world if you are splitting from a power tripping mod.

How does this work? Are you just talking about starting a new group on the same server?

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Geez I can't believe a major group was nuked just like that. I never noticed anything about it being unmoderated but thank you for providing the explanation.

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 57 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Lemmy.ml admins making rash, sweeping decisions that are conveniently harmful to any open public discourse? I never would have guessed.

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 26 points 3 months ago

Central planning committee knows what's best now eat your slop or it's the gulag for you /s

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Geez even with decentralization we still have people making bone headed decisions. What is the best/strongest politics group that is not lemmy.ml nor lemmy.world?

[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

There are so many politics communities, but before you mentioned this I didn't realize how concentrated they are on .ml and .world. These look like the most-subscribed USA and World politics communities that aren't on .ml or .world:

!politics@hexbear.net
!politics@beehaw.org
!usa@midwest.social
!worldpolitics@lemmy.ca
!geopolitics@lemmy.run
!politics@sh.itjust.works

[Edit: Though I listed them here, the hexbear and beehaw communities are not accessible to large swaths of the Lemmy user base due to instance defederations.]

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Don't link the Hexbear community. If you think .ml is bad, they're 100x worse.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Thanks for the list!

I've heard bad things about hexbear and beehaw. But I looked at these other two.

!politics@sh.itjust.works -- unfortunately too many dumb restrictions.

Rule: Title must match the article headline <-- definitely a deal killer because often journalists use dumb headlines or leave the most important things out of the headline.

Rule Recent (Past 30 Days) <-- also a deal killer. Relevant is more important the recent. They are not the same things. "Recent" is only an imperfect proxy for "relevant".

usa@midwest.social -- We have a winner!

Rule: Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech. <-- perfect

I would also welcome suggestions for "news" groups outside of lemmy.world and lemmy.ml. usnews@lemy.lol is okay so far but I'm always looking for possible alternatives.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I get not wanting to interact with lemmy.ml

Whats wrong with Lemmy.World? Or are you just saying its too big?

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They have an account there, which is surprising

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It doesn't matter where your account is. If someone kills your account you can quickly switch to another lemmy instance and resub to all your communities.

I have had content nuked first from news@lemmy.world and then from politics@lemmy.world and as a result I rarely use them to submit content. I specifically went to politics@lemmy.ml because politics@lemmy.world was censoring my content.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Or are you just saying its too big?

It's too big. And it has dumb restrictions like no video content. But also, I had a very popular posting just completely nuked by the mod of politics@lemmy.world and the entire advanced discussion was suddenly lost, forcing me to recreate the discussion on politics@lemmy.ml. Ever since I've been posting content to lemmy.ml instead of lemmy.world. Mainly important things missing from politics@lemmy.world or that they took down.

But aside from all that, we absolutely need redundancy on lemmy for major stuff like news and politics. Mods will abuse their power because they all want to "control the experience" instead of just do the basics. I've also had content nuked for no reason on news@lemmy.world also and as a result I mostly use usnews@lemy.lol instead although I'm open for alternate news site suggestions too.

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[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Beehaw has a fairly active politics comm, their moderation is more on the strict side but it's "hey be nice and dont use slurs" kind of strict and not "how dare you say Russia is bad, banned" kind of strict. Id recommend them. Otherwise it's .world.

!politics@beehaw.org

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[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 months ago

!Pleasantpolitics@slrpnk.net might interest you. It's an experimental community that employs a really interesting bot that scans users all across the lemmyverse, and prevents the most toxic people from participating. It seems to work fairly well, so far.

[–] AsakuraMao@moist.catsweat.com 38 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

.ml are outwardly and proudly tankie weirdo fuckfaces, doesn't suprise me at all to see them do something like this where the intent is to concentrate all political talk into a more easily controlled community.

edit: I was banned for 6 months from .ml lol

I wonder if it was because I called them weirdos

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 3 months ago

Also them directing people to go use world news is telling because the .ml world news community is heavily gatekept by a huge pile of tankies that will crush, remove and ban any remote mention of "Russa/China bad".

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago (14 children)

Seems like lemmy.ml is really collapsing in on itself. Overall not good for the general health of the fediverse. We need large "sibling" instances rather than monoliths like .world, which is to say nothing of the politics of the instance. The fewer "medium" to "large' instances are, the more reliant the whole system becomes on "very large" monoliths like .world, which overall weakens the integrity of the network.

This also highlights the destructiveness of toxic moderation. There is plenty of it here too, but there needs to be some kind of accountability/ redress if open & free communities are going to be a long term project. Not really a big deal in the long run and something we'll just have to keep working on.

[–] viking@infosec.pub 12 points 3 months ago

This is very good for the health of the fediverse, .ml is home to too many good communities for such a shit instance. Hopefully now more of the mainstream communities on other instances will get more traction, so that we can block .ml and not miss out.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We need large “sibling” instances rather than monoliths like .world, which is to say nothing of the politics of the instance.

Absolutely 1000%

This also highlights the destructiveness of toxic moderation. There is plenty of it here too

I can't believe that lemmy mods/admins still think they have the luxury of making bone headed moves in a decentralized network. I am determined to get around this and it is the entire reason I am on a decentralized system. We vote with our feet and in the long term it will all work out. I am looking for suggestions for a politics group that is not lemmy.world and not lemmy.ml.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Absolutely 1000%

Curious, coming from a LW account

[–] kfchan@fedia.io 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm not a LW fan. In my opinion, they are doing any % speedrun on how to become as bad as Reddit and succeeding admirably.

With that said, I don't hate on LW users. Most of them are probably unaware of the moderator issues from their own instance and are just looking for content.

[–] bacon_saber@fedia.io 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it was meant to be an insult to lemmy.world or its users. The post you're replying to is just pointing out some contradiction between a user agreeing with the need to spread out on the fediverse, while doing so by posting from one of the most stacked instances.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 5 points 3 months ago

Yes, thank you

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[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I slightly disagree. I think what needs to happen is there needs to be general instances, and specialized instances. By the nature of how they work, specialized instances would have more content, but less hosted users.

So Lemmy.World would be a general instance. You can host any community on a general instance, but it will do better if it can be hosted on a specialized instance (which most topics can be).

There may be niche topics that will do better on general instances, mostly if it doesn't fit into any other catagory.

But lets say you want to follow your favorite baseball team. Well, you know Sports.InstanceName has all the sports. So you go there, search for your team and find TeamName@Sports.Instance

And if everybody did this, the fediverse would at least make sense.

But lets say you want a community based on collecting toe nail clippings from the right foots pinky. Well, I can't imagine a specialized instance would ever be made that you'd include THAT community. So you go to RightFootPinkyToeNailClippings@Lemmy.World and it will have like 3 subscribers.

Now, back to the baseball team for a second. IF you only come to the fediverse to talk baseball, maybe you're fine being hosted on Sports.Instance. However most people would want their home instant to be a general instance. So that when they click "local" they get a bit of everything, whereas you hosted on the sports instance would only get sports.

The problem I see with the fediverse is there is a HUUUUUUUUGE learning curve. When you first get here, with zero introduction to the concepts of the platform, you're just thrown in. I've even been insulted by people who assumed I didn't know how the platform worked. Saying "You're supposed to sort by subscribed, dumbass!". The thing is, the problem I was describing WAS sorted by subscribed.

The way I'm describing, a new user can know "oh, this is where I find the sports, this is where I find the music, this is where I find the TV, ect ect ect.

You can still make SportsTeam@Lemmy.World, but without people looking for it there, you won't get many people subscribing unless there's some MAJOR issue with Sports.Instance.

You could also make Baseball.Instance. whereas Sports.Instance would be more of an all inclusive to all sports instance, which would help smaller sports communities grow, Baseball.Instance would be all about baseball communities.

And if I seem like I'm explaining the obvious, thats good. Thats the point. I want it to be obvious what every instance/community is, where it is, before you even seek it out or click it.

Beevisandbutthead@tv.instance. That doesn't exist, but even as a hypothetical example, you already know what that community is going to be, and what that entire instance is catered to. You CAN'T click it, because it's hypothetical, but you already know what it is.

That + a guide to the fediverse would go a LOOOOOONG way for newbies. I still don't know how to visit Lemm.ee main page for example, without going there directly so I can stay logged in. I can figure out how to go to individual communities while logged in (and that whole process needs a simplification while we're on the topic), but I can't go to the main page, so I can click local, and see whats actively being posted to the whole instance like I can on my own instance. Theres probably a way.....and it's probably a bunch of overly complicated series of steps that isn't naturally intuitive. Which is the biggest hurdle for this platform.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That + a guide to the fediverse would go a LOOOOOONG way for newbies

!newtolemmy@lemmy.ca

but I can’t go to the main page, so I can click local, and see whats actively being posted to the whole instance like I can on my own instance. Theres probably a way…

There is not

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

!newtolemmy@lemmy.ca

That should be the first thing new users see. But also, it doesn't go as far as I'm imagining. I'm imagining more of a wiki, with every single instance, with a description of what kind of content goes on that instance. What is that instance's personality?

And then again for each individual community. You'd know which communities are active, and which not if the wiki doesn't even have anyone that updates the wiki.

There is not

Well that removes a HUGE source of potential that Lemmy could have. It would be the second most useful new feature they could implement.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 months ago (7 children)

You’d know which communities are active

There is a weekly thread on !newcommunities@lemmy.world to promote active communities

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[–] A_A@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

from modlog :

Time	mod	Action
6 hours ago	mod
Removed Community Politics
reason: Unmoderated duplicate of /c/usa . Any world-related can use /c/worldnews

https://lemmy.ml/modlog?page=1&actionType=ModRemoveCommunity

.
See better comment from kersploosh (administrator of ...@ sh.itjust.works ) inside this post's main comments

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 16 points 3 months ago

Discussing politics at Lemmy.ml was a mistake to begin with - they're doing us all a favour by nuking it. :)

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The .ml admins probably just adding more malicious tracking tools to the communities they don't like so they can more easily dox Lemmy users for their state espionage sponsors. Probably just broke something by accident this time

[–] awwwyissss@lemm.ee 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm guessing there were too many people supporting for Harris for their liking. They lost control and it was harming their preferred candidate so they killed it.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You are probably correct, Dessalines himself forgot to switch to one of his alts and is literally posting the "1 Harris = 1 genocide" meme on a .world thread as we speak. Absolutely glorious.

Edit - actually it was a .ml thread my mistake.

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 2 points 3 months ago

Oh is it time for another defed campaign already?

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