Hello m@teys,
I’ve been waiting for this a long time (half a year), personally. After seeing the surge in piefed instances, i.e. blahaj, .ca, .zip, quokk.au, and .world creating their own instances, and clients guaranteeing future piefed support, we’ve been thinking about potentially opening an instance in the future. Not a guarantee, just an idea. This isn’t a voting thread, just a discussion. Later on we’ll actually vote on this.
Do note that this thread will not guarantee an instance; we are discussing a hypothetical. Suggestions? Ideas? Criticisms? make your voice heard.
Have a good week!
pie picture comes from here
governance type: sense check
Acknowledged governance topic opened by https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/fxomt
This is a non-voting post. Known users should leave comments with your thoughts on the subject.
Yes.
Personally I’m for it, I think it has some approaches that are more interesting (topics for example).
So as long as its not a pain to run, I’m into it and would try it out for sure.
I’m pretty firmly against this since Piefed has those same Karma and user score systems that made Reddit so toxic but with the bonus of being able to exclude communities from giving you upvotes (but not downvotes). Karma is literally a lighter version of social credit and I don’t support it. Also pretty against the fact that piefed literally lets admins turn off modlog sharing which is concerning to say the least and should concern people here considering we’ve built a whole community around mod accountability.
So yeah I don’t support the move to piefed but since “everyone” is going gaga for piefed I’m sure this instance will end up getting a piefed instance to go with the trend and may even abandon Lemmy altogether, I really hope not I do kind of like Lemmy, but this seems the way things are going.
Most of the karma features can be disabled by instance admins iirc.
Karma is literally a lighter version of social credit and I don’t support it.
As much as I dislike karma, the recent lemm.ee shutdown still shows that there is a need for better tools to allow mods and admins to identify toxic users.
Karma shouldn’t be the end game, but for now it’s acceptable
No, sorry. I don’t agree. I don’t think that users votes should be given power besides ranking in the feeds, vote manipulation is already a big problem if they think they can get people banned or limited over voting they’ll do it even more aggressively. This isn’t Reddit and vote fuzzing or throwing out votes won’t work the same, federation makes this super messy and unreliable. People voting from remote instances can easily manipulate the score. Especially if they upvote everything else or randomly upvote a larger majority than downvote, while still targeting specific people.
You don’t seem to understand. Karma on Lemmy is ripe for abuse in ways not even dreamed on Reddit. There’s a reason the Lemmy devs did everything in their power to hinder the ability of weaponizing score.
Also since Piefed puts so much emphasis on voter anonymity so it makes that problem even worse since it makes it harder to catch if they take steps to hide their ratio.
So no, this is not acceptable. Please don’t try to use the shutdown of lemm.ee to justify harsher draconian measures, which themselves are flawed and ripe for abuse. The reason they shut down was ultimately because they tried to be something they couldn’t with a team that couldn’t handle it. They wanted to be THE Lemmy server, the one everyone goes to. Kinda like Lemmy.world but they were not cut out for it and they learned the lesson the hard way.
To be clear, some of the things you’re complaining about are specific aspects of piefed.social and may not necessarily be the settings instance admins roll with on their own hypothetical piefed.
Rimu has decoupled and changed a lot of the functions from being embedded into piefed as optional, and has changed some of his positions.
Honestly I don’t think it matters much since what admins can do isn’t usually what they will do. Defaults matter, and also it’s very tempting for them to disable some features like modlogs that it will be done disproportionately.
But also the problem with the Karma features is that they are present on all of them, turning it off in yours doesn’t make the issue go away and doesn’t prevent people from abusing it the way subreddits abuse Karma scores right now.
The modlogs have already been made public by Rimu due to popular demand.
But also the problem with the Karma features is that they are present on all of them, turning it off in yours doesn’t make the issue go away and doesn’t prevent people from abusing it the way subreddits abuse Karma scores right now.
What’s the issue if most instances don’t run with a karma system? So you might get low karma’d in some piefed instances that you don’t post from?
What’s the issue if most instances don’t run with a karma system? So you might get low karma’d in some piefed instances that you don’t post from?
That would be the case if most instances operated like that but most don’t. Most will ultimately have it enabled, and if most of them have it enabled it will affect users even on ones where it is turned off.
The modlogs have already been made public by Rimu due to popular demand.
Is this a piefed.social change or a piefed software change. If it’s the ladder then that’s good and it’s not really an issue anymore. If it’s the former it’s still a big trust issue because it can presumably be turned off and on at will, by making it hardcoded it can still be disabled but it’s more work, requires maintaining a fork and basically guarantees that 99% of modlogs will be there and be recording.
That would be the case if most instances operated like that but most don’t. Most will ultimately have it enabled, and if most of them have it enabled it will affect users even on ones where it is turned off.
I feel like this is speculative. I don’t think karma systems across the fediverse are popular enough for that.
Is this a piefed.social change or a piefed software change.
Both.
If it’s the former it’s still a big trust issue because it can presumably be turned off and on at will, by making it hardcoded it can still be disabled but it’s more work, requires maintaining a fork and basically guarantees that 99% of modlogs will be there and be recording.
You could say that about a lot of things that Lemmy instance admins could do, but choose not to.
This isn’t Reddit and vote fuzzing or throwing out votes won’t work the same, federation makes this super messy and unreliable. People voting from remote instances can easily manipulate the score. Especially if they upvote everything else or randomly upvote a larger majority than downvote, while still targeting specific people.
Vote manipulation is continuously monitored, people like @MrKaplan@lemmy.world have created tools to identify vote manipulation
You don’t seem to understand. Karma on Lemmy is ripe for abuse in ways not even dreamed on Reddit. There’s a reason the Lemmy devs did everything in their power to hinder the ability of weaponizing score
Every time I see someone with a reputation warning on Piefed, combined with the “new user” icon, they’re a toxic user that usually gets banned a few hours of days later. Every single time. I have yet to see a false positive.
Please don’t try to use the shutdown of lemm.ee to justify harsher draconian measures, which themselves are flawed and ripe for abuse. The reason they shut down was ultimately because they tried to be something they couldn’t with a team that couldn’t handle it. They wanted to be THE Lemmy server, the one everyone goes to. Kinda like Lemmy.world but they were not cut out for it and they learned the lesson the hard way.
As one of the active posters on most of the Lemm.ee communities, I can tell you they were not trying to become THE Lemmy instance, the most active communities were still on LW by a large margin (like 18 out of the 20 most active communities would be LW, one might be on lemm.ee)
Vote manipulation is continuously monitored, people like @MrKaplan@lemmy.world have created tools to identify vote manipulation
Wow it’s like you didn’t read what I wrote at all. I literally gave an example of how people can squeak by @MrKaplan@lemmy.world and @rimu@piefed.social’s vote manipulation detection by voting in specific ways. Those same tactics can apply to boosting one’s own score positively, not just punching down others.
Most of the time when I see someone with a reputation warning on Piefed, combined with the “new user” icon, they’re a toxic user that usually gets banned a few hours of days later.
The current threshold is perfectible (see the comment below), but it’s still something.
This is absolutely going to be automated by the laziest and most incompetent fediverse admins, and unless you set the threshold very high it will be exploited. I’m never going to support karma requirements like on Reddit, asking the community to vet users with votes (which people misuse anyway already) is already asking for problems, and is by design hostile towards new users.
Now I find the sentiment around piefed to be highly suspicious since a majority of Lemmy users on the Fediverse aren’t favorable to the idea of Karma requirements or built-in social credit systems based on user voting. At best they are compliant due to their habits acquired from using Reddit, but they aren’t going out of their way to ask for it and want that aspect of Reddit back. So I think this push for Social Credit voting controlled moderation features seems suspicious to say the least.
I don’t believe Piefed instances have to run a reputation system though. Piefed.world, I believe, has disabled it.
Of course not, but enough do that it’ll become a problem. Something to consider is that for many admins the default options might as well be hardcoded since they are not attentive enough to turn it off, but for others. Karma requirements are enticingly lazy solutions for moderation, and turning modlog off is also enticing because it makes it easier to hide when things are removed and people are banned.
Every single time. I have yet to see a false positive.
To be fair, the system does (or did - rimu has acknowledged this) immediately identify a new user as “toxic” on the back of a single comment ranked at 0. It does need a higher threshold.
Hum, fair point, I edited
For one , we wont have karma. We will keep the modlog.
So yeah I don’t support the move to piefed but since “everyone” is going gaga for piefed I’m sure this instance will end up getting a piefed instance to go with the trend
No, I’ve been planning this for more than half a year by now, more than most admins have thought of it. This is just a window of opportunity for us.
and may even abandon Lemmy altogether,
No we will not abandon lemmy.
I love the idea, and would be very excited for a db0 piefed instance!
Honestly, I am against it. I think we should collectively improve Lemmy and port whatever features make PieFed a worthy alternative. Better mod tools? Get them on lemmy instead. Lemmy’s UI is much faster and responsive than PieFed, I have found. I just don’t like seeing the community split over and over again. Even if they are federated services, it just splits the community and serves as friction of entry. Choice overload is a really thing, it may lead to decision paralysis and get us fewer and fewer people on these services.
Considering how evil and weirs Dessalines is, Piefed is a much better alternative to Lemmy.
A comment in this thread by @WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com put it quite well:
rimu has said he’ll make it more neutral
I’ll believe it when I see it.
It’s an odd thing - the Lemmy devs are notoriously opinionated and intolerant, and are constantly castigated for it, but I don’t recall ever seeing even a single hint of their opinions or even their intolerance baked into the Lemmy software.
Piefed, meanwhile, is a direct reflection of the dev’s biases right from the start, and with everything from the curated subscription lists to the karma and private voting, seems designed explicitly for the purpose of empowering bias.
Say what you will about Dessalines and Nutomic - at least they keep their biases to their own instance and out of the Lemmy software. And further, they appear to have gone to some lengths to make the software as neutral as possible - not only not reflecting any specific bias but limited in ways that make it difficult for it to even be used to impose bias.
And the same can NOT be said for Rimu and Piefed.
this is kind of where i’m at. i’d like a lemmy alternative bc i am not a fan of the red fash, but piefed ain’t it chief.
private voting
After having discussed with a few people, Rimu agreed to drop the private voting. The system will switch to two votes button
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a local one that will stay local
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a federated one that will be sent to other instances
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https://chat.piefed.social/#narrow/channel/5-admins/topic/Private.20voting/near/332
Low quality communities
This is now opt-in, and configurable by admins
https://chat.piefed.social/#narrow/channel/5-admins/topic/Low.20reputation.20communities/near/1872
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Yes please. I’m in.
I don’t trust Piefed at all - they’re far too eager to curate my experience, and they’ve reintroduced all of the reputation anti-features (plus more) that were part of what drove me away from Reddit and the absence of which is part of what I like about Lemmy and Mbin.
If you’re contemplating a second instance, I don’t much care, because I can simply not use it. If you’re contemplating a move, I think it’s an awful idea.
iirc Piefed started as a small personal project, so it was quite opinionated. Now that there’s more users rimu has said he’ll make it more neutral, and give more power to instance admins.
And yep, it’s a second, separate instance
rimu has said he’ll make it more neutral
I’ll believe it when I see it.
It’s an odd thing - the Lemmy devs are notoriously opinionated and intolerant, and are constantly castigated for it, but I don’t recall ever seeing even a single hint of their opinions or even their intolerance baked into the Lemmy software.
Piefed, meanwhile, is a direct reflection of the dev’s biases right from the start, and with everything from the curated subscription lists to the karma and private voting, seems designed explicitly for the purpose of empowering bias.
Say what you will about Dessalines and Nutomic - at least they keep their biases to their own instance and out of the Lemmy software. And further, they appear to have gone to some lengths to make the software as neutral as possible - not only not reflecting any specific bias but limited in ways that make it difficult for it to even be used to impose bias.
And the same can NOT be said for Rimu and Piefed.
Fwiw he repealed most of the karma system, and made it completely optional; so it’s gotten better. But i see where you’re going at, thanks for your input
Great points that I never thought of. Great post!
private voting
After having discussed with a few people, Rimu agreed to drop the private voting. The system will switch to two votes button
- a local one that will stay local
- a federated one that will be sent to other instances
https://chat.piefed.social/#narrow/channel/5-admins/topic/Private.20voting/near/332
This provides better transparency than Lemmy, as users are now complaining about tool like lemvotes: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/48233901/19876557
Wait for real? Damn that sucks that was by far the best killer feature.
Well, Rimu listened to the feedback, both on https://piefed.social/post/956572?sort=new#post_replies and Matrix
Seems like maybe that was premature considering a lot of people are still surprised by this. I’m on here pretty much daily and hadn’t heard of it. Also it’s incredibly shitty to stovepipe that conversation on matrix. It’s the same shit reddit mods do with discord.
The discussion was open on both Matrix and Piefed, as shows the link above
Perfectly put, .world is already turning into a new Reddit and Piefed is perfectly made to encourage turning into a new Reddit once all the .world’ers move there
That’s exactly my concern. It’s gotten too much exposure too quickly recently, so it doesn’t feel organic, and between subscription gatekeeping, software level censorship snd the reputation anti-features, it just feels like it’s been cynically designed specifically to undermine the benefits of the fediverse and turn it into another place where narratives can and will be shaped and controlled.
Lemmy jumped to 60k users during the Reddit API fiasco, this time it was the Lemm.ee shutdown that gave people an incentive to look for options to migrate their communities
I don’t know much about Piefed. What anti-features are you talking about?
It tracks karma, automatically collapses replies and hides threads based on downvote thresholds and attaches icons to usernames to tell other users in advance that they have been downvoted in the past. And alongside that, votes are hidden. So a few determined users (or even one determined user and a few bots) can easily silence other users or even effectively censor content just by mass downvoting.
Just like Reddit, and notably NOT like the rest of the threadiverse which has done away with karma, doesn’t auto-hide downvoted users or content snd makes votes public.
votes are hidden.
After having discussed with a few people, Rimu agreed to drop the private voting. The system will switch to two votes button
- a local one that will stay local
- a federated one that will be sent to other instances
https://chat.piefed.social/#narrow/channel/5-admins/topic/Private.20voting/near/332
This provides better transparency than Lemmy, as users are now complaining about tool like lemvotes: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/48233901/19876557
It’s crazy to see Rodneyck come up in this. I banned that account when it showed up to one of the communities I’m moderating 18 days ago and dropped five downvotes in quick succession. Something lemvotes helped me identify quickly.
It tracks karma, automatically collapses replies and hides threads based on downvote thresholds
Not cool at all.
Yeah, I don’t like any of that. Thanks for the explanation.
I think a la mode is overrated.
@Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com told me to put it ;^(
I mean, unless you’re closing here I don’t mind what you do. I think this is the best instance. I think the leadership is top notch.
I’m a happy guy
I would love this! I’d totally be in!
I was hoping a dbzer0 piefed instance would happen sometimes in the future! I would totally use it, since it has some pretty cool features that Lemmy has been quite slow in implementing. For example, merged communities that cover one specific topic.
I think I’m for it, but I also don’t know if I understand the implications. So, some questions:
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Is there a downside?
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Would this be in addition to lemmy or a replacement?
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If it is in addition to, is that the permanent plan, would this be working toward an eventual switch-over?
I should probably try piefed a bit so I understand it a bit better, but it’s just a different Lemmy basically, right? Does it federate with existing Lemmy?
If it doesn’t federate with what we already have, I’d have to keep up with two things, and two is a big number, so I’d probably just pick one and stay there.
Anyway, exciting nonetheless. I’ll go eat some pie now and see what that’s all about.
Is there a downside?
Not really, i think. We have the resources, and being an admin isn’t too time consuming; surely we can make time for an extra instance.
Would this be in addition to lemmy or a replacement?
Addition
If it is in addition to, is that the permanent plan, would this be working toward an eventual switch-over?
Probably not. There would be way too many potential issues and it’s risky.
I should probably try piefed a bit so I understand it a bit better, but it’s just a different Lemmy basically, right? Does it federate with existing Lemmy?
Yep. Try https://quokk.au/ (anarchist instance, too!) which is basically the closest thing we have right now
Also if you do try out quokk.au, you can export your subscriptions and settings to dbzer0 in the future.
Piefed federates with lemmy, it’s basically a clone written in python instead of rust, with advanced moderator tools, and developed by people who aren’t braindead Stalinists.
Thanks for the explanation!
I did some pierusing and liked what I saw, too.
pierusing
Brilliant pun! 🥧
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Yes please! I’ve already joined piefed.ca to be able to support a platform without sponsoring communist propaganda, but they seem to have issues federating content properly, it takes over 24h to see new posts from Lemmy, and many discussions will be over at that point.
This very post for example is not visible there at all.
Would hope that with more instances we’d also get to see content sooner.
That’s odd. I’ll try to get the attention of the .ca admins
Ah, that explains a lot. I don’t want to join the main instance, nothing against it, but I’ve seen lemmy.world go overboard, so prefer to stick to some more “indie” instances.
I’ve got open registration at quokk.au if you want to give it a try. Posts seem to sync within seconds to minutes of most instances from my experience.
Oh sure, thanks! I’ll pop over in a sec :-)
Please reach out if you experience any issues.
Thanks, will do!
So, I just wanted to start using my account with your instance, but I’m getting login errors using Voyager. Is the API not active, by any chance?
API was active and I’ve just signed in to type this from my Voyager on IOS. So can confirm this should be working.
Is your app up to date? And what error are you getting?
