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Overly Lax Instance moderation on sh.itjust.works

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/7849011

> before people criticize me I am not using my main account because I do not feel safe bringing up these issues there, as these people and issues still are not dealt with. I do not want to put myself in danger, I will not be engaging in or attempting to post polls or votes here. > > I would like to start by saying that I've noticed a lot of bad faith or spammy communities pop-up recently. The user is dramaticcat many of the communities break rules 1 and 2, maybe even rule 3 (an example of one such community is [email protected]) as they are purely dedicated to hatred, trolling, and possibly even spam. > > Also a small handful of users have also been making threats or calls to violence and while these have been moderated nicely moderators and external instance admins the admins of this instance haven't done anything about this. This is worrying as admins are supposed to enforce the instance rules and remove disruptive users and communities who are in violation of said rules but the admins of Sh.itjust.works have not been doing that. This is a problem because it means that any malicious actor could join at any time and wreak havok on this instance just like Exploding-heads did on another unmoderated instance known as rammy.site way back when. > We obviously know how that went. > > It's important that we discuss this problem now while we might have a chance of contacting the admins rather than later when the damage has been done.

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Fediverse alternatives

There are directories of Fediverse projects:

However, they tend to be a little messy and not easily skimmable. I also wanted to focus on Fediverse alternatives to existing services, although I do like the idea of going on beyond what is offered by current social media.

So, inspired by this discussion (and others), I thought a curated list of the main alternatives (with beginner-friendly sites) might be handy (especially with a potential influx of new users):

Reddit/threadiverse:

Twitter:

Social networks (Facebook, Google+):

  • Friendica - works as a hub and publishing platform connected to the Fediverse and beyond (Twitter, Tumblr, etc)
  • diaspora* - Friendica is technically part of diaspora*
  • Socialhome

Instagram:

YouTube:

WhatsApp:

  • Matrix - not as interconnected as the core ActivityPub services but it integrates well with Lemmy to provide secure DMs (just add your Matrix ID into your Lemmy profile)

Media hosting (Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, DeviantArt):

  • MediaGoblin - are there public instances you can join?

Blogs:

Activity planning (Facebook events):

Goodreads:

Dropbox/Drive/Collaboration

LinkedIn:

Linktree:

Music:

Podcasts:

Delicious:

Dating apps:

  • Alovoa - not yet part of the Fediverse but it's planned

Pinterest:

  • Pinetta - still early days there but as people have asked before

Search engine (although not federated themselves they search big chunks of the Fediverse):

And if you need some more background then try the Fediverse New User Orientation.

!

Illustrations from Wikipedia

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I don't think this format makes a lot of sense for the fediverse

A lot of us come from reddit, so we're naturally inclined to want a reddit-like platform. However, it occurred to me that the reddit format makes little sense for the fediverse.

Centralized, reddit-like communities where users seek out communities and post directly to them made sense for a centralized service like reddit. But when we apply that model to lemmy or kbin, we end up with an unnecessary number of competing communities. (ex: [email protected] vs [email protected]) Aside from the issues of federation (what happens when one instance defederates and the community has to start over?) this means that if one wants to post across communities on instances, they have to crosspost multiple times.

The ideal format for a fediverse reddit-like would be a cross between twitter and reddit: a website where if you want to post about a cat, you make your post and tag it with the appropriate tags. This could include "cats," "aww," and "cute." This post is automatically aggregated into instantly-generated "cats," "aww," and "cute" communities. Edit: And if you want to participate in a small community you can use smaller, less popular tags such as "toebeans" or something like that. This wouldn't lead to any more or less small communities than the current system. /EndEdit. But, unlike twitter, you can interact with each post just like reddit: upvotes, downvotes, nested comments - and appointed community moderators can untag a post if it's off-topic or doesn't follow the rules of the tag-communities.

The reason this would work better is that instead of relying on users to create centralized communities that they then have to post into, working against the federated format, this works with it. It aggregates every instance into one community automatically. Also, when an instance decides to defederate, the tag-community remains. The existing posts simply disappear while the others remain.

Thoughts? Does this already exist? lol

Edit: Seeing a lot of comments about how having multiple communities for one topic isn't necessarily bad, and I agree, it's not. But, the real issue is not that, it's that the current format is working against the medium. We're formatting this part of the fediverse like reddit, which is centralized, when we shouldn't. And the goal of this federation (in my understanding) is to 1. decentralize, and 2. aggregate. The current format will eventually work against #1, and it's relying on users to do #2.

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