Hi all, I wanted to let you know about an incident that happened a few days back. An individual requested to become a mod on c/Portland when they thought there was no moderators due to a federation issue. Then, an admin mistakenly made them a mod.

I reached out to the admins to let them know I was upset by such a mistake happening on their part. I also de-modded the individual, but tried to encourage them to make a post getting input from all of you about becoming a mod. I'm honestly not against them becoming a mod.

I think having more mods would actually help this place grow. If you've posted here at least a few times, and are interested in volunteering, nominate yourself below.

I doubt anyone will have any red flags to call out, but if you do contact me about it or post.

Thanks all. I hope you were able to stay cool these past few days.

** Update: I still haven't heard from any mod, but the user did get back to me though they weren't very receptive to the frustration. However, I did find out that you can remove others as mods but the option is hidden in having to click into one of their posts. So, this unique situation is resolved, but the appointing of a mod without checking if the current community is actually abandoned should still be addressed.**

A user posted on !community_requests claiming that a sub I'm a moderator of had no active mods despite the fact that I have actively been posting on there and holding a moderation discussion with the community this week. At the time of request the account was only a day old. Still, an admin proceeded to make them a mod in our community.

As far as I can tell, this was a mistake on both the user and admin's part.

Within an hour of the new mod appearing I responded to both the admin and the user politely asking them for answers about what happened. I also privately DMed the user on Matrix asking them to demod themselves and put a post up in the community petitioning to become a mod instead of just sidestepping the people who are already there.

It has now been nearly 8 hours and no admin has gotten back to me, and the user hasn't responded.

Even if this is a mistake, it gives me a lot of pause. The fact a one day old account could come and claim our community was abandoned, even though clearly it was not, and be given mod powers for hours upon hours after the mistake being reported is really scary.

Again, I think this was a mistake on both the admin and user's part, but there needs to be a better process to deal with this going forward. I'm really disappointed.___

Hi all,

I am noticing that a lot of what is being posted is the same outrage clickbait articles on crime and poverty that have overrun other Portland centric communities. These are absolutely important topics, and something I hope everyone is thinking about and involved with advocating for improved policy around. However, I do question the usefulness of a constant deluge of these types of articles.

When we go to a space like the local coffee shop, pub, or bookstore, a place where we immediately feel the "Portland vibes", we usually aren't met with a non-stop stream of poverty, drug, and crime news. If I we were, then we would probably leave (or at least I would). Similarly, I feel like our online space can be so much more than just the same daily rehash of divisive arguments that don't go anywhere.

This is especially true on our Lemmy community, where we are small and still developing a culture. There are not many other types of posts here yet, so the click-bait outrage headlines dominate. Personally, I would love to see more events, reviews of concerts, pictures, slice of life stories, and other things that make this feel like the "Portland vibes".

This isn't a moderation decision. It's more of an appeal. I haven't removed any links or banned anyone (other than some obvious malicious spam), and I don't plan to. I haven't even been down voting.

IDK ... what do you think about the future of this space and how we might build a community space that isn't just local doom scrolling?

Come join your fediverse neighbors on a bike ride.

Sunday, July 30th @ 4PM, Shemanski Park

More info: https://www.shift2bikes.org/calendar/event-17449

Hi all. Welcome to the Lemmy c/Portland.

I've been on federated sites for awhile, and tried to mod this community awhile back, but adoption had been slow and I let it sit.

As such, it's available for us to make it whatever you want. Please make sure to follow the lemmy.ml rules.

• No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/code_of_conduct.html
• Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
• No porn.
• No Ads / Spamming.

I also humbly request we attempt to not fall into some of the issues with r/Portland where it devolves into a crime blog/NextDoor-like space or become a platform for some of the local PACs to push their agendas (on any side).

Lets just be neighborly and if we disagree, then we'll work it out. If the place takes off, then we'll work together to codify more custom ground rules for discussion.

With that said, howdy neighbors.

I reserved a Deck day one within a minute and I think I might be in the initial launch (still no expected ship date listed though the payment processed and I got the confirmation email within a couple minutes). Whenever I get it, I'm hyped.

I'm not a typical user. I do enjoy handheld games, but I also am an Arch Linux user (btw), I deploy servers, I write code, blah blah blah. My current personal computer is an old T430, and I plan to use my deck as a daily driver as a desktop at home, a media center on the couch, handheld in bed, and a tablet on the go. To meet those use cases I plan to do a custom Arch install.

Is anyone else planning on doing something similar?

Some things I'm starting to plan out are:

• Some sort of custom lockscreen that can use the deck controls to unlock or an onscreen keyboard.
• E-reader mode
• Audio mode
• Kodi for media center and plex
• RetroArch for retro games
• Steam (of course)
• Removal of telemetry and possibly iptable rules to block Steam telemetry if any
• Graphical interface to do basic maintenance tasks without a keyboard (like a script launcher window). This could probably be the app launcher in gnome with some custom desktop entries

TLDR: Outside of the regular circular arguments around housing we have in Portland what are your thoughts on building effective and equitable housing infrastructure for the cities future?

I think about housing a lot in Portland. We have obvious symptoms of poverty which need to be addressed, and we also have a housing market that is unsustainable. The housing market doesn't create enough vacancies that those who need homes can actually afford. Also, the ways new developments are built often both drive out marginalized communities and demolish historic structures. So, what do we do?

As a life long Portlander and a far-leftist, my bumper sticker solutions are usually of the form "we have enough houses for everyone so just put people in them", but that doesn't really get at the underlying problems and how to build reasonable housing infrastructure into the future.

I think the problem lies with how we address housing with a market and a market alone. Our options are limited into giving subsidies to land speculators and developers to coax them into building something "affordable" or at least "affordable" for a few years. We get stuck in this situation, because federal guidelines like the Faircloth amendment don't allow for new public housing being built without first removing existing public housing. Even when new public housing was being built it was being structured in a way that would lead to loss of community, neglect, no new investment, and blight. A future of mixed public housing where grants are given to both those that need a fully subsidized living situation and those with higher income who get smaller grants to live in the same community seems like a way forward, but again that is blocked at a federal level.

Is there a pathway forward for Portland housing infrastructure that can work within federal rules, and move money away from land speculators to helping people become home owners? These solutions don't seem often talked about. I think in combination with programs to treat the symptoms of poverty (investment in mental health programs, drug and alcohol addiction clinics, more sanctioned public facilities like bathrooms and community spaces to hangout and be less isolated) could go a long way compared to the circular argument we seem to get in between NIMBYs, YIMBYs, and advocates for the houseless like myself.

Maybe I'm dreaming IDK. What do you all think?

My shitty little apartment held strong and never lost power, but it sounds like a lot weren't so lucky. I didn't realize it was so bad.