12 ms·

Lemmy Release v0.14.0: Federation with Mastodon and Pleroma

119 points by agluszak 5y ago

wonks 5y ago
If Lemmy's voting system is incompatible with Mastodon & Pleroma, then does that also mean that reshares and Favorites from Mastodon or Pleroma won't count as upvotes in Lemmy?
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Imo they shouldn't count anyways.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
HMH 5y ago
> Hardcoded slur filter removed Nice, IMO this shouldn't have been there in the first place, considering its inflexibility and obvious bias to what the devs consider slurs.
- rndmind 5y ago
  What do you mean, inflexibility? The regex is right there for a server admin to edit or disable, that's as flexible as it gets hah..
  - wraptile 5y ago
    That means you have to build from source which kinda goes against the spirit of a decentralized network.
    - nightpool 5y ago
      Updating the source code of your software goes agains the spirit of a decentralized network? How? The whole point of decentralized networks is that people with different source code/implementations can communicate with each other.
      - andrewzah 5y ago
        Because it reduces the operators of said networks to people who know how to build rust/etc projects from source. That is limiting and off putting.
        rndmind 5y ago
        That's true, compiling rust is harsh, but we're are talking about server admins and sysadmins here, I have faith that sysadmins will know how to compile and deploy rust. TIL the Lemmy Server code is written in rust, hell yeah
        all2 5y ago
        Sounds like a business opportunity. Federated software vendor: we do the dirty work so you can start a new instance with one click.
        andrewzah 5y ago
        There are services like that for Mastodon [0]. But a provider that lets you host from a choice of e.g. mastodon, pleroma, lemmy etc would be interesting. [0]: https://masto.host/ https://masto.host/
        coldacid 5y ago
        Masto.host is run by one of those people who put inflexible ideology ahead of the wants and needs of their users. That is ever a concern when having a third party set up and manage everything for you.
        harpersealtako 5y ago
        masto.host has a great deal of restrictive, somewhat arbitrary content moderation policies for what is basically just a server host[0]. Since that the original problem is that admins may want to override built-in censorship policies to suit their instance's needs and values, I don't think an even more censorious centralized authority is a great example of a solution. [0]: https://masto.host/tos/ https://masto.host/tos/
- ratww 5y ago
  Slur filters are a clbuttic mistake.
- seany 5y ago
  I've never really understood why more of this kind of thing isn't optional in the _client_ to start with. There's this weird "I'll control everything" default with some of these projects thats just baffling; given the seeming point of distributed/federated systems.
  - rakoo 5y ago
    Interestingly that's how Aether (https://getaether.net/ https://getaether.net/) works: mods don't control rooms unilaterally, they are voted in. If you don't agree with what a mod did, you can disregard whatever action they took. _All_ content is available locally, you only apply the filter you want. I've never used Aether but I find that way of working very refreshing.
  - ruined 5y ago
    it was a shortcut to cull the lowest effort 4chan-style spam until moderation tools were implemented. the functionality is still there, in fact it's more configurable now they did it because social media can't get off the ground if it's full of useless garbage. would you read hn if all the comments were just the same word over and over?
    - esyir 5y ago
      Eh, from what I know, it was very much ideological, at least that's what I heard from people I knew working with it. To quote the dev on this himself: >And putting it in a DB table means someone could very easily remove it by deleting every row of that table, which isn't good. I want to make it very difficult for racist trolls to use the most updated version of Lemmy.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        [flagged]
        true_religion 5y ago
        I don’t think so. It’s hard to believe someone becomes racists merely from hearing that racism is banned. The issue of hating billions of people is too serious to develop as a form of devil’s advocacy. As for the issue of identity politics, I think that’s another discussion entirely.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  This is good news. It does appear that the major Lemmy instances are ran by leftist groups politically and that most of their development comes from the left, which is their own right. I do wonder though if they will take actions at some point to try to censor instances that may disagree with them politically, whether it takes actions to simply disable federation with them or other actions in the software itself.
  - mattbk1 5y ago
    An instance of Lemmy is free to federate (or not) with other instances on the Fediverse. Each instance can have its own code of conduct. Seems good for everyone.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    Censorship seems to be mainly a problem with rightwing outfits like Gab/Parler actively banning people who don't align with the groupthink. Groupthink is less of an issue with the left, especially those that self-select into an avant-garde space like the fediverse.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      [flagged]
- Lambdanaut 5y ago
  Finally I can start working on Lemmy again without feeling a moral weight in my gut. Great move on the part of the creators of Lemmy. I know this was a hard thing for them to do, because I know how much they were opposed to removing the filter, but I think this will be a very good thing for Lemmy in the future.
olah_1 5y ago
The federation seems confusing even for someone that understands activity pub. Did we ever stop to ask if we should? Or did we only ask if we could?
- jlkuester7 5y ago
  Uhhh I mean I guess it depends on your goals, but for social media services as generic as Mastodon/Lemmy, federation seems like an obvious advantage in terms of increased "social connection" as opposed to siloed communities that cannot talk to each other.
- rakoo 5y ago
  I think the federation in fediverse went on wrong tracks. What I want is a single identity and be able to use it everywhere, whether the "where" provides me with a photo sharing service or a blogging service. What we have instead is a photo sharing service where I'm registered and a blogging service where I'm also registered but with a different identity, and we try to make the two fit into one another but it doesn't really match.
  - bronlund 5y ago
    What he said!
  - olah_1 5y ago
    Exactly! If you want to fully participate in Lemmy, you need a Lemmy account. The federation here is basically an advertisement to join Lemmy. It’s the same with Peertube and Pixelfed. If we need to make new accounts everywhere, I don’t see the point.
agluszak 5y ago
I am 100% excited by the Fediverse and 0% excited by the Metaverse. Finally we're getting a way out of the walled garden/silo model of social networks pushed by commercial platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.
- kzrdude 5y ago
  The fediverse seems to barely be growing and have no chance of mainstream adoption. Maybe that's fine, that's just going to mean it's a more exclusive internet.
  - agluszak 5y ago
    > barely be growing and have no chance of mainstream adoption I guess someone could have said that about ARPANET in 1970s... ;)
  - solarkraft 5y ago
    So far I enjoy this exclusive internet. So many more cool people, so much less shitty commercialization and user-hostility. Of course it’s not 100% ready for everyone yet, but I don’t think it’s very far. Like the early internet, it’s currently full of early adopters and still a little awkward to use. I don’t think it will stay that way forever.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Barely growing? I don't know which stats you're looking at, but the Fediverse Observer charts[0] show that the number of users, servers, and posts have all doubled since the start of 2020. [0] https://fediverse.observer/stats https://fediverse.observer/stats
    - wiz21c 5y ago
      4500000 users ! that's a lot. I thought that kind of stuff was for a niche. Looks much more promising all of a suddend ! thx for sharing.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
mhd 5y ago
Wasn't lemmy also a vi clone?
mianos 5y ago
I have no idea what Lemmy is aside from a vi clone. I eventually found a link to a post "What is Lemmy" and it says: "Recently there seems to be some of misunderstanding what the lemmy.ml instance is about, especially from newer users". I still don't know.
- input_sh 5y ago
  I don't blame you, but you're looking at the wrong place: https://join-lemmy.org/ https://join-lemmy.org/ In short, it's a decentralized reddit in the same way Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter. Lemmy.ml is a main server running it.
dang 5y ago
Previous related threads: Lemmy – A link aggregator for the fediverse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28453165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28453165 - Sept 2021 (213 comments) Lemmy a federated, open-source and privacy alternative to Reddit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24393689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24393689 - Sept 2020 (9 comments) Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23664067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23664067 - June 2020 (634 comments) AMA about Lemmy, an open source, Federated alternative to Reddit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23389622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23389622 - June 2020 (4 comments) Lemmy: Federated Alternative to Reddit in Rust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972 - April 2019 (99 comments)

119 points by agluszak 5y ago

If Lemmy's voting system is incompatible with Mastodon & Pleroma, then does that also mean that reshares and Favorites from Mastodon or Pleroma won't count as upvotes in Lemmy?

sudosysgen 5y ago
Imo they shouldn't count anyways.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

HMH 5y ago

> Hardcoded slur filter removed Nice, IMO this shouldn't have been there in the first place, considering its inflexibility and obvious bias to what the devs consider slurs.

rndmind 5y ago
What do you mean, inflexibility? The regex is right there for a server admin to edit or disable, that's as flexible as it gets hah..
- wraptile 5y ago
  That means you have to build from source which kinda goes against the spirit of a decentralized network.
  - nightpool 5y ago
    Updating the source code of your software goes agains the spirit of a decentralized network? How? The whole point of decentralized networks is that people with different source code/implementations can communicate with each other.
    - andrewzah 5y ago
      Because it reduces the operators of said networks to people who know how to build rust/etc projects from source. That is limiting and off putting.
      - rndmind 5y ago
        That's true, compiling rust is harsh, but we're are talking about server admins and sysadmins here, I have faith that sysadmins will know how to compile and deploy rust. TIL the Lemmy Server code is written in rust, hell yeah
      - all2 5y ago
        Sounds like a business opportunity. Federated software vendor: we do the dirty work so you can start a new instance with one click.
        andrewzah 5y ago
        There are services like that for Mastodon [0]. But a provider that lets you host from a choice of e.g. mastodon, pleroma, lemmy etc would be interesting. [0]: https://masto.host/ https://masto.host/
        coldacid 5y ago
        Masto.host is run by one of those people who put inflexible ideology ahead of the wants and needs of their users. That is ever a concern when having a third party set up and manage everything for you.
        harpersealtako 5y ago
        masto.host has a great deal of restrictive, somewhat arbitrary content moderation policies for what is basically just a server host[0]. Since that the original problem is that admins may want to override built-in censorship policies to suit their instance's needs and values, I don't think an even more censorious centralized authority is a great example of a solution. [0]: https://masto.host/tos/ https://masto.host/tos/
ratww 5y ago
Slur filters are a clbuttic mistake.
seany 5y ago
I've never really understood why more of this kind of thing isn't optional in the _client_ to start with. There's this weird "I'll control everything" default with some of these projects thats just baffling; given the seeming point of distributed/federated systems.
- rakoo 5y ago
  Interestingly that's how Aether (https://getaether.net/ https://getaether.net/) works: mods don't control rooms unilaterally, they are voted in. If you don't agree with what a mod did, you can disregard whatever action they took. _All_ content is available locally, you only apply the filter you want. I've never used Aether but I find that way of working very refreshing.
- ruined 5y ago
  it was a shortcut to cull the lowest effort 4chan-style spam until moderation tools were implemented. the functionality is still there, in fact it's more configurable now they did it because social media can't get off the ground if it's full of useless garbage. would you read hn if all the comments were just the same word over and over?
  - esyir 5y ago
    Eh, from what I know, it was very much ideological, at least that's what I heard from people I knew working with it. To quote the dev on this himself: >And putting it in a DB table means someone could very easily remove it by deleting every row of that table, which isn't good. I want to make it very difficult for racist trolls to use the most updated version of Lemmy.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      [flagged]
      - true_religion 5y ago
        I don’t think so. It’s hard to believe someone becomes racists merely from hearing that racism is banned. The issue of hating billions of people is too serious to develop as a form of devil’s advocacy. As for the issue of identity politics, I think that’s another discussion entirely.
encryptluks2 5y ago
This is good news. It does appear that the major Lemmy instances are ran by leftist groups politically and that most of their development comes from the left, which is their own right. I do wonder though if they will take actions at some point to try to censor instances that may disagree with them politically, whether it takes actions to simply disable federation with them or other actions in the software itself.
- mattbk1 5y ago
  An instance of Lemmy is free to federate (or not) with other instances on the Fediverse. Each instance can have its own code of conduct. Seems good for everyone.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Censorship seems to be mainly a problem with rightwing outfits like Gab/Parler actively banning people who don't align with the groupthink. Groupthink is less of an issue with the left, especially those that self-select into an avant-garde space like the fediverse.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    [flagged]
Lambdanaut 5y ago
Finally I can start working on Lemmy again without feeling a moral weight in my gut. Great move on the part of the creators of Lemmy. I know this was a hard thing for them to do, because I know how much they were opposed to removing the filter, but I think this will be a very good thing for Lemmy in the future.

olah_1 5y ago

The federation seems confusing even for someone that understands activity pub. Did we ever stop to ask if we should? Or did we only ask if we could?

jlkuester7 5y ago
Uhhh I mean I guess it depends on your goals, but for social media services as generic as Mastodon/Lemmy, federation seems like an obvious advantage in terms of increased "social connection" as opposed to siloed communities that cannot talk to each other.
rakoo 5y ago
I think the federation in fediverse went on wrong tracks. What I want is a single identity and be able to use it everywhere, whether the "where" provides me with a photo sharing service or a blogging service. What we have instead is a photo sharing service where I'm registered and a blogging service where I'm also registered but with a different identity, and we try to make the two fit into one another but it doesn't really match.
- bronlund 5y ago
  What he said!
- olah_1 5y ago
  Exactly! If you want to fully participate in Lemmy, you need a Lemmy account. The federation here is basically an advertisement to join Lemmy. It’s the same with Peertube and Pixelfed. If we need to make new accounts everywhere, I don’t see the point.

agluszak 5y ago

I am 100% excited by the Fediverse and 0% excited by the Metaverse. Finally we're getting a way out of the walled garden/silo model of social networks pushed by commercial platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

kzrdude 5y ago
The fediverse seems to barely be growing and have no chance of mainstream adoption. Maybe that's fine, that's just going to mean it's a more exclusive internet.
- agluszak 5y ago
  > barely be growing and have no chance of mainstream adoption I guess someone could have said that about ARPANET in 1970s... ;)
- solarkraft 5y ago
  So far I enjoy this exclusive internet. So many more cool people, so much less shitty commercialization and user-hostility. Of course it’s not 100% ready for everyone yet, but I don’t think it’s very far. Like the early internet, it’s currently full of early adopters and still a little awkward to use. I don’t think it will stay that way forever.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Barely growing? I don't know which stats you're looking at, but the Fediverse Observer charts[0] show that the number of users, servers, and posts have all doubled since the start of 2020. [0] https://fediverse.observer/stats https://fediverse.observer/stats
  - wiz21c 5y ago
    4500000 users ! that's a lot. I thought that kind of stuff was for a niche. Looks much more promising all of a suddend ! thx for sharing.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago

mhd 5y ago

Wasn't lemmy also a vi clone?

mianos 5y ago

I have no idea what Lemmy is aside from a vi clone. I eventually found a link to a post "What is Lemmy" and it says: "Recently there seems to be some of misunderstanding what the lemmy.ml instance is about, especially from newer users". I still don't know.

input_sh 5y ago
I don't blame you, but you're looking at the wrong place: https://join-lemmy.org/ https://join-lemmy.org/ In short, it's a decentralized reddit in the same way Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter. Lemmy.ml is a main server running it.

dang 5y ago

Previous related threads: Lemmy – A link aggregator for the fediverse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28453165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28453165 - Sept 2021 (213 comments) Lemmy a federated, open-source and privacy alternative to Reddit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24393689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24393689 - Sept 2020 (9 comments) Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23664067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23664067 - June 2020 (634 comments) AMA about Lemmy, an open source, Federated alternative to Reddit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23389622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23389622 - June 2020 (4 comments) Lemmy: Federated Alternative to Reddit in Rust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686972 - April 2019 (99 comments)