6 ms·

> 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 co

by 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/
        andrewzah 5y ago
        I have no affiliation, nor a recommendation. Just noticed that they do provide that service. Using any hosting provider is ultimately a risk compared to hosting yourself, that's the price you pay for not having the know-how to host it yourself. And even if you do selfhost, cloudflare may wake up one day and say "nah".
        tedunangst 5y ago
        Does that one click also edit the source code?
      - nightpool 5y ago
        Yes. That's what the word "operator" means. You need to operate the software that the network depends on, or trust someone who does. You see this a lot of time in the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency community as well, where node operators complain about the changes "forced onto them" by developers. Ultimately, it's a labor problem—if someone else is writing your code for you, and you don't know how to modify it, you're at the mercy of their decisions.
      - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
        Do you want your sysadmin to be someone who provably can't build from source?
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.

by 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/
        andrewzah 5y ago
        I have no affiliation, nor a recommendation. Just noticed that they do provide that service. Using any hosting provider is ultimately a risk compared to hosting yourself, that's the price you pay for not having the know-how to host it yourself. And even if you do selfhost, cloudflare may wake up one day and say "nah".
      - tedunangst 5y ago
        Does that one click also edit the source code?
    - nightpool 5y ago
      Yes. That's what the word "operator" means. You need to operate the software that the network depends on, or trust someone who does. You see this a lot of time in the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency community as well, where node operators complain about the changes "forced onto them" by developers. Ultimately, it's a labor problem—if someone else is writing your code for you, and you don't know how to modify it, you're at the mercy of their decisions.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      Do you want your sysadmin to be someone who provably can't build from source?

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.