this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Here we can discuss anything about this Lemmy instance/server itself.

Our XMPP support chat: Movim or XMPP client.

Please also refer to our Wiki

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SLRPNK community discussion - September 2023 (slrpnk.net)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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As a matter of community building, lets make this a monthly thing 😊

Community gardening

As stated in our Wiki, we allow members to create their own communities as a way to encourage contributions, but this comes with the responsibility of active moderation. The site admins can't moderate all communities and unless a posts gets reported, they might not even know about spam etc. Thus we will regularly prune seemingly abandoned communities.

The current list set for pruning is:

So unless someone wants to step up and take them over for moderation and active contribution, they will be removed at the end of the month.

In addition there are these two communities that attract quite a bit of moderation workload and the current mods need support with that (otherwise it might be better to prune them as well):

Technical updates

The originally planned move to a smaller dedicated server was only partially completed and ran into some issue with 8GB RAM being slightly too small for our current Lemmy database use. It might be just a a memory leak issue that should be fixed with the next Lemmy release, but given some related consideration I decided to try use another server with 16GB RAM instead. This move has not been started yet, but I will try to keep the down-time to a minimum.

This server also has a built in GPU that would likely allow automatic scanning for illegal images via Lemmy-safty. This image recognition script is fully local, so no data is transmitted to any 3rd party, but it will likely result in some false-positives (Likely NSFW / child themed ones, which seems not like a major problem for our instance). Any hits will be removed from the storage automatically so this will also protect our moderators from having to deal with such potentially traumatic imagery.

I also made some progress with the account integration between Lemmy and an XMPP/Jabber server. The idea is that you will be able to use your existing [email protected] ID also for federated chat via the Jabber network. This is more secure than the internal Lemmy DMs as Jabber clients support end to end encryption (like Signal more or less). If in the future some Lemmy clients will add privacy preserving UnifiedPush we can also support that via this XMPP server.

I also started trialling a Movim web-client for it, which besides being a nice chat interface for private 1:1 and group chats, can also act as a long-form blogging site (kinda like Medium or Substack) for our members. Lets see if there is an interest in that πŸ€”

In theory bridges to Matrix, Discord, Telegram etc. could also be added, but it will need some more testing and might not work out. Voice and video calls will also initially not be supported due to some technical issue, but I plan to fix that ASAP.

Draft code of conduct

I am also still looking for feedback on and maybe some contributions to our incomplete draft code of conduct.

Open discussion

If you have any other topics related to our community here on slrpnk.net please comment below.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This all looks super awesome! I appriciate all the work you are doing & look forward to being able to use my srlpnk login for a variety of fediverse services :)

Also its really cool db0 created a automated photoscanning tool. No one should be forced to personally review content for things like csam 🀒

Also here are some code of conduct points that could maybe be useful:

  1. Solarpunk is about looking towards brighter futures. Please try to find optimism in what can be very grim realities. This means moving away from doomer talk about how all hope is lost. We all know there are problems so lets work together to create solutions.

  2. Stay civil when talking to others. We all have different views, and many of us are passionate about them. This does not give you the right to insult, brigade, or bully another person. If something is truely harmful, disgusting or hateful, please report it to moderators so it can be removed.

  3. Activism puts the punk in solarpunk. As all punks know though, some plans must be made in secret. Lemmy is an inherently open and accessible space. ANYONE can read when is written here: the FEDs, lawyers, even the company youre planning on sabatoging. Do not use this space to plan activist work. Use secure channels instead, such as an end to end encrypted messaging service.

  4. Encourage others to take positive steps, even if they are small ones. Lets lift each other up and make this a welcoming space for people to explore how we can make tomorrow a better place.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I like the CoC points, brief and to the point.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Thank you :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There's a fine line between avoiding 'doomer talk' and actively lying about the state of reality.

I'm all for hope (I desperately want to have it) but I'm really struggling with all the posts here that massively minimise the danger we're in and promote wishful thinking.

I don't know how this can be changed or improved upon but vehemently pretending that protesting, signing petitions, and setting up community gardens is enough, is just making me uncomfortable.

How do we lift each other up and make tomorrow a better place when all the science points to climate collapse and fresh water and arable land being depleted in the next 5 to 30 years?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I think its about where the focus is. There was a really good discussion on it last week. I agree it is a fine line to walk. We dont want to be blindly positive, nor do we want to be hopelessly negative. I think part of it is being okay with imperfect or partial solutions. Perfection is the enemy of the good, and people who only hear about how awful everything is tend to tune things out or quit trying.

I think what most people want is to be realistically aware of where the world is without being so overwhelmed they stop trying. I agree petitions and community gardens wont fix the world, but I do thing they are still a positive step in the right direction. We want to recognize and encourage actions like that. Its not all that needs to be done, but it is still nice that it is happening.

Avoiding doomer talk doesnt mean only agreeing, nor does it mean avoiding hard topics. I think it is about maintaining some hope that we can make things even a little bit better, and celebrating those moments even when they are small.

Example of being a doomer: Going onto a post of someone sharing a community garden they started just to rant about how gardens dont make a sizable impact on global emmissions & how it is privilaged and wasteful since the garden isnt even planted according to permaculture principles.

Example of being an encourager: going onto a post of someone sharing a community garden they just started and complimenting their work, recommending some native plants they could consider for next year, and linking to additional steps people could take (like starting a compost, giving out free seeds and seedlings to other people in the neighborhood, replacing grass with other vegitation, etc)

Doomer: electric cars are terrible, we still need to mine the minerals, and the whole car centric focus is problematic >:/

Encourager: congrats on the hybrid that will cut done on emmissions for sure! i notice youre in Vancouver. They actually have a petition to set aside money to convert some roadways into solar powered trains. If youre interested come the the city cousil meeting this sat it would be great if you could come show your support!

One final thought: the c/collapse community was originally created as a space for people who are feeling a but doomed to talk about those feelings, vent, and work together to move towards a healthier mindset. So avoiding doomer talk isnt about burying those feelings, i think its more about being mindful of where and how we vent those feelings of doom & the impact those feelings can have on others.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

How do we lift each other up and make tomorrow a better place when all the science points to climate collapse and fresh water and arable land being depleted in the next 5 to 30 years?

By depleted, do you mean completely gone, or beginning to decline? If it's the former, could you link the study which points to that happening in 5 to 30 years? I ask only because the more dire estimates I've seen seem to suggest things will certainly be A LOT worse, but not uninhabitable globally.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Just wanted to say thank you very much for your work on this instance, both the community and technical side. I'm really glad you're keeping the system current and figuring out new features. I don't have any objections to the community gardening thoughts, and will review the draft code of conduct soon.

Movim sounds cool and I'm interested to try it out, I have a free WordPress site but wouldn't mind moving to a federated alternative of some sort and I really like it here so that could be great.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not a SLRPNK member but enjoyed reading your statements.

As my opinion is worth little, I agree with your pruning suggestions and wished it was repeated all over. Some of us tried to tell people to not go community-creating crazy and there are a lot of empty ones sitting around.

Am very interested in the XMPP server and frontend. Will that open up to other users?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The XMPP service will be directly linked to the user-database of Slrpnk.net, but of course since XMPP is federated as well you will be able to interact with an external Jabber account. Movim works in theory with any Jabber account, but I will likely restrict logging in to people with slrpnk.net accounts as otherwise it becomes a moderation hassle for the blog posts.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I also made some progress with the account integration between Lemmy and an XMPP/Jabber server.

Great idea, kudos. Is this generally implemented in Lemmy instances, or your own genius ?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am adapting a similar integration for Mastodon, see the link I shared in another response here.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Sorry for the 30 minutes down-time or so. As explained above I moved the database to a different server and I underestimated how big it had gotten again (30GB 🀯 why? πŸ€”). It should be all back working again now, lets hope we didn't miss any important federated messages 😬

With this move all the vital parts are now on one dedicated server (8 threads, 16GB RAM), meaning it will be easier to get additional system-admins on board for server maintenance (before on the shared server that was not something I was willing to do, given the security implications). More details on that to follow soon 😎

In unrelated news: I started experimenting with a community wiki here: https://wiki.slrpnk.net Not much to see yet, but the plan is that community moderators will be able to log in with their existing Lemmy account and edit their own dedicated sub-section for each community they moderate. This subsection can then be linked in the community sidebar.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

Should we ban some bots?

I find external cross post bots from Reddit annoying (if not explicitly set up by the community moderators themselves) and the link fixer bot is also a bit too spammy for my taste (edit: linkfixerbot is banned now).

What about the tl;dr bot?

Any other bots any of you would like to have removed from this instance?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I like the tl;dr bot. Its only once per post and can easily be blocked by people who dont like it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I agree, tl;dr bot is alright in my book.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

the rest of them can fucking go though, IMO

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

How about: https://slrpnk.net/u/[email protected]

I think as much as alternative front-ends are a good idea for privacy, the actual links tend to break more often then not and this bot also only links to one specific alternative, meaning all the links it posts are probably going to be broken in a few weeks.

Edit: I banned the piped bot as it was spamming communities. No big loss I think.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I personally find the link fixer bot quite helpful for what it’s worth.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Just wondering: Is it technically possible to close communities till there is moderation? Like no posts, votes and comments allowed but current state is preserved.

Besides that I really enjoy when I browse the local timeline on slrpnk.net and thats because the communities here are awesome and interesting.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think that's a better response to inactive communities. Instead of "pruning" them, make them "dormant" (to keep the garden metaphor going) so old content can still be viewed and if in future someone wants to take over and grow the community they can.

But if the communities can't be locked down to keep spam and illegal material out of comments I agree it's sadly better to prune.

The cost of being a small community in a big nasty Internet. Makes you yearn for the days of walled garden BBSes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I can remove them, which doesn't really delete them and they can be restored. But that also means that they are hidden from non-admin users.

Just completely locking communities would probably need a change in the main Lemmy codebase.

Edit: one could make it moderator post only and then manually lock all the old posts.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There is an option to only allow moderators to post in a community, but I think that still allows votes and comments from others.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Hi I'm a Game Designer (tabletop and videogames) and if the ownership of the board games community is up for grabs, I'm cool with keeping watch over it. One of my favorite games is Wingspan which isn't solarpunk but definitely is ecological and educational.

I'm thinking a good way to invigorate the community is to encourage discussions on board game design as well that way people in the solar punk community can support making environment and ecology themed game projects together. I can leverage my experience in this way.

But the main question is if most people end up using the community for general boardgames discussion is that considered alright? Most board games aren't solarpunk oriented and many of them might even have anti-ecological themes (ex. most natural resource management games, think Settlers of Catan).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Cool, please make an introduction post in that community and I will promote you as a mod there.

The topic of solarpunk is broadly defined, its not a big deal if other board games are discussed in that community.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

okay I've made my introduction post, thanks for everything, here's hoping the best for the community there

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Yeah I definitely support the idea of integration with Jabber

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I would be willing to work on the code of conduct, but I need a TOC to work off of for additional topics, since I am pretty OOTL on typical items in a CoC.

I think there needs to be a statement about graphic/illegal images (unless that's covered by Lemmy in general). I also think you need a statement about bots and what type are allowed and what ones are not.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't really want to make our CoC into the typical long legalese of over-specific rules. It's more supposed to be a set of paragraphs that give people a good idea what kind of behaviour is expected of them in this community.

If you have some good ideas for such paragraphs, maybe based on some good or bad behaviour you have seen happening on the network, just share them here for discussion.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I have to agree with this. Bad behavior gets tailored to rules when you're engaged in a legalistic rules interpretation, which tends to be really problematic.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I volunteer to moderate Buy It for Life. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to contribute to it with content, but I can certainly moderate it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks. Please make an introduction post in that community so that I can make you mod there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

would be a real shame to see Open Source Ecology go, it's a great project - would be happy to help by removing spam and keeping an eye on things, i'm not affiliated with them but could post any news updates i see and possibly reach out to Marcin to see if anyone on the team wants to take an active role.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Maybe I should mention this here as well: https://slrpnk.net/post/2207489

tl;dr: please try out https://photon.slrpnk.net

Edit: seems stable enough, but not yet ready for a full replacement of the Lemmy-ui. So for now I linked it in the sidebar only.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I feel like this is a dumb question, but I haven't found a straightforward way to donate here to help keep the lights on. Are you accepting donations? I'm not exactly Daddy Warbucks here, but I can contribute a little and value what you do.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

We have a page on that topic on our Wiki, but tl;dr please donate to the Lemmy developers instead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Please see this post regarding applying as a mod on 2XC: https://slrpnk.net/post/1856052

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I just became aware of a bug in Lemmy that (sometimes?) prevents some moderation actions to propagate to other instances. I was getting a lot of reports for posts on /c/twoxchromosomes that I had already moderated and banned the users.

My current guess is that it might be caused by me as a site admin taking moderation action instead of the community moderators doing it, which is quite bad as especially the not actively moderated communities often need site admin intervention.

Not sure what the best way forward for this is, but it is quite serious especially for /c/twoxchromosomes as the misogynists are running rampant on other instances and there seems to be little I can do about it from our side 😭

Edit: seems like my guess was right and the Lemmy devs pushed a fix for this. Hopefully they will make a minor release with it as the upcoming big version 19.0 is still a heavy work in progress.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

hi i'm new! i would be interested in a matrix chat about climate stuff if there ever is any, xmpp seems a bit wonky with its encryption in comparison or it was when i last used it

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