this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Blocked Instances announcements/appeals? (self.general)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Gamera8ID to c/general
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My question is not about defederating from Exploding Heads. I support that well-documented decision by the admins.

However I have noticed the Blocked Instances list at https://lemmy.world/instances growing, and I was wondering if and where the admins are announcing new blocks. (I thought https://lemmy.world/c/lemmyworld but there doesn't appear to be consistency there.)

Specifically I was curious about Lemmit.Online which is now blocked. I searched c/lemmyworld and c/general for announcements or discussions about that instance being blocked, but found nothing.

I think I understand the admins' justification (though I don't agree with it) but would like to know why the "nuclear option" of defederation was chosen.

I believe (but don't know since there was no announcement) that it was a reaction to Lemmit.Online communities appearing too frequently at the top of "All" + "Hot."

Lemmit.Online exists solely to copy posts from requested subreddits. I've found it really helpful to monitor all my small population subreddits, where there is not yet a viable Lemmy community (not just where someone started a community but a useful one with active members and equivalent posts.) In most cases I'm happy with the links being shared, and don't need to click through to Reddit for the discussions.

Since Lemmit.Online communities are just copies of subreddit posts, though, I do understand folks not wanting to see them at the top of "All." But doesn't almost everyone move to "Subscribed" pretty quickly? Or can't it be a teaching moment to understand how to block a community as an individual user if you don't want to see a Lemmit.Online community in "All?" I also think the admins have the ability to block individual communities, so if it's a matter of specific noisy Lemmit.Online communities with established Lemmy equivalents then why not block only those communities rather than the entire instance?

I mean, I don't like meme posts. I ignore them if browsing "All" and I don't subscribe to those communities. If I really, really dislike seeing them in "All" then I have the choice to block those communities. Problem solved for me without removing the ability for anyone in the instance who does like them to see them.

But Lemmy.World defederating Lemmit.Online removes the ability for those of us who found those communities useful to make our own choice. I'd like to better understand the admins' decision to defederate the entire instance, and if we users have the option to appeal (or at least discuss) the decision.

tl;dr

  • Do admins post announcements explaining defederations, and where?
  • Is there an appeal process? If not, should there be?

Edit: I just found this comment in another post and hope @[email protected] or another admin cares to respond here.

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[–] joe 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wouldn't mind a more transparent method of seeing when and why instances were defederated-- sort of like the modlog-- but the instance you bring up in particular is essentially a spambot.

[–] Kalcifer 1 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't mind a more transparent method of seeing when and why instances were defederated

I completely agree.

[–] Gamera8ID 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the instance you bring up in particular is essentially a spambot.

I'd like to understand your perspective here. This and this are examples of subreddits I miss which have no active Lemmy equivalent. How is their existence at Lemmit.Online spam?

[–] joe 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Make the communities you want to see?

It's spam because it's software indiscriminately making posts.

[–] Gamera8ID 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Make the communities you want to see

This isn't really feasible. It took years for Reddit to grow a userbase sufficient to have active niche subreddits like those.

Even widening the interests to state instead of city and hobby instead of specific trail there is almost no content here. That's not going to change overnight.

The subreddits being copied by Lemmit.Online fill a gap for these niche communities which will only come with greater adoption of Lemmy. Blocking them only serves to drive traffic back to Reddit, in conflict with that objective.

[–] joe 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't understand. Are you commenting on that other instance? If so, with whom?

[–] Gamera8ID 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In most cases I’m happy with the links being shared, and don’t need to click through to Reddit for the discussions.

Not commenting, no. (Although occasionally I am at the meta level to help grow the equivalent Lemmy communities.)

I mostly use them as newsfeeds and not discussion boards. They limit my return to Reddit to only those cases where I really, really feel like there's a conversation worth returning for.

[–] joe 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then just bookmark links to those communities or find an app that lets you browse through several instances at once, like Connect. Or spin up your own private Lemmy instance.

I can obviously only speak for myself but as far as I'm concerned, these kind of bots are net negative, and like I said, essentially spam. I'd no more want a bot that pulls in reddit posts than I would one that pulls in Twitter ones, or YouTube videos, etc.

I really think you should reconsider your stance on making the communities here. Surely you aren't the only person they'd apply to.

[–] Gamera8ID 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

spin up your own private Lemmy instance

This is something I'm investigating, but the need to do so is a massive barrier to my adoption of Lemmy.

I can obviously only speak for myself

...and that's totally fair. The majority of us are here because Reddit leadership made decisions without consulting the community. I'm only asking that we expect more from instance admins. Let's talk about it.

I’d no more want

This is the part I don't understand. How is this content impacting you by being present? Am I wrong about folks using "Subscribed" and I'm the only one who doesn't use "All" frequently? Is it so inconvenient for an individual to block a noisy Lemmit.Online community they don't want to hear from, or even for the admins to block those specific communities? Or is the objection "the principle of the thing" despite it being useful to a segment of the community?

reconsider your stance on making the communities here

What stance do you mean? I linked to discussions both here and on Reddit where I am trying to foster use of equivalent communities on Lemmy. I want to have the conversations here.

Let's just do some quick math, though. (I pulled some of these stats off of Google and am willing to concede in advance that they may not be entirely accurate.)

Reddit has 861 million monthly active users.

The Boise subreddit has fewer than 50 thousand subscribers.

So less than 0.006% of Redditors subscribe to r/Boise. Remember that's subscribers, including lurkers, and not active posters.

Lemmy has 21-thousand monthly active users.

So it's fair to say that about 1.26 total Lemmy users would have an interest in subscribing to c/Boise right now, if I make it. That's me and a quarter of a likely lurker.

This is not an exaggeration. The Idaho Lemmy community I linked (the only one I could find) has 15 subscribers, 1 post, and 1 reply (mine.)

The content will come when users do, but until it does it's not really fair to suggest that individuals with niche interests create communities in which they talk exclusively to themselves or one other person if they're lucky.

[–] ElectroVagrant 1 points 1 year ago

This is the part I don’t understand. How is this content impacting you by being present? Am I wrong about folks using “Subscribed” and I’m the only one who doesn’t use “All” frequently? Is it so inconvenient for an individual to block a noisy Lemmit.Online community they don’t want to hear from, or even for the admins to block those specific communities?

Can't speak to how others are using Lemmy, but I suspect a number of new folks may be trying to rely on the local/all feeds as a way to discover communities to subscribe to. If that's the case, then automated instances/communities like lemmit.online may interfere with that process for those folks as they crowd out communities with non-automated and more regular activity driven by people.

You may block the automated communities, for sure, but it becomes kind of a game of whack-a-mole as more pop up, and admins, so far as I'm aware, can't block individual communities from remote instances. That's one of a number of the unfortunate shortcomings of the current admin/mod tools of Lemmy, if I'm not mistaken, which I imagine is part of why they opted to defederate vs. blocking specific communities.

Another part is that there have been several threads now with some folks more or less requesting blocking/defederating from largely bot-driven instances, and while that obviously isn't representative of the whole of lemmy.world, I'd imagine it influenced the decision.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

tl;dr it will always vary per different instances and admins, I don't think there is an uniform answer.

[–] Gamera8ID 4 points 1 year ago

I think that's why admin posts to lemmyworld would make sense.

"This week we blocked these 5 instances for these reasons and these 2 external communities for these other reasons. Discussions are open here until we lock the thread."

[–] PlasticExistence 1 points 1 year ago

It could be that the instance in question was seen to have a lot of bot users being created on it. Those instances are being defederated to stem a possible explosion of spam later (that isn't reddit reposts).