If there’s another place to find answers, do let me know. I went over the piefed feature page and did a couple searches already.
I came here from Lemmy to try out Piefed and make another community, but I get an error that my account is too new and/or I don’t have a reputation.
Questions:
What does reputation or attitude mean? What do I need to have to make a community?
How old does my account have to be to make a community?
Why do I need to have an X account age to make a community?
Is there a way to separate upvotes and downvotes? If not, I don’t like it. Just seeing a number doesn’t tell me very much, especially about engagement. A -1 score could have 200 upvotes.
Why are the communist/socialist instances blocked by default and not like, maga? I see it’s blocked by my instance anyway, but thought it was weird to block those three considering there are much worse instances. I already unblocked them, so I don’t need help, I’m just wondering why.
Oh, and why can’t I see the modlog?
Thank you all for your time.
Perish the thought! The reason is that during Rexodus, the more conservative/right-leaning instances (mainly exploding-heads.com) were so strongly hard-defederated from basically every single Lemmy instance across the board that nowadays there basically are none left. Maga.place is a brand-new one (oldest post is 3 months) and, looking in the side-bar text, I see that it has only 3 active users per month. So it is both new and highly irrelevant to the wider Threadiverse except the notoriety of it representing conservatives.
In fact most communities on the Threadiverse with names such as “conservative” are actually trolling conservatives rather than representing them. Also, a fun historical tidbit: exploding-heads quickly turned on itself and self-imploded, then (after first shifting over to another instance, rammy.site) emptied itself out when Donald Trump’s Truth Social came out, leaving exploding-heads itself to eventually die (so there is little point to defederating from it anymore, since it no longer exists, although it is easy enough to leave in the defederation list, and one day that URL might become resurrected…).
“True” socialist instances include places like slrpnk.net and lemmy.dbzer0.com, which I highly recommend checking out. Hexbear.net however only claims to be leftist, while actually being trolls who believe in nothing except the power of being internet edgelords. Lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml (the latter also run by the developers of the Lemmy software) are extremely pro-authoritarian places that despite not saying anywhere in the rules about it will nonetheless ban you from every community on the instance (even those you’ve never so much as heard of) if you ever say anything critical (or not supportive enough?) about Russia, North Korea, or China. That banning btw is arguably fine - it’s their instance so they can be free to run it however they wish - but the disingenuousness of never stating that fact up-front, instead calling itself a place for FOSS enthusiasts to discuss things, is one of the main reasons why they are blocked from new accounts, since they have shown themselves to not be governed by the traditional codes of conduct that a Westerner would expect regarding freedom and transparency. So very MANY people have, upon being exposed to that, noped back to Reddit and then complained about the entire Threadiverse, not realizing that those instances do not reflect the wider ideals held by the great majority of the instances here. There are whole entire communities - such as [email protected] - dedicated to
bashing on themdocumenting their behaviors.Afaik, “Attitude” does not actually do much of anything - the worst that can happen is that after reaching some ENORMOUS ratio of downvotes to upvotes (I don’t know the value, and it could differ from instance to instance anyway, but think like: 10-to-1), an icon gets placed next to someone’s username to indicate their fairly toxic overall behavior. It does not filter their submissions, only labels them, so that someone responding has a better idea going into a conversation that the outcome is generally likely to result in disappointment if the goal was to be liked or at least have content received positively. Your own attitude is currently reported as 97% so I don’t think this will ever end up happening to you.
Another spam-blocking feature is that you will not be able to DM anyone for I think it is 2 weeks after account creation. Unfortunately, since some people abuse the privilege, crackdowns have become necessary…:-(
I whole-heartedly agree and very much await the day when this aspect can be improved in PieFed software. I frequently get situations with like a +1 score but it represents a +11/-10 split rather than zero engagement - and yes those are two totally different scenarios, which it can be helpful to be able to distinguish!!:-) New features are added to PieFed practically weekly, so one day I strongly hope to see this one.
Thanks for your input and perspective. Good to know other people feel the same way about the votes. And weird about my “Attitude,” my profile shows 100% for me, I don’t think I’ve downvotwd anyone yet. My ratio on my main account is like 100/1. I even upvote people who argue with me because I like the attention.
I’ve been on lemmy for about two years and my main account is on Lemmy.Today, which doesn’t block any instance.
The maga trolls are rare but they are 100% right wing and incendiary. There’s really only one user from .ml I find consistently… sucks. I see more people attacking folks for having .ml in their username than .ml’s giving people shit. Most of them seem pretty socialist/democratic to me. The hexbears have their own vibe and I don’t see many .grads outside of their instance, or maybe I just don’t notice them.
It’s kinda delightful being able to see all the hexbears in the comments like little mischievous ghosts bitching about the liberals.
Meanwhile on Grad is some highschool level call-out culture. The person who runs it is abusive, insulting, has made some pretty crazy comments about Isreal, and uses alts to manipulate votes.
But I agree there needs to be more transparent rules about the expectations for individual instances, that said, mods trying to curate a certain kind of vibe on an instance or in a community isn’t out of the ordinary. On the one hand I think we need to protect minority opinions so Lemmy doesn’t become a sad, monotonous gruel of opinions. On the other hand, spicy peppers are gross in a fruit cake.
Perhaps it’s because I am on PieFed.social and you are on PieFed.zip… somehow?
If you ever have the misfortune of having to communicate with the Sealion Cowbee, you will understand. Arguing with people who ignore 99.9% of what you said, just to hyper focus on just asking a question (which you already answered) just isn’t my idea of a good time. Also, why hold knowledge hostage by saying “DM me and I’ll hook you up with an answer bro, I swear!” I don’t need to walk into any dark alleyways to find my knowledge, thank you very much - I’d much rather stay in the daylight where everyone can criticize an obviously (even/especially not to me) incorrect statement.
Yeah, I think Meanwhile on Grad is a bit much, but other communities don’t want to repeat information so keep pointing people to post new instances of admin abuse there rather than repeat the same tired old stories over and over again everywhere else across the Threadiverse. Examples include [email protected], which helpfully keeps communities accountable from mods who run amok, and [email protected] that closed down after Trump won the USA election. But on the other hand, even though everyone on the Threadiverse already knows about the abuses and deceptive practices of the infamous Lemmy.ml devs, hence we don’t want to keep hearing about them, nonetheless new people still occasionally come along who need a reference, so Meanwhile on Grad is helpful for that reason.
If you have evidence of people using alts to manipulate votes, please post it in [email protected]. Using alts is common though - and prior to PieFed software there were extremely good reasons to do so, given the limitations of Lemmy - so long as you are careful to not ever vote on the same content multiple times.
This is 100% it exactly: you can do whatever you please, be maga okay sure, be pro-genocide even, whatever so long as you don’t push me to do it too - but don’t shit in my drink and call it chocolate. Transparency is key. I don’t mind lemmy.ml tankies doing their thing on the internet, so long as they clearly label what it is then that’s fine. It’s the lack of transparency that makes it disinformation.
Again, I’ve been on Lemmy for two years. I know the deep magic. (Still thank you, Those are good recommendations.)
This account is new to try out piefed, but I list all my alts in my profile. My main is [email protected] - where I’m into the YPTB com. I’m not big on posting about that kind of alt/vote manipulation drama because it’s just so… stupid? Inconsequential? On the other hand maga and pro-genocide folks need to be shut down, hard.
I kinda love cowbee. I’ve interacted but haven’t felt inclined to argue with him. As a compulsive fact-checker who literally reads the news as part of my job, I can’t get behind some of his sources, but he does post quite a lot of fair and grounded citations to back up his views. I even like how he’s a little shit sometimes, because he’s absolutely polite enough to back off if someone just walks away. I mean, is it really sea-lioning if someone else really wants to have the last word?
Weirdly, I tracked all my unproductive interractions and found a fairly even spread. Granted, I post to a women’s only community and assholes exist across the political spectrum. So no, I haven’t had problems with the comrades, except geneva_convenience, I hope their socks get wet at fhe beginning of the day.
It’s interesting to see what opinions people take for granted. So many comments here just assumed I didn’t know what those instances were like, because I would for sure never wonder why they were on my block list if I knew, right?
Then again maybe I don’t know as much as I think. I’ve changed my mind on a lot of things over the years, I just try to be open.
im on piefed and post to a lemmy.ml comic instance and I have been blocked from like one community but no more and have all sorts of comments not so great with russia, nk, china and even communism in general. No uber ban has come my way. Are you sure its defederated from piefed???
You may be conflating several things. For one, no Lemmy.ml is not defederated from PieFed.social (see its presence in the allow list at https://lemmy.ml/instances). There are some issues with things like community discovery across the Lemmy vs. PieFed divide but the federation itself works just fine.
Two, you are actually banned from MANY communities there (I stopped counting at 6, though at least one has since expired). Unlike Reddit, there is no method for Lemmy to actually notify you that you are banned, you kinda just have to figure it out yourself somehow. And then there’s no mod mail to appeal or even ask questions about it - you exist at the mercy of the mods and admins, with no rights for anyone to notify or explain anything to you, yes somehow even more so here than on Reddit (at least our landlords here are nicer, plus you can spin up your own personal instance if you like, PieFed makes that a lot cheaper and easier). See your bans at https://lemmy.ml/modlog?page=1&actionType=ModBanFromCommunity&userId=17651002, and if you change the settings you can also see e.g. your removed content.
Three, your negative comments tend to only trigger issuance of a ban when they are made specifically in a community located on Lemmy.ml, as they do not check across the entire Threadiverse for content elsewhere. But if your comments were there, then I don’t know why you were not banned - this would be the first story I’ve heard of someone getting away with having done so. Maybe you made them in posts that got removed or mostly ignored by the community and therefore the admins missed you? There are so extremely many stories of people that were not missed in [email protected] if you want to read about it happening to others.
I wouldn’t broadcast the content of that community as accurate or in good faith. It is heavily curated and includes sockpuppet accounts by the mod team going onto those instances to create their evidence. It’s run by avowed voat users.
You gotta be careful with anti-authoritarianism sometimes considering the kind of anti-leftist company it can attract.
Is cm0002 the avowed voat user? I tried to search for cases where that account used the word “voat”, but mainly it was in the context of a Nazi bar whereupon tankie instances seem akin to a leftist Voat 2.0.
ok it sounded like you were saying it was defederated but you were only talking bannings when you talked about lemmy.ml and the whole defederate was just close by in your comment maybe?
It was exploding-heads.com that was defederated from, by almost every instance across the entire Threadiverse.
Lemmy.ml on the other hand is the opposite in that it is defederated from by almost no (major) instances.
I generally agree with you, but two minor points:
They are tankie adjacent and generally work on enabling tankie / red fash propaganda and polemics under the cover of “tankies are also fellow socialists”.
Lemmygrad is also run by Dessalines, the lead developer of Lemmy.
“Muad’Dibber”, the Lemmygrad admin is a Dessalines alt.
I disagree that authoritarianism is anywhere in the same ballpark as democratic socialism, and naively I would far sooner believe that dbzer0 was anti-censorship rather than pro-authoritarian. I have heard that accusation about dbzer0 previously but as far as I can tell it seems based exclusively on the post https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/52313315, which is if not fully debunked then at least highly contested in the comments, so the furthest from a fully settled issue as it could possibly be.
But am I missing something, do you want to share a link to support your accusation of them? (You did not phrase that as “I heard somewhere that…” but rather stated it as a true fact, as if you believed it based on some kind of evidence?)
Otherwise, the only accusation that I’ve heard of that seems to hold any water is the Nazi bar argument… which would apply to the entire Threadiverse, and perhaps by extension to the entire internet also? i.e. while valid, I am not seeing how helpful that is. e.g. your instance and mine both federates with Lemmy.ml, which makes each of us “tankies” as well by that logic. Unless there is something more specific about dbzer0 specifically being pro-tankie rather than simply not anti-tankie enough?
That sounds like a conspiracy theory. If true then I have seen no evidence of it, though I don’t particularly care one way or the other so will just leave it at that. Here too you did not phrase it like “might even be…”, but as an established fact. It is already so exceedingly difficult to separate fact from fiction on the internet, please aim to be more precise so as not to muddy the waters further. I do thank you for your desire to help.
You’re welcome to assume I am lying.
I don’t believe in polemical rhetoric using “free speech” or “censorship” motifs. I don’t find such rhetoric convincing and it is often used for ostentatious aims and fails the basis logic test.
Considering how tankies aggressively censor any critique of russia and china, it seems strange to bring up opposition to censorship as a defence of DB0’s embrace of red fascism.
Tankies openly call for the interment, torture of Ukrainians and celebrate the russian invasion. DB0 openly condones such behaviour; this is their endorsement of lemmy.ml (literal endorsement, not my words):
Your claim about a conspiracy theory is incorrect. The URL I provided clearly outlines that muad_dibber, the grad admin, is Dessalines.
I did not downvote you btw, just asked for details.
Yes the term “free speech” is often misused, but at the end of the day it is either the real explanation or it is not, though for what exactly I am still not certain - failure to defederate from lemmy.ml? Failure to actively speak out against them (which they have I believe) hard enough or long or often enough? They are who they are, and rather than rely on either my or your opinion, someone interested in knowing who they are would best be served by listening to neither of us but instead to them.
Even not openly endorsing them would be a start. The DB0 admin was also caught downvoting criticism of tankies (in the link you brought up).
For example, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that a post like " Calling out Russian propaganda on .ml is a total site ban under “rule 1 bigotry” according to dessalines, head .ml admin, main Lemmy dev" would be downvoted by the DB0 admin
Even in the DB0 thread that you cited, there are multiple ML users who aggressively deny prosecution of Uighurs by the CCP and openly support the russian genocidal imperialism goals.
Why is it unreasonable to make conclusions about this? I am genuinely curious.
There are tons of reasons to downvote someone. I rarely do it myself, so I am not the best person to ask why, I just know that people do. Just off the top of my head though: process rather than content, or style over substance (e.g. if a cussword were used and someone did not like to see that, hence downvoting even something that they would otherwise agree with) are two examples.
Now THIS would be a strong argument. Can you send me a link to read more about this?
I agree with your general logic, but this was specific example. The “meanwhileongrad” is specifically aimed at documenting and ridiculing far left extremism (support for russian genocidal imperialism, knowingly lying that Cuba/NK is a democracy, claiming any opposition to the current regime in Venezuela is a CIA operation).
Shared this earlier:
https://gui.fediseer.com/instances/detail/lemmy.ml
There is no reason for DB0 to give this endorsement. They could have simply said nothing (ML has multiple other endorsements, albeit ones with easily provable lies).
Thank you. I wonder how long ago that endorsement was made though? Lemmy.ml was one of the oldest instances - I think Hexbear technically predates them but in the sense of using a different software than Lemmy, and similarly for dbzer0 (who iirc used a forum software that was not federated). If the sole options are Reddit vs. Lemmy, then you take what you can get.
Study the history a bit: those truly were different times. Like for one thing, Lemmy.world did not exist, so virtually all communities were on Lemmy.ml. Since then Lemmy.ml has been relegated to almost obscurity, but back then was a very different story… Comics, Memes, News, everything was on lemmy.ml, before it was as widely known about their moderation practices - in large part bc the admins kept that as an echo chamber, silencing any dissent with full instance-wide perma-bans, so it is entirely plausible that many people simply did not know what it was all about.
Also, there was the whole distraction issue where it was “claimed” that the most extremist leftist stuff was relegated over to lemmygrad.ml, which while true, should not be taken at face value when considering just how much extremism remains. But, at the time… I could see someone believing that misinformation, for being plausible in that context.
Fwiw I agree with you that they would have done better to have simply said nothing, but also I agree with dbzer0 in that narrowly within just the reasons they stipulated, Lemmy.ml in its earlier days truly was like that. No I wasn’t here for that, I just found it interesting to poke around to read older posts about the history of things:-).
These are all true statements (and to this day there are communities of expert systems especially that refuse to migrate away from Lemmy.ml - oh well, their loss as the rest of us refuse to be held hostage by their poor choices):
You might ask dbzer0 if they still endorse Lemmy.ml tankies in today’s environment, or are there any more recent statements that they’ve already put out? Anyway, I agree that this is not a high moment for them - I’m just not sure it’s all that terribly low either, as it would be if they did such today.
Edit: also it’s crucial to note there that an “endorsement” does not mean “you should totally go create an account over there”, but rather “I would like my instance to federate with this instance, as its users serve up worthwhile content that I would like to participate with” - so not quite the same meaning as the word “endorse” would typically imply.