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.
How old does my account have to be to make a community?
An account needs to be at least 24 hours old to make a community in PieFed (or be an admin). This is for spam prevention. There isn’t a reputation requirement for community creation, that page is just what we redirect to for multiple different things, so it is a bit of a broad message.
Is there a way to separate upvotes and downvotes?
I don’t think this is possible in the default web UI. It probably is possible in some apps or alternative frontends. If you hover over the number, it will pop up with the number of up and down votes. There might be some custom css you can apply in your profile to make them show up separately, but I am not good enough at css to tell you what that is.
Why are instances blocked by default
This is purely controlled by your instance admin. PieFed does ship with a default list of defederated instances, but it isn’t baked into the code or anything. It is entirely customizable by admins after the software is set up.
why can’t I see the modlog?
Links to the modlog are in several places:
- on the footer of literally every page
- in the sidebar for every community page
- in the “More” dropdown on a user’s profile page
If you hover over the number, it will pop up with the number of up and down votes.
On a mobile device, this can sometimes be difficult to impossible to trigger (Firefox on Android). I find it helps to zoom in tremendously, but even then sometimes I can click the digit 50+ times without ever getting it to show me the count breakdown.
I was going to ask why this is, but now I see that examining the same situation from a desktop it works, so now I think it is just a bug / UX flaw.
Heya. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, that helps a bunch.
With the pre-blocked instances, it was from this welcome message:
To help ease you into the Fediverse, we automatically block some of the “spicier” Fediverse instances. You are free to remove these yourself at any time, by going to your [user settings] -> Filters -> Instances (at the bottom) and unblocking those instances. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
Which is reiterated on the broader piefed features page. I understand that’s customizable, and I can unblock them on my user side, more wondering why those instances in particular are suggested for what looks like all users. As a socialist I find it off-putting. The question I guess I’m getting at is, is this place more maga friendly than socialist friendly?
I should have worded that better. I know where the modlog is but I don’t see anything in it, even after searching. I was wondering if that was another time-delay thing.
Again, thank you. 24hrs is totally reasonable and I’ll have to figure out how to hover since I use my phone.
Edit: Figured it out, Press and Hold.
Maga.place was added to the default defederation list that new instances have out of the box in mid October.
Anyway, piefed.zip admins removed all the default defederations, because that’s how they like it. Looks like they federate with just about everywhere - https://piefed.zip/instances?filters=blocked
pre-blocked instances
Again, this is up to your local admin. Each instance is going to be run differently. The .zip instances (lemmy and piefed are run by the same team) tend to be a bit more open with their defed/block policies compared to some others. I can only really speak about piefed.social for which I am an admin.
Something to note here is that there are two different things going on. The first is user-level instance blocks like you mentioned here. They are removable by the user, and are a kind of softer way of blocking things compared to the second method - defederation. When an instance is defederated, then it is server-wide and the user can’t see content from that instance no matter what their settings are. You can review the defederated instances set by the .zip team on their instances page.
modlog is empty
This means that the .zip admin team has decided not to make the modlog public. One of the settings available to a PieFed admin is to toggle whether the modlog should be accessible to non-admins or not. Other PieFed instances might have a public modlog. On piefed.social for example, you should be able to view the modlog even without an account.
Hidden modlogs. Can’t say I like that, it was one of the suckier things about Reddit
It’s just an option available to an admin. Different instances can have different use cases and goals.
An example is that earlier in PieFed’s development, there was a schoolteacher that was experimenting with using PieFed as a forum for the class. This would have primarily been just a local forum with no/minimal federation. In a setting like that, having a public modlog would essentially mean having a log of every classmate’s transgressions and punishments (at least with regards to content). This isn’t necessarily something that would be desirable in a more school-like setting.
As for .zip’s decision not to have a public modlog, it doesn’t really make that much of a difference since they are so heavily federated to other instances that do have public modlogs. The modlog actions are federated similar to content.
I haven’t blocked any instance and I have never seen any MAGA type instance pop up on my feed. If they’re that dead they might not be blocked because who cares about an instance nobody even knows about.
Just sharing another perspective;
I specifically have been moving from Lemmy to Piefed because I have issues with the tankie Lemmy devs.
Some people appreciate that the main Piefed instance blocks authoritarian far-left instances.
I don’t think a fun, optional instance on the fediverse, built on software that’s open-source and customizable, with a transparent modlog, fits the definition of “authoritarian.”
fits the definition of “authoritarian.”
Then why do they ban any criticism of russia and china and support their genocidal imperialist policies?
I don’t know? Certainly not all of it because I’ve been critical of both in .ml. The craziest argument I had was about Art Spiegelman in hexbear, but even then that was just two users, and I didn’t get modded.
Of the few mod actions against my accounts, none have been from the “triad.” I was banned forever from a community in awful.systems for “fascism” though. I linked to a fascist guy’s blog to prove the guy we were talking about was a fascist.
That still isn’t the definition of an authoritarian, that’s just being a asshole.
Absolutely. PieFed is what brought me back to the Fediverse. I left Lemmy after witnessing the truly appalling behavior of its developers and the toxic influence of tankie culture.
The question I guess I’m getting at is, is this place more maga friendly than socialist friendly?
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…).
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.
“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…:-(
A -1 score could have 200 upvotes.
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.
spicy peppers are gross in a fruit cake.
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.
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.ml and lemmy.ml (the latter also run by the developers of the Lemmy software)
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?
“Muad’Dibber”, the Lemmygrad admin is a Dessalines alt.
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):
pirate cove
develops lemmy frontends
lemmy development
expert sysadminsYour 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.
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
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.
Even not openly endorsing them would be a start.
Now THIS would be a strong argument. Can you send me a link to read more about this?
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.
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).
Now THIS would be a strong argument. Can you send me a link to read more about this?
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).
It’s (attitude) a measure of how you upvote. Or, rather, if you downvote, it will decrease. It re-adjusts over time and depending on your volume.
Awesome, thank you.
You’re welcome. I asked the same question a bit back.
Trying to touch on things I noticed that I don’t think other commenters answered.
Is there a way to separate votes?
Depends on the instance you’re browsing through. Some even have them disabled. In not sure what’s available to you on piefed but you are allowed to join as many instances as you wish to see which has the features you want. Also, go to lemmvotes.org to see the specific voting info of a comment, post, or user.
Why are com/soc instances blocked and not maga?
So those demographics here aren’t like the ones on reddit. Maga people here are in such more of a minority that when they get all magaty their opinions don’t stay very visible because there’s nobody on the mod teams banning people who shit on them or deleting replies. They just get downvoted and if you want to engage with them you have to go looking. So they’re not the same kind of problem.
The socialist instances are defederated though because they are HIGHLY aggressive debate lords who will take you to task on slight shit or saying anything bad about the CCP. I know that doesn’t sound like a problem and normally it’s not but they take it to that level. So they’re basically in containment to reduce moderation workload. If you want to hang, their comms are open to you and you can always join on their instance too, you just have to seek them out.
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.
There are two types of instance blocking: those that start off in each user’s block list, and defederation. The first one can be reverted by a user (what you have done) while the latter one cannot be changed by anyone but admin. So, MAGA instances are more likely to be defederated (along with spam-filled instances).
As for the communist instances blocked by default, I guess you mean hexbear and lemmygrad. These are authoritarian-leaning instances known to be pretty combative (and really liking China).
