Is it just Kbin, or does every fediverse service have the issue of being totally swarmed with bots advertising illegal pharmaceuticals? Is this just the result of limited moderation?
There seems to be a few waves of users created just to post spam specifically in kbin. It's quite strange as the posts are so obvious and they keep getting downvoted. I'm also blocking the users but I can't see a way to report them. Is there a better way to handle this situation?
The only way to resolve this situation is to get Ernest to delegate some of the instance moderation and amount. Every other path forward leads to failure.
Maybe on your instance - it's your loss. But admins have a choice - defed from them and lose access to all those users and having actual content worth looking at, or federate with them and actually grow your network into something that has enough going on to make people interested. As it is, I use Threads right now. I strongly prefer it to Mastodon. Kbin comes close, but has less content to idly scroll through. If no Fediverse site I use supports Threads, I'll keep on using it.
Flipboard has recently begun federation, starting with 25 accounts. These accounts can be viewed from Kbin with their posts showing up as microblog posts....
I'm not at my computer, so please excuse any mobile issues. I'm in favor of the move, because it will help to simultaneously connect and decentralize communications across the platforms. Say what you will about Facebook (you're probably right), but if they're that bad, then it seems logical to me to connect to their federated service even more aggressively.
The more we push our content (and by extension the Fediverse content that kbin aggregates), the less impact their algorithm can have. The more we go out of the way to expose their content, the harder we make it them to curate/censor/suppress any voices. And if, when comparing two Fediverse instances or softwares, we find that what's been pushed to them is different, we the users can call it out to news organizations (or make it public ourselves).
And yes, I know I'm making the arguments for supporting private companies in adopting open-source. It's about being able to audit what companies we don't trust are doing.
In addition to that, I'm currently a Threads user. Anecdotally, there's a lot of wholesome content on there that I appreciate, and what limited advertising is there is nowhere near as obtrusive as Reddit or the main Facebook platform.
Social magazine app Flipboard had already committed to joining the "fediverse" -- the decentralized social web, which includes apps like Mastodon. Now, it’s doubling down on those ambitions with an announcement that it will stop tweeting while also launching a new podcast devoted to exploring the topic of decentralized social...
A discussion happening over on beehaw about problems with federation and moderation, and on fundamental issues with Lemmy itself, and what would go into making a fork vs starting something new.
Honestly, given the ruckus they've been raising for a while now, my feeling is that Beehaw wants to push themselves away from society as a whole. I don't agree with their perspective, which is part of why I never engage with much of their content or users. All I can say is that I wish them only the best for their echo chamber.
I do find that interesting - but the status site doesn't list API requests; and they don't have any diagnosis yet. I wonder if this is come kind of DOS.
Wait, they're pushing for 2024? They pushed Stein in 2016. All they did there was shave a point or two off Hillary. All they'll do in 2024 is either shave a point or two off Biden, or they'll shave a point off some other "outsider" candidate / party.
One of the weirder phenomena of the low interest rate era in tech was a tendency to see companies primarily as investments. The goal was not to have a functional business, but an exit, often via IPO or acquisition. I have begun to wonder if that explains what Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has been up to lately....
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley are introducing bipartisan legislation that would prevent members of the executive and legislative branches — as well as their spouses and children — from trading individual company stocks.
Maybe someone smarter than me can explain things, but It's been about a month since I've started the process of creating a magazine to support the reddit/discord community I've helped mod for the past 4 years... but I've noticed that zero posts show up in google search....
On one hand, I support a strong robots.txt being in place. It keeps data from being used by honest engines (though what constitutes "honesty" varies). But at the same time, indexing and caching is how we can grow. If you want the site to grow, you want to get it to 1st position on first SERP.
As of July 1, in addition to Vermont, four other states’ IDs will face extra scrutiny from police, as they may provide forms of identification to applicants who do not give proof of citizenship or legal status:...
So what's happening is that drivers' licenses which clearly say they're not recognized as ID won't be recognized as an ID? I'm not seeing an issue, then.
Republicans in the battleground states of Michigan and Arizona are paying a high price for their full-throated support of former President Donald Trump and his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Everyone needs to vote. Period. Doesn't matter which side you're on. If everyone actually in the voter rolls votes in person with ID, there's no room for either side to claim it was stolen or manipulated.
Bingo. They should just be glad that the netrunners, deckers, and console cowboys have found greener pastures. Because they don't want to see what happens when you back creative angry people into a corner
Given that I'm more willing to be a Net Nomad than I am to pay, Reddit 2.0 would have to be self-funding and profitable early on without my direct contribution. I think the best way to do it would be to have per-IP monthly access limits, raised incrementally by tracked linkout clicks from the platform (with a higher rate given for actual conversion actions). That way, you keep operating costs low and ensure that you're profit-focused from day 1. Yes, it's an affiliate ad platform from the start, but it allows for organic content generation from users. Oh, and of course advertisers would be charged to create organic ads in relevant communities. Obviously, with a priority being profit and cost, any software would have to be NIH FOSS, with only a few custom scripts ever created by the devs - this cuts down on costs and dev time. If anyone complains about licensing, ban them. If they try taking you to court, you have ad rev, they don't. You win with a better lawyer and sympathetic judge.
Basically, I would want Reddit as it is today. Or Facebook as it is. The advertising I can block easily is their way of keeping my costs at a rate I'm willing to accept - $0.00/lifetime. I think forcing ad engagement will make some people run to the Fediverse and host their own instance, or join and "donate to" (pay to use) an instance they don't host, but for others, it will help them to build healthier relationships with social media, using it less and thus rationing out their time better, or they'll spend time engaged with ad content and providing real value to the platform, rather than imagined "value" by creating organic content that will need to be stored and indexed on the server.
Frankly, you're incorrect. It's an incredible pain in the neck to try and deal with the Fediverse beyond local content. Without better community merging or centralization, browsing instances becomes no different than dealing with having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes, or talking on forums before we had tabbed browsing. It's incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
You and I will have to agree to disagree on this. Yes, active users continues to grow - on already dominant platforms. And by that I mean KBin.social as a platform, not all KBin instances; or Mastodon.Social, or even Lemmy.ML. Yes, there's not a singularity yet, but even this limited plurality shows that it's a pain in the neck to deal with the Fediverse as a whole, so pick your local poison and go for it.
What issues have you specifically noticed with this?
The issue I've noticed first and foremost is that there is more than one identically named group. Don't tell me that [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected] are different communities. They're identically named communities. I'd rather have as false positive of a gun user's instance with threads about rocket-propelled grenades, rather than having to go to each group to browse. Don't tell me to just use the "subscribed" view. That doesn't pick up everything in a topic, nor does it help me to find those - again, identically named - communities on other servers. Whenever a new server comes online with an RPG community, they'll be in their own corner. They can participate as foreigners with another group, but that's not theirs. There's no central place for hosting these communities. If there was a server set up just to host groups, and the rest were for users, that would make sense. I immediately grew tired, trying to find all of the communities related to my interests so I can subscribe to all. I did that back in the day, joining forums and setting up a personal homepage with frames. In theory anyone can join any group, but they have to find it first.
If devs and leaders of the ActivityPub community are going to continue pushing the idea that everyone can talk to everyone else, we absolutely need some form of community merging for identically-named communities. For instance, a kbin.social user should be able to subscribe to cooking and see posts from cooking@. , not just [email protected]. That's a UX issue just as much as a technical one.
I wasn't around this far back. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What's the issue with "having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes" ?
Back in those days, BBS mail was less "email" and more "text stored on server". To get all of your mail from multiples, you had to connect to each of the servers in sequence, download your mail, and then read it offline and reply (any good BBS software would remember where itwas from, and offer to call back and send each message). Multiplexing meant that you could have a BBS in the NYC area, it would be able to contact and download from one in, say, PA or wherever, and they could each download threads and messages, aka federated content. The pain has been massively reduced over time, and I'm glad. My next point bounces off yours:
This I remember well. Sounds like you are trying to create an account on each instance and are constantly logging out of one and into the next to keep up on the latest posts and comments. This .. is not really the way to do it.
You're right, except in cases where I want a different psudonymity; my choice. In this case, I can't check for new posts in, continuing with the same example, rpg@. without checking the group from each federated server. Posts are neither mirrored nor transcluded. That's the point I'm getting at. I should be able to just open up m/rpg and have it cover all compatible groups.
I disagree with your latter point. kbin.social has hit a reasonable mass of users to have a strong local community and become a platform unto itself, running on kbin software. I'm not interested in a smaller community. I joined Reddit because it was the largest single-site community on the Web. I want the monolithic community, and I accept the costs that incurs, including ads or ad-first design. Right now, the fediverse is just fragments at the foot of the tower of Babel, each speaking a separate tongue, even if some are intelligible to others.
I don't care about the difference between Mastodo, kbin, & Lemmy. They're web software which are trying to replace a monolith, and have seen imited success. I don't care about political leanings. I'm talking about a UX issue. If you want to defed from a site, and receive no more content, then so be it, that's the right of an Admin.
There's still chaos in terms of instances and softwares. Until we all settle on one software that does the job, and until we have a way to have a single community again, Reddit remains the superior option. There is only one r/RPG, it works on Highlander rules - there can be only one. How many groups in the Fediverse named m/RPG or c/RPG are there? Why must each user be forced to answer that question?
That's what would fix things for me; make the federation 100% behind-the-curtain so that I don't have to think about it. I don't care about the backend, I'm not hosting, the value to me is ad views only, not cash. I'd argue a solid 80% of users on corp-owned social media wouldn't understand even if you simplify it. The fediverse/threadiverse is not a drop-in replacement for Reddit. Until it is, I'll keep one foot in spez's yard. If Meta's Threads product does become an ActivityPub community and solves this issue, I'll move there
.
Apologies for any typos or bad formatting, I ran up against the 5000 character limit, and tried to edit down - and the 'more' popup actually pops under the next comment in my browser. I'm sure I could fix it somehow, but I believe everything is still intelligible.
Gaming, news, tech, general literature. All of these are somewhat thriving, with a steady influx of posts and comments. At the same time, the userbase is sorely lacking for more niche communities. In my case it'd be stuff like poetry, yoga, religion, linguistics, meditation. Or many other communities I'd doubt they'd form a...
The more that happens, the more fractured the community becomes, and the easier it will be for a new centralized corporate platform to suck up users. That's how Reddit started in the first place, and how Twitter started. Heck, it's even how LJ started. You look at fractured elements of communities, and build a site for the whole community to come together.
Sure, just show me the combined DnD/D&D or TTRPG community | magazine | group. It doesn't exist. There are a hundred, or a thousand, individual groups. That's not a whole community. That's a thousand fractal shards, each one with its own voices, independent of one another. Yes, occasionally they do share content or users, but that happens only rarely and with effort. TTRPG Network, Lemmy.ML, KBin.Social, Mastodon.Social, etc., all have various groups dedicated to RPGs. These groups are not able to be combined.
The inability of these groups to combine and independently organizing is a severe weakness of ActivityPub.
No, what I want is r/RPG - a single, central hub for RPG-related topics. Yes, there are also subs for RPGDesign, DnD, DM advice, etc., but RPG serves as both a central community and as a hub for all those more specific groups. There is no way to have a “hub community” on the Fediverse, or to efficiently find all groups which share interests. Groups which had a “largest community” on Reddit will now find themselves shattered and separated. Sure, you can say Federation will save them, but it really won’t. All federation means is that now instead of one community, there’s one per server, and you have to know to subscribe to each and every one of them.
Sure, there’s Mastodon’s Lists feature, which works like a Multireddit, but that’s honestly a lot of effort, and doesn’t cover Lemmy or kbin posts like this one. We need a way to automerge common communities, at least in the user’s view.
I'm sure users will step forward if they care. Otherwise, it's just a campaign optimization at work. Limit the breadth of organic content to deepen the brand-friendly content and push more paid media into the feed.
So much spam ( kbin.social )
There seems to be a few waves of users created just to post spam specifically in kbin. It's quite strange as the posts are so obvious and they keep getting downvoted. I'm also blocking the users but I can't see a way to report them. Is there a better way to handle this situation?
How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse ( plasticbag.org )
How do we feel about Flipboard federating? ( kbin.social )
Flipboard has recently begun federation, starting with 25 accounts. These accounts can be viewed from Kbin with their posts showing up as microblog posts....
For the "Why are you so hostile to Threads federating?" people.. ( kbin.social )
Check this out. Remember that Facebook isn't just the place where moms and aunts swap recipes:...
Flipboard stops tweeting, launches new podcast about decentralized social apps ( techcrunch.com )
Social magazine app Flipboard had already committed to joining the "fediverse" -- the decentralized social web, which includes apps like Mastodon. Now, it’s doubling down on those ambitions with an announcement that it will stop tweeting while also launching a new podcast devoted to exploring the topic of decentralized social...
Beehaw on Lemmy: The long-term conundrum of staying here ( beehaw.org )
A discussion happening over on beehaw about problems with federation and moderation, and on fundamental issues with Lemmy itself, and what would go into making a fork vs starting something new.
Reddit’s menswear hub is the latest casualty of its battle with moderators | TechCrunch ( techcrunch.com )
Reddit may have won by shutting down the protest against its API changes, but not without lasting damage to its relationship with its users.
Reddit down? ( www.redditstatus.com )
Seems like Reddit is experiencing issues at the moment, maybe a good time for more users to find their way to Lemmy communities?
[Analysis] 'People are hungry for more choices': Inside the Green Party's push for 2024 ( abcnews.go.com )
Full article text:...
What is Reddit CEO Steve Huffman doing? ( www.theverge.com )
One of the weirder phenomena of the low interest rate era in tech was a tendency to see companies primarily as investments. The goal was not to have a functional business, but an exit, often via IPO or acquisition. I have begun to wonder if that explains what Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has been up to lately....
Reddit has started assigning power mods to subs they took over. ( imgur.com )
Not much else needs to be said tbh. Fuck Spez....
New York City to hand out fliers urging migrants to go elsewhere ( www.bbc.com )
America's biggest city will hand migrants fliers asking them to go elsewhere as it is "at capacity".
Senators introduce bipartisan ban on stock ownership for executive and legislative branch office holders and their families | CNN Politics ( edition.cnn.com )
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley are introducing bipartisan legislation that would prevent members of the executive and legislative branches — as well as their spouses and children — from trading individual company stocks.
GOP lawmakers predict ‘fistfight’ between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert ( www.independent.co.uk )
Tension between the two congresswomen has been rising in recent weeks
Can We Please Make Presidential Elections Shorter and Less Stupid? ( www.thedailybeast.com )
Full article text:...
How come there is very little Kbin SEO for individual posts? Also, what are tags/badges? ( kbin.social )
Maybe someone smarter than me can explain things, but It's been about a month since I've started the process of creating a magazine to support the reddit/discord community I've helped mod for the past 4 years... but I've noticed that zero posts show up in google search....
Rip Teddit ( kbin.social )
Today I just noticed, after trying to convert a reddit link (from this sub!), that teddit is no longer working....
Marjorie Taylor Greene officially 'kicked out' of Freedom Caucus, Rep. Ken Buck says ( www.nbcnews.com )
Full article text:...
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the passing of a law that could render driver’s licenses and other forms of identification from several states invalid, including Vermont. ( www.mychamplainvalley.com )
As of July 1, in addition to Vermont, four other states’ IDs will face extra scrutiny from police, as they may provide forms of identification to applicants who do not give proof of citizenship or legal status:...
Insight: Swing state Republicans bleed donors and cash over Trump's false election claims ( www.reuters.com )
Republicans in the battleground states of Michigan and Arizona are paying a high price for their full-throated support of former President Donald Trump and his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Reddit threatens the mods of r/CyberpunkGame (the main subreddit for Cyberpunk 2077). Mods decide to go down in a blaze of glory, whole sub agrees. ( old.reddit.com )
Surprising nobody, Reddit Corp threatening a gaming sub of a fanatically anti-corporate video game doesn't go as they'd hoped....
People in /r/redditalternatives are talking about a "Reddit 2.0" What website would fill that role? ( kbin.social )
On Reddit at reddit.com/r/redditalternatives, people are talking about a "Reddit 2.0." What do you suggest?
While larger, more general communities are thriving on the Fediverse - I'm missing out on the niche communities ( kbin.social )
Gaming, news, tech, general literature. All of these are somewhat thriving, with a steady influx of posts and comments. At the same time, the userbase is sorely lacking for more niche communities. In my case it'd be stuff like poetry, yoga, religion, linguistics, meditation. Or many other communities I'd doubt they'd form a...
r/TIHI has been banned for being unmoderated. ( old.reddit.com )