themadcodger

wjrii , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

I hate to say it, because I've been really pleased with kbin for the most part. I've liked being able to dip my toes into the Mastodon side without yet another account; I like the interface; and my interactions with Ernest have been nothing but pleasant. I certainly hope all is well with him personally. But whether it's legitimate medical issues or undisclosed burnout, the instance and platform are struggling.

The good thing is that everything has been federating and most of us have been interacting with Lemmy and mbin users daily anyway; it's "just" a loss of fake internet points and comment history to move. I'm trying to put that off, but the mobile site/pwa is only okay, API rollout has stalled (meaning app development has stalled as well), admin activities can't happen with Ernest, and technical issues with the instance are becoming more common.

I think the Reddit API mini-exodus last year hit at that exact "sweet" spot, in terms of numbers and point in kbin development, where one dev/admin could almost keep up with it, but not quite. Suddenly this thing he was noodling with to combine Lemmy and Mastodon has thousands of people wanting it to be production ready. I don't begrudge him anything even if it is just burnout, but if that is the case then maybe it's time to bless mbin as a successor and start migrating people off kbin.social or find someone else to admin it and ugrade it to mbin. Ernest has built up a ton of goodwill; if he's done, then he's done (and of course, if he's ill then he's ill). Who among us could stand up a minimum viable product of a reddit clone and admin two instances? Not me, that's for sure.

Edit: I checked, and Ernest's Polish-language instance karab.in is completely down right now.

We have all been very lucky that these open source projects are there as an alternative, and there are ways Ernest can step back if being the sole PM of a sprawling social network project isn't good for him. I just don't want it to happen in a way where people are left with a bad taste in their mouths for the Fediverse or him personally.

tjhart85 , 3 months ago

The initial split largely seemed to be that people were submitting code fixes and Ernest wasn't accepting them or updating /KBin fast enough for them. The lack of API that was already done and approved by Ernest and ready to go (that to my knowledge still hasn't been implemented on KBin!) seemed to have been the last straw that got them traction.

Ernest doesn't want to band aid fixes, he wants to fix the underlying problems and eliminate the "tech debt" he's already accumulated rather than letting it continue to pile on to the point that fixing anything becomes unmanageable due to all the band aids. This is GOOD, but it means everything will be much slower. MBin is just pedal to the metal and literally accepting any bit of code at all, which also isn't really sustainable for a product that people want to use.

At this point, I dunno though, Ernest has been gone for a month and the site has been super slow and blips up and down all the time. I REALLY hope he's ok, but I'm not sure of the long term viability of /KBin anymore and am wondering what if the next blip just doesn't get resolved???

I agree on the MBin bros thing, 100%. Their attitude has really made me not want to even consider their project at all. I don't like the tankie devs on the Lemmy side of things, but, at the same time don't really think that matters all that much. If they do something bad, people can break off and spin off like MBin did.

To me, ideal world, enough people donate that Ernest can pay himself to work on it full time and maybe hire an extra FT dev (Nabu Casa hires like 30 devs to work on Home Assistant without taking in any VC debt or 3rd party money, so, it's at least feasible, but they built up 5ish years of goodwill before they spun up Nabu Casa and people were still initially skeptical), but that's not going to be possible if he disappears constantly so it's a catch-22.

Seriously though, I really hope he's ok and this hasn't been because something happened to him. It's really ominous that his last communication indicated he had surgery coming up and then complete radio silence

Spaghetti_Hitchens , 10 months ago

I absolutely adore kbin. It gets better every day!

nevernevermore , 10 months ago

the conversation should never be about reddit losing, it's about the users winning. And I personally feel like I won. I showed my support for Christian and 3rd party apps, I abondoned ship quickly and I've found a new home on the fediverse.

I also stopped using facebook and instagram 18 months ago. They both still exist, but I won. I'm happier now without it. Job done.

bradorsomething , 10 months ago

The users aren’t the value in reddit, it’s the content creators and savvy community members that respond to questions and leave useful content in their own right. Reddit lost a number of those, and those users are forming the nucleus of their demise.

Poggervania , 10 months ago

This is the mindset people should be having. Reddit is gonna be fine regardless of all this, and time will only tell if the Fediverse becomes big enough to be a competitor as a social media platform.

Truthfully, I was on the fence of leaving Reddit because of how much I didn’t like the hivemind there on the majority of subs. I still go on there for my niche and specific communities that aren’t on the Fediverse, but I pretty much just lurk there once every so often instead of actively participate - I instead actively participate on the Fediverse because the community is genuinely waaaaaay better than Reddit’s community ever was, even with the FOSS app gatekeepers here.

TokyoMonsterTrucker , 11 months ago

checks date

Yeah, that tracks

wagesj45 , 11 months ago

Gotta get yourself weened from those engagement algorithms. The early internet was a wild west of links and word-of-mouth and reputation. That's what we're going back to. The withdrawals will be worth it in the end.

The nature of venture capitalism and the demand for infinite growth is going to grind the humanity out of any corporate project over a long enough time span. We're gonna have to learn the old ways of what the Internet is supposed to be.

stopthatgirl7 , 11 months ago

Well, that article aged well.

PugJesus , 11 months ago

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

• President Eisenhower

axtualdave , 11 months ago

It’s not done yet. The ammophiles will certainly appeal it to the SCOTUS, which isn’t exactly rational lately. I’m sure Justice Alito will find a relevant quote from a 12th century blacksmith saying that the Duke cannot legally prevent him from forging horse shoes, and because horses are instrumental to war, are considered “weapons” and thus, the government can’t place any sort of restriction on guns because horses are people too, he’ll say, citing Tina Belcher.

SpaceMonk , 11 months ago

We’re gonna fuck these people up. DECADES of not listening to your kids and putting your materialism ahead of your children was a HUGE miscalculation.

All while lying to them about how “we’re trying to protect you”

From what? You let literal Nazis into our government and the planet is polluted as fuck.

Get out there and vote and let your dissatisfaction be HEARD. Be bigger than those who came before you and stand up for yourselves like they DIDN’T.

They sold half of us out to a liar war and the other half to crippling debt, don’t be like them.

gabriele97 , 11 months ago

I’m using Pop OS and it worls flawlessly!

UnhappyCamper , 11 months ago

I only just learned about the fediverse at the downfall of Reddit, so seeing how vast it is (in my eyes anyways) is quite interesting. I didn't know any of this existed.

Percy , 11 months ago

I am now looking into bookwyrm and funkpod because of this

Codedheart , 11 months ago

Lemmy seems to have gotten the lions share of reddit migrants. Which is fine mostly, it's got good features and seems to be the popular pick. But with all the posts I've been seeing lately it really seems like many Lemmy users think Lemmy is all there is. I personally don't give a shit how you are viewing the fediverse, but to me any boasting about your particular instance reads like you're bragging about the designer of your glasses...

spaduf , 11 months ago

For folks who agree with this sentiment, on Mastodon at least you can set up a temporary filter for fediverse stuff to have it all hidden. Not sure what your options are on Lemmy except maybe leave the fediverse subs like this. It would be nice to have a temporary mute feature for communities so you wouldn’t have to remember to resub after the drama-of-the-week has died down

dumples , 11 months ago

This is kind of a dick move but the republican congress in Wisconsin removed a bunch of his powers in a lame duck session. You if play dirty you can expect things like this. Wisconsin is kind of a mess politically

icegreenmelon , 11 months ago

They continue in a comment underneath:

/u/ModCodeofConduct,

Thank you for your recent message.

We appreciate your concerns regarding r/PICS being marked as NSFW, and we hope that you will be reassured by our response. In short, the shift in question was not a sudden change, nor is there any risk of users being confused… and most important of all, an abrupt reversion would itself constitute a violation of the site-wide rules that you cited.

On June 16th, 2023, r/PICS (then r/Pics) asked its subscribers to vote on the state of the subreddit, and they overwhelmingly decided to feature only “images of John Oliver looking sexy.” On June 20th, 2023, a second poll was held, and it was determined that “any and all media featuring John Oliver” would be allowed. This also precipitated a change in the subreddit’s name from “/r/Pics” to “/r/PICS,” with the latter being an acronym for “Posts Illuminating Comedian’s Sexiness.”

As we moderated r/PICS, however, we discovered that large amounts of profanity and offensive content – both of which are listed as NSFW by Reddit’s policies – were present in non-NSFW threads. This was problematic, as users expecting work-safe experiences were very likely to encounter non-work-safe material. Rather than abruptly alter our rules without first consulting the community (which would have confused users), we asked on June 26th, 2023 for subscribers to refrain from offering any NSFW content in non-NSFW threads.

We also requested a response from Reddit on that same date.

By July 3rd, 2023, the amount of profanity and offensive content in r/PICS had not declined, and Reddit had not responded to us. It was publicly announced that we had no choice but to mark the subreddit as being NSFW, so as to adhere to Reddit’s own mandates. It was also made clear that our longstanding rules – rules which should have seen r/Pics (in any form) being a NSFW community from the get-go – would be unchanged; that neither gore nor pornography would be allowed, but that tasteful nudity, profanity, and “offensive” content would continue to be acceptable. To reiterate, while we do celebrate a British comedian’s undeniable allure, we do not allow anything sexually explicit to be posted.

Our surfaced resources – our sidebar, our rules, our wiki, and our announcements – make all of this exceptionally clear, but since Reddit provides no method by which users can be required to read said resources before participating, the visible marking of r/PICS as NSFW is vital to establishing reasonable expectations. Furthermore, as Reddit assures its partners that their advertisements will not run alongside profanity or offensive content, the aforementioned marking is also in said partners’ best interests. That same assurance indicates that moderators “set their own standards for conduct and ‘appropriate’ content,” indicating that r/PICS is solely responsible for determining what is and is not offensive (and policing accordingly). A failure on our part to appropriately list r/PICS as NSFW would therefore run counter to what advertisers have been told.

We do understand that the shift may have caused some minor issues for Reddit, however, and as we have no desire to harm the platform, we are more than willing to discuss the situation with you. Please respond to our previous request for communication, and we will look forward to exploring productive paths forward. In the meantime, to ensure that r/PICS is adhering to all of Reddit’s guidelines and requests, we would be happy to revert the NSFW setting, restrict posting, and remove any and all content that could be considered “offensive” by anyone. If this compromise does not meet with your approval, please offer a publicly visible comment in response to our open letter. We understand that you are likely very busy, so we will wait until Friday, July 7th before taking any additional steps.

vsp , 11 months ago

I’m still grieving the Reddit that was.

Now, I’m excited for the threadiverse that could be.