"For a hot minute it was honestly great but eventually all that remained was tankies propaganda and depressing news. And probably a few non-political communities that sadly don’t really offset it for me."
I'll never understand why someone would go through the trouble of starting an instance and then tolerate nonsense on the instance that they (again) literally own.
The entire point of the fediverse is decentralizing power. So why are you making it worse for yourself abiding by someone else's rules? Did it occur to him that maybe his users don't want tankies and depressing news either?
I get that keeping the engines running is thankless work a lot of the time but damn, don't make it harder on yourself because someone else (who is not you) wants to use your thing that you pay for and maintain to force their propaganda onto your users.
I believe it's more about the Fediverse as a whole, not the instance they were running. No instance is an island, and all that - we don't have enough activity for a thriving community on our own, so we have to pick-and-choose who we federate with. Too closed and the community dies. Too open and you can become overwhelmed by bad faith actors. At some point, it may be that you just decide that you can't find the balance, or that the balance isn't attainable in your position.
It's a thankless job, being an unpaid admin. I absolutely sympathize with Rikudou_Sage's position.
I agree with your point, but disagree that the fediverse is too small to block all Tankies or that an instance "dies" when it owner enforces minimum standards of quality.
I think we all would have been better off if instead of burning out, the Lemmings.world admins banned everything except a single post per day if that post was an absolute banger.
If an instance admin wants to attract like-minded users to their instance, that instance needs to show people what their mind is like.
I don't think that the admin is talking about the process of administrating their own instance when they talk about being disappointed with the Fediverse, but about their own user experience as a user of the Fediverse.
They want to browse and comment and doomscroll too. As it stands, they find that there's no instance or comms with the correct 'balance' of quantity and quality (or, at least, morality), and they don't see any immediate solution or combination of federations that would fix that, for their experience.
Huh, I wonder what other social media outlet they think will be better? You have so much control here with blocking and stuff, that I don't get it either. Uplifting communities are awesome:
superbowl
bats
aww
shitposting (usually about some random food like beans or corn)
I mean, the obvious pivot if they are smart is Outside:
People less dickish
Immediate, 3d immersion - ability to pet cute puppies
Can use skills to make money, instead of just updoots
Personally, I feel like the communities you mentioned aren't particularly "uplifting". Like, I'm not hating on cute bat pics - but it feels like basing your whole nutritional strategy on sugary breakfast cereal. Eventually you need something with more substance.
On reddit, I liked 3 types of communities:
Hobbies
Lifestyle/advice
In depth/discussion
Hobbies
The hobby comms have almost no activity. I'm into climbing, hiking, motorcycles, diy, and lifting, among other things. A post in one of these communities is almost a special occasion.
Lifestyle/advice
People looking to improve their productivity, social skills, financial situation, dating life, etc. I liked these subs on reddit because I could often contribute some useful advice, and often learned something to improve my own life. On lemmy, the default is that improving anything about your life is impossible, because capitalism or something.
In depth/discussion
Subs like askereddit or truereddit - places where the idea was to discuss a topic and share stories and theories and ideas. On lemmy, these subs consist mostly of tankie propaganda and conspiracy theories.
People looking to improve their productivity, social skills, financial situation, dating life, etc. I liked these subs on reddit because I could often contribute some useful advice, and often learned something to improve my own life. On lemmy, the default is that improving anything about your life is impossible, because capitalism or something.
I hear you, this one made me laugh. I guess we have to be the change for this, we really are too small. I can see the bitching on being too big when those communities get enough traction though.
It's all in how you use it I suppose, but I've found c/superbowl to be very uplifting.
One could just look at the cute pictures, but the gold is in the comments. There is a ton of effort put into supporting wildlife rescue, with emphasis on pointing people to rescues near them, teaching them about what is involved in wildlife care, and how to volunteer and what opportunities are available for people to improve the health and safety of wildlife in their own communities.
After being subscribed for a year there and seeing every post, along with being upset the direction my country was going, I wanted to do something to make my community a better place, so I went to volunteer at my local rescue. I've been able to care for hundreds of animals, some I never even knew lived here, I've met a bunch of happy and friendly people that show much how much good is left in the world, and I've hosted and gone to events to see even more of the same.
My life as a whole is much better now thanks to being on Lemmy and involved with c/superbowl. It's given me opportunities and joy i never thought I'd have. Only one other person has told me it's gotten them to volunteer, but others have shared donation links to stories that have particularly touched them, so hopefully that has gotten them financial support for their important work.
I'm now much more invested in my community and neighbors, and more social and outgoing from finding my passion with wildlife. And it all started here by talking with people and sharing pics of neat owls.
It all depends on one's interests. If I was primarily a lurker, like I was back on The Old Place, I probably wouldn't find enough historical content to keep me invested in the Fediverse, for example.
Absolutely true, but I've lurked at the old place occasionally and it's seriously overrun with bots/ai in the most popular subs. I get your point though, there are still places you can't find here. The fucked up attitudes are shocking though. If you look at any place-specific, travel sub, the snark is so rude and shitty in more than half the posts. Here, you mostly just get downvotes as trolling
I hear you, but I also believe that the balance you describe is size-independent. If the fediverse consisted of only three people, and one was an asshole, what's to gain from allowing that asshole to run rampant on your platform if you're trying to attract non-assholes to your anti-asshole platform? There is no scenario where that doesn't lead to burnout.
Beehaw.org is a good example of an instance that defederated basically every other large instance and their users seem very happy about it.
And if someone actually wanted to doomscroll and look at shitposts (I don't get it but they do exist)... they'll eventually just go to reddit or twitter where that experience will always be superior.
I hear you, but I also believe that the balance you describe is size-independent. If the fediverse consisted of only three people, and one was an asshole, what’s to gain from allowing that asshole to run rampant on your platform if you’re trying to attract non-assholes to your anti-asshole platform? There is no scenario where that doesn’t lead to burnout.
I mean, the amount of media on a platform one consumes certainly adjusts the amount of bullshit on a platform one is willing to endure. I don't think it's size-independent.
The problem is that its not just "tankies" but everything that slightly inconveniences an instance get blocked. I really dont want to use 3 different instances because one decides they don't like anime, the other decides they dont like birds, then another one doesn't like the color blue and bans anything that has blue.
I wish the federation was left to the users and only illegal stuff is banned. This maybe an unpopular opinion but i agree that all the federation blocking is killing what is already a tiny community.
And on top of that, some instances hand out bans for complete bullshit reasons. It's not even just the tankie instances that ban you for not being a bootlicker, but also admins that can't tell the difference between normal, innocuous behavior and automated vote manipulation, hacked accounts and the like and err on the side of banning.
They could make it an island though... That's what the software helps you do, if you want. Just defederate from instances your userbase doesn't wanna see
we don’t have enough activity for a thriving community on our own, so we have to pick-and-choose who we federate with. Too closed and the community dies.
I’ll never understand why someone would go through the trouble of starting an instance and then tolerate nonsense on the instance that they (again) literally own.
Totally guessing here, but I think this comes from wanting to be fair and open about content.
Everyone always complains about censorship, eco chambers, and freedom of speech. So I could see someone being very tolerant and allowing lots of content on their server.
Users also harass moderators and post about them on yepowertrippinmods, so allowing shit probably saves them some harassment.
It seems to take a specific type of person to be able to run a server. They can't be too nice. They have to have a clear line in the sand.
I sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) 2nd guess myself. "Am I being too sensitive?" "Did they really mean it like that?" "Was I too harsh?"
Yeah I agree with you. I do think the only kind of instance administrators that don't eventually burn out are the kind with an absolute rock solid understanding of what it is they're trying to create and what kind of people they're trying to attract.
Some poor judgement from admins, essentially, combined with... ambiguous policies.
It's not something like "Holocaust denial", but a big kerfluffle with them refusing to remove a particularly bad mod, and especially pussyfooting around the issue for the longest time, giving contradictory or vague answers as to what they were doing, has damaged faith in the admins pretty severely, and it'll take time for them to win it back - assuming they do so.
It’s been a nice run, but all good things come to an end as they say.
This nice thing comes to an end on Jul 2nd, 2026 which is when the domain expires and I’ve decided to not renew it.
It’s been a nice run and I’m grateful to all the active users of our small Fediverse home!
click here if you're interested in the reason
As for the reason for this decision, it’s because Lemmy and the Threadiverse in general didn’t turn out into what I envisioned it would be.
For a hot minute it was honestly great but eventually all that remained was tankies propaganda and depressing news. And probably a few non-political communities that sadly don’t really offset it for me.
I was pondering on keeping it running even if I don’t really use it that much anymore, but then Hetzner announced a significant price change (and you can bet that Lemmy is an unoptimized resource hog) which is not the reason on its own, but the proverbial last straw.
So yeah, that’s it I guess. I promised that if the instance ever goes down, I’ll let everyone know with enough time and I believe I managed to do it.
I’ll maintain the instance until it expires and I’ll keep on moderating it of course but it’s probably a good time to start looking for a new Threadiverse home.
Yet again, thank you very much to everyone who has been part of this instance! And to many of the friendly admins of other instances!
Well, that’s sad. But I respect it. Rather see projects popping in and out as people have the motivation and time and passion, than ending up with some soulless corpified thing that has 100% uptime and 0% community ownsership.
The decentralised nature of fedi means this actually works. And, to be honest, I think after feddit.de instances have started having better succession plans in place. Which is great.
Technically that is possible, but a) people who know how to run an instance rarely want to be responsible to run a second one, and b) there are some legal issues with personal data transfer (under GDPR), meaning members would need to agree individually to the transfer and those that do not agree (in time) would need to have their personal data deleted before the transfer.
agreed, we got burned by ee vanishing sorta overnight, and the content kinda disappeared from it, because people decided to scatter to other platforms.
I wonder what the domain costs? It'd be cool to redirect all of its traffic to Piefed, maybe feddit.online or maybe just the piefed development landing page.
I mean, I feel like "better than the alternatives" needs to be added, as it's not implied by your original comment. It very easily can be read as just "Fediverse bad", as something being a good idea does not imply that it is, itself, in any way good or better than the opposition.
The Fediverse both sucks (aka imperfect) currently and at the same time is the only hope for the future. Reddit, Xhitter, and Facebook will and even can never get any better. The Fediverse is our only hope.
53 Comments
Kirk@startrek.website · 71 pts · 187d
I'll never understand why someone would go through the trouble of starting an instance and then tolerate nonsense on the instance that they (again) literally own.
The entire point of the fediverse is decentralizing power. So why are you making it worse for yourself abiding by someone else's rules? Did it occur to him that maybe his users don't want tankies and depressing news either?
I get that keeping the engines running is thankless work a lot of the time but damn, don't make it harder on yourself because someone else (who is not you) wants to use your thing that you pay for and maintain to force their propaganda onto your users.
PugJesus@piefed.social · 91 pts · 187d
I believe it's more about the Fediverse as a whole, not the instance they were running. No instance is an island, and all that - we don't have enough activity for a thriving community on our own, so we have to pick-and-choose who we federate with. Too closed and the community dies. Too open and you can become overwhelmed by bad faith actors. At some point, it may be that you just decide that you can't find the balance, or that the balance isn't attainable in your position.
It's a thankless job, being an unpaid admin. I absolutely sympathize with Rikudou_Sage's position.
Kirk@startrek.website · 15 pts · 187d
I agree with your point, but disagree that the fediverse is too small to block all Tankies or that an instance "dies" when it owner enforces minimum standards of quality.
I think we all would have been better off if instead of burning out, the Lemmings.world admins banned everything except a single post per day if that post was an absolute banger.
If an instance admin wants to attract like-minded users to their instance, that instance needs to show people what their mind is like.
PugJesus@piefed.social · 29 pts · 187d
I don't think that the admin is talking about the process of administrating their own instance when they talk about being disappointed with the Fediverse, but about their own user experience as a user of the Fediverse.
They want to browse and comment and doomscroll too. As it stands, they find that there's no instance or comms with the correct 'balance' of quantity and quality (or, at least, morality), and they don't see any immediate solution or combination of federations that would fix that, for their experience.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 187d
Huh, I wonder what other social media outlet they think will be better? You have so much control here with blocking and stuff, that I don't get it either. Uplifting communities are awesome:
Maybe I'm missing something?
blarghly@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 187d
I mean, the obvious pivot if they are smart is Outside:
Personally, I feel like the communities you mentioned aren't particularly "uplifting". Like, I'm not hating on cute bat pics - but it feels like basing your whole nutritional strategy on sugary breakfast cereal. Eventually you need something with more substance.
On reddit, I liked 3 types of communities:
Hobbies
The hobby comms have almost no activity. I'm into climbing, hiking, motorcycles, diy, and lifting, among other things. A post in one of these communities is almost a special occasion.
Lifestyle/advice
People looking to improve their productivity, social skills, financial situation, dating life, etc. I liked these subs on reddit because I could often contribute some useful advice, and often learned something to improve my own life. On lemmy, the default is that improving anything about your life is impossible, because capitalism or something.
In depth/discussion
Subs like askereddit or truereddit - places where the idea was to discuss a topic and share stories and theories and ideas. On lemmy, these subs consist mostly of tankie propaganda and conspiracy theories.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 187d
I hear you, this one made me laugh. I guess we have to be the change for this, we really are too small. I can see the bitching on being too big when those communities get enough traction though.
Kirk@startrek.website · 3 pts · 186d
This got an LOL out of me. But seriously! admins! Ban them folks if you find them annoying! It will make Lemmy more attractive!
blarghly@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 186d
Thank you, captain!
anon6789@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 184d
It's all in how you use it I suppose, but I've found c/superbowl to be very uplifting.
One could just look at the cute pictures, but the gold is in the comments. There is a ton of effort put into supporting wildlife rescue, with emphasis on pointing people to rescues near them, teaching them about what is involved in wildlife care, and how to volunteer and what opportunities are available for people to improve the health and safety of wildlife in their own communities.
After being subscribed for a year there and seeing every post, along with being upset the direction my country was going, I wanted to do something to make my community a better place, so I went to volunteer at my local rescue. I've been able to care for hundreds of animals, some I never even knew lived here, I've met a bunch of happy and friendly people that show much how much good is left in the world, and I've hosted and gone to events to see even more of the same.
My life as a whole is much better now thanks to being on Lemmy and involved with c/superbowl. It's given me opportunities and joy i never thought I'd have. Only one other person has told me it's gotten them to volunteer, but others have shared donation links to stories that have particularly touched them, so hopefully that has gotten them financial support for their important work.
I'm now much more invested in my community and neighbors, and more social and outgoing from finding my passion with wildlife. And it all started here by talking with people and sharing pics of neat owls.
blarghly@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 184d
That's delightful. I never thought of that!
QuantumTickler@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 178d
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 187d
the dull mens club folk tend to be pretty nice
PugJesus@piefed.social · 6 pts · 187d
It all depends on one's interests. If I was primarily a lurker, like I was back on The Old Place, I probably wouldn't find enough historical content to keep me invested in the Fediverse, for example.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 187d
Absolutely true, but I've lurked at the old place occasionally and it's seriously overrun with bots/ai in the most popular subs. I get your point though, there are still places you can't find here. The fucked up attitudes are shocking though. If you look at any place-specific, travel sub, the snark is so rude and shitty in more than half the posts. Here, you mostly just get downvotes as trolling
PugJesus@piefed.social · 5 pts · 187d
I went into the comments section a few times since, as an observer. Whole place has shifted right, hard.
Kirk@startrek.website · 5 pts · 187d
Yeah, The Old Place literally is beginning to feel like Facebook. A bot reposts some rage bait and a million oblivious commentors eat it up.
Kirk@startrek.website · 6 pts · 187d
I hear you, but I also believe that the balance you describe is size-independent. If the fediverse consisted of only three people, and one was an asshole, what's to gain from allowing that asshole to run rampant on your platform if you're trying to attract non-assholes to your anti-asshole platform? There is no scenario where that doesn't lead to burnout.
Beehaw.org is a good example of an instance that defederated basically every other large instance and their users seem very happy about it.
And if someone actually wanted to doomscroll and look at shitposts (I don't get it but they do exist)... they'll eventually just go to reddit or twitter where that experience will always be superior.
PugJesus@piefed.social · 3 pts · 187d
I mean, the amount of media on a platform one consumes certainly adjusts the amount of bullshit on a platform one is willing to endure. I don't think it's size-independent.
goat@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 185d
Beehaw to me seems like forced positivity.
Trihilis@ani.social · 3 pts · 186d
The problem is that its not just "tankies" but everything that slightly inconveniences an instance get blocked. I really dont want to use 3 different instances because one decides they don't like anime, the other decides they dont like birds, then another one doesn't like the color blue and bans anything that has blue.
I wish the federation was left to the users and only illegal stuff is banned. This maybe an unpopular opinion but i agree that all the federation blocking is killing what is already a tiny community.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 5 pts · 186d
And on top of that, some instances hand out bans for complete bullshit reasons. It's not even just the tankie instances that ban you for not being a bootlicker, but also admins that can't tell the difference between normal, innocuous behavior and automated vote manipulation, hacked accounts and the like and err on the side of banning.
QuantumTickler@reddthat.com · -1 pts · 178d
SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 186d
They could make it an island though... That's what the software helps you do, if you want. Just defederate from instances your userbase doesn't wanna see
PugJesus@piefed.social · 2 pts · 186d
paequ2@lemmy.today · 12 pts · 187d
Totally guessing here, but I think this comes from wanting to be fair and open about content.
Everyone always complains about censorship, eco chambers, and freedom of speech. So I could see someone being very tolerant and allowing lots of content on their server.
Users also harass moderators and post about them on yepowertrippinmods, so allowing shit probably saves them some harassment.
It seems to take a specific type of person to be able to run a server. They can't be too nice. They have to have a clear line in the sand.
I sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) 2nd guess myself. "Am I being too sensitive?" "Did they really mean it like that?" "Was I too harsh?"
Kirk@startrek.website · 5 pts · 187d
Yeah I agree with you. I do think the only kind of instance administrators that don't eventually burn out are the kind with an absolute rock solid understanding of what it is they're trying to create and what kind of people they're trying to attract.
expatriado@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 187d
read it as lemmy.world first, i was getting ready to pack my bags
Donjuanme@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 187d
Oh..... I read it as that yesterday when it was announced..... Shit this brings me great relief, thanks fellow lemmy.world-er!
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 187d
You probably should find another instance if you can. They're not the greatest.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 187d
Well, they were the only one that seemed to be actually accepting new users during reddit's major exodus event a few years back.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 187d
I was with them at first too.
FundMECFS@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 186d
They were my first instance as well.
XiELEd@piefed.social · 6 pts · 187d
What happened?
PugJesus@piefed.social · 13 pts · 187d
Some poor judgement from admins, essentially, combined with... ambiguous policies.
It's not something like "Holocaust denial", but a big kerfluffle with them refusing to remove a particularly bad mod, and especially pussyfooting around the issue for the longest time, giving contradictory or vague answers as to what they were doing, has damaged faith in the admins pretty severely, and it'll take time for them to win it back - assuming they do so.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 187d
they not doing great so far
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 187d
They curate the front page and have rogue admin that do what they want.
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 186d
And don't seem to care if mods break their own instance rules
Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de · 0 pts · 186d
And here I was really excited to come to the comments and look for the "nothing of value was lost" post
Eyekaytee@aussie.zone · 19 pts · 187d
Just keeping this here as a small archive, i could have written this post myself tbh
https://lemmings.world/post/41938713
Hey there everyone!
It’s been a nice run, but all good things come to an end as they say.
This nice thing comes to an end on Jul 2nd, 2026 which is when the domain expires and I’ve decided to not renew it.
It’s been a nice run and I’m grateful to all the active users of our small Fediverse home!
click here if you're interested in the reason
As for the reason for this decision, it’s because Lemmy and the Threadiverse in general didn’t turn out into what I envisioned it would be.
For a hot minute it was honestly great but eventually all that remained was tankies propaganda and depressing news. And probably a few non-political communities that sadly don’t really offset it for me.
I was pondering on keeping it running even if I don’t really use it that much anymore, but then Hetzner announced a significant price change (and you can bet that Lemmy is an unoptimized resource hog) which is not the reason on its own, but the proverbial last straw.
So yeah, that’s it I guess. I promised that if the instance ever goes down, I’ll let everyone know with enough time and I believe I managed to do it.
I’ll maintain the instance until it expires and I’ll keep on moderating it of course but it’s probably a good time to start looking for a new Threadiverse home.
Yet again, thank you very much to everyone who has been part of this instance! And to many of the friendly admins of other instances!
FundMECFS@piefed.zip · 18 pts · 186d
Well, that’s sad. But I respect it. Rather see projects popping in and out as people have the motivation and time and passion, than ending up with some soulless corpified thing that has 100% uptime and 0% community ownsership.
The decentralised nature of fedi means this actually works. And, to be honest, I think after feddit.de instances have started having better succession plans in place. Which is great.
SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 187d
Is there a way to backup instances or transfer ownership, so this doesn't keep happening?
poVoq@slrpnk.net · 13 pts · 187d
Technically that is possible, but a) people who know how to run an instance rarely want to be responsible to run a second one, and b) there are some legal issues with personal data transfer (under GDPR), meaning members would need to agree individually to the transfer and those that do not agree (in time) would need to have their personal data deleted before the transfer.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 187d
agreed, we got burned by ee vanishing sorta overnight, and the content kinda disappeared from it, because people decided to scatter to other platforms.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 9 pts · 187d
I wonder what the domain costs? It'd be cool to redirect all of its traffic to Piefed, maybe feddit.online or maybe just the piefed development landing page.
sga@piefed.social · 8 pts · 186d
saltesc@lemmy.world · -9 pts · 187d
lol. Yep, the Fediverse does suck. Like all ideas we come across, the concept is amazing, but watch human nature fuck it.
The irony of tankies is absolutely insane. It's how I know they're all low IQ and to not be taken seriously. They're not even self-aware.
PugJesus@piefed.social · 16 pts · 187d
The Fediverse has its flaws, but it's also better than the alternatives.
Such is human existence - seeking improvements, never finding utopia.
saltesc@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 186d
Yep. Literally what I just said but in your own words.
Them boops and doots just come down your words being delivered with a positive theme.
PugJesus@piefed.social · 1 pts · 186d
I mean, I feel like "better than the alternatives" needs to be added, as it's not implied by your original comment. It very easily can be read as just "Fediverse bad", as something being a good idea does not imply that it is, itself, in any way good or better than the opposition.
OpenStars@piefed.social · 3 pts · 187d
The Fediverse both sucks (aka imperfect) currently and at the same time is the only hope for the future. Reddit, Xhitter, and Facebook will and even can never get any better. The Fediverse is our only hope.
Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 187d
monkeyjoe@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 186d
You know why they used IQ dogwhistles.
saltesc@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 186d
Because I couldn't be bothered typing the details. Two 'close enough' letters were irresistible to my apathy and general laziness.