What is lemmy.ml?

Recently there seems to be some of misunderstanding what the lemmy.ml instance is about, especially from newer users.

Lemmy.ml has always been a niche site, and it will most likely stay this way. We don't have any intentions to turn it into a mainstream instance, or set a goal of getting as many users as possible. Our goal is simple: make an instance that people like to use. I would say that we have been successful in this, but obviously it is impossible to satisfy everyone.

The reason for this is that @dessalines and I are paid to develop Lemmy, while donations from lemmy.ml users only make up a negligible part of our income. Besides, having more users would force us to spend more time moderating, and less time for development. Lemmy works quite differently from big tech sites like Reddit in this regard: while they get more money with each extra user through advertising, for us it is the opposite. So we would much rather have a smaller, non-toxic, and friendly userbase, than a large one.

Part of the problem might be that lemmy.ml is described as "flagship instance", which can certainly be interpreted to mean "mainstream" or "general purpose". I struggle to come up with a better, more accurate description. If you can think of one, please comment here.

If you dont like the way lemmy.ml works, thats okay. Federation exists exactly to solve that problem, let different groups have their own instances, with their own rules and political views. You can see the list of existing instances, and instructions for setting up a new one on join-lemmy.org.

In particular, I would like to see someone (or a group of people) create a mainstream, or liberal instance. That should help to avoid further drama, and avoid attempts to turn lemmy.ml into something that it is not. @dessalines and I would certainly be willing to help with any technical problems that such an instance runs into, and include it on join-lemmy.org (just like any other instance that meets the code of conduct).

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I'm working on getting a Lemmy instance up and running that would be at least somewhat affiliated with the /r/moderatepolitics community. I would be fine with it being the home of a broader set of politics-oriented communities. However, as I've discussed elsewhere, I consider the lemmy.ml CoC to be incompatible with a space that invites opinions from an even moderately broad variety of political background. Would there be any flexibility around the CoC, getting listed on join-lemmy.org, and federation?
My vision is to have a three tiered CoC: site-wide, basic, and enhanced. The site-wide CoC would be a set of instance-wide policies that provide just basic rules for good behavior. This would include rules intended to keep the instance from turning into another trash fire like Gab or Parler. The basic CoC would be a template for a medium moderated community like /r/moderatepolitics, so rules that are mainly to keep the peace. The enhanced CoC would be for a heavily moderated community like lemmy.ml or /r/lgbt.
- You are right, making the CoC mandatory for listing on joinlemmy is going to be too restrictive for many communities. Your three tier concept sounds overly complicated though, I would suggest simply adding an icon on joinlemmy, for instances that enforce the code of conduct (and no icon for those who dont). Basically, it should be clear to potential users what they are getting into.
  We would still have some criteria which would prevent instances from being included on joinlemmy (mainly support for fascism I would say). That said, I also think there is an important difference if "problematic" views are expressed by a few individual users and opposed by others, or if the majority of users and admins shares these views.
  Edit: Whether lemmy.ml would federate with your instance is an entirely separate question though. So far we only federate with instances that have the same CoC, but these kind of moderation decisions are always up for discussion.
  
  This might not really be an issue... the crawler can start with any list of specific starting instances, and we could also add blocking to that.
  @pingveno@lemmy.ml which specific criteria of the CoC wouldn't work for you? Pretty much the only one I'm staunch about is anti-bigotry, which it sounds like you have no problem with considering your stance against gab and parler. In that case we'd have no issue federating with your instance and having the crawler pick it up for join-lemmy.org .
  
  The question is, how exactly do you define anti-bigotry? Do bigoted comments have to be removed, and the authors banned? Or is it enough if other users challenge these bigoted views? I tend towards the latter, because it allows for discussion and deradicalization.
  Btw it might be better to make a new thread in /c/lemmy regarding joinlemmy inclusion rules, then more people might participate.
  
  This reflects my line of concerns perfectly. At the same time, I am aware of how any platform geared towards absolute free speech will almost certainly turn into a cesspool. Maybe going ahead with federation would be beneficial, with the understanding that federation could be severed if there is too much divergence in content.
  
  Oh, yeah, the three tiered CoC was an idea that would be internal to the instance. It would essentially be a way to help start communities with a well thought out base that they might then tweak with amendments. I fully support the idea of having some method of categorizing instance moderation policies so that users know what to expect.
  I'm not sure how federation would negatively influence lemmy.ml. I would think the worst that happens is that a lemmy.ml admin would need to block a user, which is not much different than them just registering on lemmy.ml and getting banned here. Am I totally off base? Note that I would include any sort of cross-community or cross-instance brigade as a severe site-wide CoC violation.
  
  On lemmy.ml we just have site-wide rules which automatically apply to all communities, and then communities can define additional rules if they want. Not sure where your third tier comes in.
  The question of federating with an instance without CoC has simply never come up before, because all other instances use the same one. There is probably no major problem with it, but it needs some thought and discussion first.
  
  My wording probably wasn't very clear. There would be a set of site-wide rules, then two or more optional suggested CoC's depending on the desired flavor of community. So in a community that's devoted to LGBTQ+ people or non-political topics (e.g. tea, cats), it would be appropriate to pick the more restrictive CoC to produce a softer, friendlier environment at the price of self-censorship. But in a political debate space, it would make sense to have a looser CoC to get a diverse set of opinions for the community to mull over. The optional CoC's would purely be to facilitate creating communities.
  The idea is to create some consistency across the instance without forcing a single set of rules on everyone. The /r/moderatepolitics moderators have found that people who are new to the subreddit often run afoul of our rules, particularly our interpretation of what constitutes a personal attack. Having a common set of rules would at least create some consistency from community to community.
  
  Ah I see. For lemmy.ml the current way of doing rules works fine in my opinion, and is more flexible than your idea. But of course you are free to do things differently on your own instance.

24 comments