Defederation is the nuclear option. Until now we had removed any communities we weren't comfortable hosting, and treated users on a case-by-case basis based on how they behaved in our communities, which worked for a while but became untenable.
When we started this project the admin team felt that welcoming outsiders into our (wholesome, sane) Star Trek communities was the net-positive action. But as I said it became too much to handle so we unfortunately had to cut the cord.
I think Beehaw.org is. We're 2/3 as well (now). .ml has some communities/users we've removed, but largely speaking .ml users have not caused any issues on our hosted communities, and we feel exposing them to our (generally awesome) communities is the net-positive here. Honestly .world's (lack of) moderation is more actively an issue for our mods, but since they're so big and we're a niche instance we really can't afford to de-federate from them.
You are correct that it is a requirement for all communities hosted on this instance to be actively moderated within instance principles.
This instance has defederated from hexbear.net for violating our rules against propaganda as outlined in our Terms of Service. If you are unfamiliar, federation means two servers sync and host each other's content. Defederation stops us from syncing their content to our server.
I'm not against hosting a comics community, but it's also not like /c/StarTrek is overflowing with OC and I'm sure the mods would be happy to have comics content (and you happier with their 10k users).
Yeah I totally agree with pretty much everything you just said.
The problem is nobody wants to grow and maintain a federated "Trek adjacent" community. I've even offered the opportunity to host one on this instance and nobody wants to put in the effort.
(Also, I just need to point out that Stamets was not "right" about anything involving our team. He claimed the Risa mods were "transphobic", and set up a new community where he repeated the claims. When one of our Admins asked Stamets if he intended to continue, he cried harassment and used the attention to promote a GoFundMe.)
Per instance guidelines, submitting on-topic content to relevant communities is not considered spam. But if you want to stay subscribed to /c/STO and block ValueSubtracted's "spam" StarTrek.website has a block feature you can find on their userpage.
@ptz@dubvee.org Tagging you here because you're basically the only other person who contributes to this community.
I hear you, but "drawing folks into the fandom tent" was not what Quark's (or the instance for that matter) was created for. Quark's has always been "General off-topic chat for the crew of startrek.website.".
That said, if you or anyone else wanted to create a community with that or a related stated purpose (and promised to grow and actively maintain it in line with instance values) I would be more than happy to entertain the idea. But you can't have mine lol
The admin team doesn't make instance decisions based on what's "popular". It's actually against our mission statement. Though that doesn't mean community input is ignored.
But that being said, admins can see who's voting and we can see that the downvotes are not coming from users with much/any history in this community. So we are not taking their feedback strongly into account.
I think she's saying she's upset we don't remove enough content from other communities (federated with us but not originating) on this instance. Which is correct, the admins here generally leave content on other communities alone if they are actively moderated.
Ok nevermind she's apparently saying /c/StarTrek and /c/Risa are "spam"?
EDIT 3: **Due to some bugs we're delaying this feature until Lemmy 0.19.6 is released! **
The goal of c/Quarks has always been to help foster a sense of community for StarTrek.website, but it is just a generic "offtopic" community and does not really have an identity of it's own on the Fediverse.
Thanks to the new feature in Lemmy 19.4, we can create true "local only" communities. And Quark's can be what it was originally intended to be, a place for our users. This will allow us to better discuss what kind of experience users of this instance wish to have (not just provide) without all the dorks on less cool instances coming here and ruining our weather control network.
EDIT: to those of you concerned about missing out on "trek-adjacent discussion" @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website has indicated they plan on loosening the "on topic" rule of /c/StarTrek to include more of that.
EDIT2: If anyone is interested in growing and operating a community on our instance, please feel free to reach out or comment here!
Maintenance was successful
Like many other Lemmy instances, we turned one this week! If you enjoy the Voyager app experience but prefer to only login locally (not that there's any reason whatsoever to distrust vger.app) or not log in at all, we now have an option for you!
https://vger.startrek.website/
(actual footage of a vger.startrek.website user)
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A friendly reminder that we also have mlem ("old reddit") fronted installed too for those that prefer browsing in a familiar interface on desktop.
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We do plan on updating to Lemmy 0.19.4 sometime this month so keep an eye out for that!
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If you've noticed the site hitching lately it's because we were reaching our storage limit (again, oops) so we purchased significantly more storage that appears to be helping.
Big nuqneH to our Patreon supporters for keeping our little corner of the Fediverse on the air a whole year and also allowing us to add features like these frontends and wiki (editing is open to all!) If you'd like to pitch in we have just one plan and it's only $4.
I just noticed today that old.startrek.website isn't loading properly. The fact that zero people have said anything to the admins makes me wonder if anyone's using it at all. So speak up if you are! I will be happy to fix it for you, but otherwise may just uninstall.
EDIT: It's fixed, we'll leave it for now
> http://old.startrek.website/
Should be fixed now. Try it again (clear your cache first).
Ugh thanks for letting me know, does it happen every time you click it? And would you say the problem has been less frequent overall?
EDIT: We are back, see this thread in /c/Quark's It's read-only so that we don't miss anything while all our isolinear chips get backed up. Apologies for the inconvenience and we'll resume full-power systems ASAP.
Release notes here.
This should decrease the variance we've been seeing in the impulse manifolds, bringing it back to within acceptable parameters. I'm told if any of you notice intrusive thoughts involving Intendant Kira Nerys you should report to sick bay immediately where they should be able to help you intensify them.
You may have noticed this message when sending a DM on StarTrek.website:
What does it mean that "sending private messages are not secure"?
Basically it means that DMs (unlike passwords) are not encrypted before being stored in our database. If I (or the server admin of the sever the person you're DMing) wanted to read DMs, it wouldn't be easy per-se, but it's far from impossible.
Are you reading DMs?
We are not digging through the database to read DMs (we don't care enough to put in the effort also its wrong) but we can't stop other Admins on other instances, and if law enforcement or someone got their hands on our server, there's nothing we could do to prevent your DMs from being accessible to them. Just FYI.
So what's element.io?
Element.io is a secure messaging service that uses the decentralized Matrix protocol. The Lemmy devs like it so much they put a spot in your profile page to make it easy to share your profile:
It's a neat service but has nothing to do with StarTrek.website or Lemmy. It's also far from the only secure messaging platform (Signal and Telegram are two popular ones that allow for it).
--- Hope that clears up some confusion, feel free to ask any questions! !Cheers
nuqneH!
Welcome to our new home in the Federationiverse. First of all- WOW we did not expect to surpass 300 users on this instance (and over 1K fediverse subscribers) within our first 48 hours and with little promotional effort. We are all excited to see where this long road goes.
Coming from Reddit and confused about Lemmy?
I had some stuff typed out, but honestly, this thread sums it up better. Check it out! It has infographics.
If you're still stressed out, remember that Lemmy is still new. Yes, it's ugly, but people said Reddit was ugly too (both are correct). As Lemmy grows, and #Rexxit continues, more tools will get made. Decentralization opens up a lot of possibilities we didn't have before. The future is bright.
Will other communities be setting up shop besides StarTrek, DaystromInstitute and Risa?
Yes! Eventually. Right now our focus is staying online, fast, and reliable which means keeping things focused while we find our footing. Daystrom, StarTrek and Risa were chosen to start off with because the three of them cover the "srs bsns ↔ shitposting" spread quite well.
If you are part of a community interested in being hosted on startrek.website, send me a DM and we can try to work something out.
Qapla'! How can I support?
We've started a Patreon here: Patreon.com/treksite. There's only one plan and it's just $4. If our growth continues like it has, we're going to need to upgrade our hosting very soon.
What's up with the "unencrypted DMs" warning?
I feel like I'm not seeing everything. What gives?
Lemmy is weird with languages. In your user settings, make sure “Language” is set to both “English” and “Undetermined”. You can select additional languages as well, but they aren’t currently allowed on this server. On desktop, you can use CTRL+click to select both options. This will allow you to see content for which the author has not set a language, and content which has been set to “English”.
This will hopefully be made more clear with future updates.
Thumbnails acting weird/not showing up (for users on another instance)?
Add this exception to your adblocker (replace "lemmy.world" with your instance):
@@||*/pictrs/*$domain=lemmy.world
Where can I find official server updates?
! Follow us on Mastodon for updates, scheduled maintenance, etc.
Where can I talk with Trekkies about non-Trek stuff?
We've just opened a new "offtopic" community, welcome to !quarks@startrek.website, Quarks is fun!
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If you have any questions for the team, please don't hesitate to ask in this thread! 🖖
SysAdmin @startrek.website A chimpanzee and two trainees in a trench coat