this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Dispelling the myth of a universal "Lemmy" community, and discussion of what the fediverse really is (beehaw.org)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Cipher@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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Like many, when the recent defederation went down, I decided to create a couple other logins and see what the wider fediverse has had to say about it.

I've been, honestly, a bit surprised by the response. A huge portion of people seem to be misidentifying communities as belonging to "lemmy" as opposed to the instances that host them. I think a big portion of this seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what this software is, and how it works.

For example, lemmy.world users are pissed at being de-federated because it excludes them from Beehaw communities. This outrage seems wholly placed in the concept that Beehaw's communities are "owned" by the wider fediverse. This is blatantly not how lemmy works. Each instance hosts a copy of federated instances' content for their users to peruse. The host (Beehaw in this example) remains being the source of truth for these communities. As the source of truth, Beehaw "owns" the affected communities, and it seems people have not realized that.

This also has wider implications for why one might want to de-federate with a wider array of instances. Lets say I have a server in a location that legally prohibits a certain type of pornography. If my users subscribe to other instances/communities that allow that illegal pornography, I (the server admin) may find myself in legal jeopardy because my instance now holds a copy of that content for my users.

Please keep this in mind as you enjoy your time using Lemmy. The decisions that you make affect the wider instance. As you travel the fediverse, please do so with the understanding that your interactions reflect this instance. More than anything, how can we spread this knowledge to a wider audience? How can we make the fediverse and how it works less confusing to people who aren't going to read technical documentation?

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[–] cnnrduncan@beehaw.org 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Because entire instances have already devolved to that and thus been blocked by the wider fediverse.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

yeah this is like everything on our defederation list besides lemmygrad, shitjustworks, and lemmyworld--we're literally using a block list which is dedicated to those kinds of instances

[–] Melody@lemmy.one 3 points 2 years ago

So what happened with lemmyworld?

[–] freeman@lemmy.pub 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Is there a central place to track these instances?. Or do you all have a text list or the reasons you defederated some that you may be open to sharing (even privately). I was looking for something specifically to avoid things like illegal content and the like.

[–] cura@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The defederated list does not include reasons and we can’t add it from Lemmy’s tools. The Lemmy instances we’ve defederated from memory are : Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml because they deny certain genocides, exploding-heads.com and lemmygrad.com because they are queerphobic, burggit.moe because they host child pornography.

https://beehaw.org/comment/300942

[–] freeman@lemmy.pub 2 points 2 years ago

Nice thanks. Added those to my list at least. Beehaw has a ton, and frankly I dont even want to click through some on grounds of well...CSAM stuff ala burggit.moe etc

[–] TKilFree@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

You might be interested to know that, as luck would have it, this was the first issue I picked up when scrolling through looking for a good introductory task to get used to the project: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/3168

So this might change in the not-too-distant future (I haven't started doing any frontend work to support it yet though).

[–] PenguinTD@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think a blind trust of such list is kinda dangerous. But a common place where admins and user can tag and rate instances and hosted communities can be a good start.

[–] freeman@lemmy.pub 2 points 2 years ago

Agree. Kinda what I was asking/looking for.

I’m a bit new to running an instance. There seem to be tools created for finding instances and communities. But not something that does the above.

[–] RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

They have lists of blocked and linked instances: https://beehaw.org/instances

[–] rs5th@lemmy.scottlabs.io 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

beehaw.org/instances

[–] freeman@lemmy.pub 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Yeah i see that, but that doesnt really list the reasons some were removed. So prior to @alyaza@beehaw.org's comment I was kinda wondering why some may or may not have been dropped from beehaw.

[–] rs5th@lemmy.scottlabs.io 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

There’s no function in lemmy to track reasons in the admin interface, it’s a text box where you pass in a list of blocked instances. The Beehaw admins may maintain a list separately.

[–] freeman@lemmy.pub 4 points 2 years ago

Im aware. Thats why I was asking the admin if they were open to sharing such a possible list, even privately. It would help me save time. Heck it could be a github list we could share (again even privately) if I ran across new instances. They are sprouting up all over the place, mines not really an exception there either.