Thank you so much for writing this, it articulated a lot of things I've been thinking about this past week. So many of us are all spending our most valuable resource, time, trying make this a better place, in whatever way we can, and none of these 4 groups (some of us are members of more than one) deserve any vitriol or negativity for their efforts. We all need to think about ways we can reduce that negativity, and not all of them can be fixed with computer code, or at the admin level. We all need to improve how we interact with people, and treat them the way we'd like to be treated, with a view towards their well-being.

I'd like to follow your good example, and send out my genuine thanks to all the users, admins, developers, those doing server support, and contributors in any form to lemmy, and it's ecosystem of apps and tools. Members of all of these groups are absolutely vital, and this place is only possible because of our cooperation.

Great post. It seems like a lot of people aren't used to using the product of community efforts over commercial efforts and their expectations and feeling of entitlement match that experience. Like they've bought a product and want to complain to the manager when they experience a problem.

I think we are all overdue for a shot of positivity so thank you for this write up. Yes, we have a long way to go on the community side, the moderation and the technical sides but I'm happy for what we have and the progress since June and before.

I've done minor contributions (to the Jerboa app), some translations, posted stuff in 4 languages and donated some change where I can... we can always do better and although some are motivated by spite, I think also that a lot of people would enjoy it more if we can cultivate an atmosphere that's less miserable and full of unnecessary drama.

Thank you for creating and maintaining this space for us, I'm grateful for you and all of the other people working to keep things running and improving on lemmy. It is becoming harder and harder to find spaces for discussions that aren't corporate owned.

I don't understand those who criticize Lemmy developers. They were developing it while you were not here, I don't think they will stop just because you are leaving :)

We are grateful for you fellow internet human.

Hear hear! I do think that the optics of the lemmy dev team could be improved but I nevertheless recognise they're putting in a ton of work into the project. I'm also very happy with how nice the community has been towards me and my contributions. The positive vibes really help motivate people like me, which also means they can demotivate others when reversed.

I also think you're one of the mvps of the project yourself, sunaurus. You support the last week was invaluable to me and the project would be in dire straits if you stopped.

I have recently donated my largest donation ever to the lemmy devs (a large sum for me atm). I‘m thankful for their work and have said so openly and individually to dessalines and others. Thank you too for making this post. I completely agree.

I'm only a user, but you're right, that needs to be said. I hope all the other more important players see this, as it is a comparatively small amount of positive feedback buried in a mountain of negative feedback.

This is a well timed and needed post. Anyone who contributes in any way around here is a friend. We are all in this wild experiment together. I’m always proud to be a Lemming.

@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com has been a great admin for me. I know they have the world on their shoulders, and I imagine similar pressure is on most of the other admins too. They deserve serious kudos for holding that weight for us, and in DB0’s case, for going above and beyond to innovate new solutions for a system that is still in its infancy.

Of course there are arguments, and stress, and hills to die on…that’s how people change the world. The federation is in the process of doing exactly that.

So, to all of you, I raise a glass and tip the hat—you set an example for the rest of us nerds to aspire to. Thank you for everything.

Hello,

Thank you for this post, a nice piece of positivity among the tensions from the last few days.

You are a great person, thank you for your work.

I'm grateful for all Lemmings, but at this particular moment, mostly you.

Even as we recognize that Lemmy is a collective effort where every user can play a part, there are some roles which are more important than others. You've been an excellent admin for your own users, but also a unifying force for the network as a whole, neutralizing and bridging the spaces between many other Lemmy servers.

This post is the clearest example of that to date, but your contributions have always exhibited a good sense of diplomatic tact along with strong internal values and principles.

Kudos to you @sunaurus@lemm.ee.

As another admin of a much smaller instance, I also feel grateful to all the mentioned groups, and especially the admins of the larger instances, whose experience I can often piggy-back on and without which, running a smaller instance as a single admin would be much more difficult :)

I'd also like to remind everyone that Lemmy does not equal the Fediverse, which is a misconception I feel like I see constantly here. When you say "I am on Lemmy" or things along those lines, you are conflating the Fediverse with the software you are using to access the Fediverse. This is kind of like saying that you are on Firefox instead of on the internet. Firefox is just your browser that you use to access the internet.

Likewise, Lemmy is just your "Fediverse browser" and there are other alternatives. And just like we shouldn't judge people whether they use lemmy.world or lemm.ee or whatever other instance, we shouldn't judge people on whether they use Lemmy or Kbin or Mastodon. Different people like different things and having a choice about what software to use is the greatest feature of the Fediverse. You have a choice of software, of instance, of admins and even of mods.

I see a lot of people saying things would be better if we just change Lemmy to something else (like Sublinks, or any of the other alternatives). But remember that it's still just the Fediverse you are connecting to. You are not on Lemmy, you are on the Fediverse. And we're all on it together (well more or less, barring defederation...).

I'm just grateful to have a place to discuss niche topics where there's a reasonable balance of power between users, mods, and admins.

Federation means no more rug pulling after years of building open source apps to access proprietary services.

Proper 'competition' between instance owners means nobody can degrade the quality of experience for a quick buck.

Thank you for your part in building a better alternative!

I am thankful for myself! I am my own moderator and my own admin. This way I almost don't have to deal with other people. /s

I only have to deal with them in conversations like a coupple of days ago someone congratulated me to have written the new stupidest comment on Lemmy.

Anyway, Lemmy is where I spent most of my little time on the internet, I'm very suprised how well everything works despite it being alternative media without VC funding.

Posts like this make happy I chose lemm.ee on my day 1. Way to go, @sunarus. And thank you to all the other lemmings. You all so totally rock! ʘ‿ʘ

How dare you be grateful to me! Don't you know how hard I've worked to completely destroy every shred of my self-esteem?

(Also, thanks for all the work that you've done!)

It's nice to see my shitposting being appreciated.

I appreciate everyone involved in this non-commercial endeavour. Thanks for all the unappreciated hard work you all put in.

Agreed, and additional thanks to you, @sunaurus, for all your ongoing contributions to the project and for being such a good instance admin as well.

Eternally grateful that you're the captain of this ship!

Thanks OP, good job. Upvoted and bookmarked.

Thank, you, a, lot.

Thank you for the positivity 💚 I wholeheartedly agree!

Drama and negativity drives engagement, and this form of engagement can easily trigger a feedback loop in which negativity keeps piling on and voices of support are practically muted.

We are participating in an open source project that has some very ambitious goals. Things can be messy, mistakes happen, there are risks, and people have many different opinions and moods. Heated discussions can be a healthy part of the process. But, once the dust is allowed to settle for a bit, it is good to remember that we are humans and that we are here because we have some shared goals.

I think the majority of people around here are kind and have a positive outlook, but perhaps it is more motivating to speak out when we have negative comments than positive ones. So, thank you for taking the time to write this positive message!

You too. You're awesome!

offtopic but do you know who owns lemmy.com? It points to your instance and im confused why an instance isnt run using that domain instead of pointing it to yours

Great post, exactly my thoughts, people demanding features on Lemmy and even claiming devs work for them LMAO, go to Sublinks or somewhere else.

As an user Ive never seen the "You are from X instance so you are stupid" takes tbh, but I can definitely see its possible

Even me?

thank you for your thank you! <3

I came here, in Lemmy and Lemm.ee in particular, after this post. (And created a community about my life, may it subsist.) Thank you, Sunaurus.

And thank you all, Lemmy contributors! (Users, admins, mods and all!)

(And, explicitly, Developers too, of course! =) )

I've said it before, and I will say it again. Lemmy is my own Animal Crossing, and it's good enough to be part of my username.

I kinda wish that WAS my legal name.

This is a lovely post and very pleasant to wake up to during a bout of insomnia. I would agree with all of your thank yous and add you to the list for this post (in addition to the rest that you're doing). Always good (and healthy) to put some positivity and gratitude out into the world.

Thank you and thanks to everyone who is a part of Lemmy, by maintaining, admining, using, or just thinking "hey, that's neat".

Good post but won't make a difference. Some users are immature and they are the ones lashing out.

They will always be part of the online experience.

As someone that has little to no understanding on how federated instances interact with each other, I am oblivious to the reasons why anyone from one instance would have anything against someone from another instance. Regardless of instances, some people have the skills to interact with others, and some should be locked away in some Siberian jail without access to internet, or any living being for that matter. I am glad that you brought this up, because some individuals need to read stuff like this regularly to be brought back to reality. If it wasn't for each of the groups you mentioned, there would be no Lemmy at all, it's that simple. We all need to take a step back and look at this from a broader perspective, in order to appreciate the amazing potential and accomplishments brought to us by this platform. There are not too many places on the internet in which we all get to voice our opinions and can find others with whom to have a constructive discussion (for the most part), thus we should be doing anything in our power to make this a safe haven for all of us. It's close to impossible to completely do away with the intolerant and the self-serving crowds, but all in all, Lemmy has veen, together with Mastodon, an incredible replacement to the shit show that Reddit became. So I'm on instance "whatever", how does that determine what I'm about? I picked the instance I'm on solely on the fact that it said "Lemmy" and was one of the shortest instance names, go figure. If we could have 1 person that thinks like you out of every 10, Lemmy would be the safest and most productive place on the web. Unfortunately, we're all too narcissistic to allow ourselves to meditate in what we could be doing wrong, because its easier to find that others are at fault for thinking differently, and that's, sadly, the current state of the world. I constantly learn new things in here, even have started some direct conversations with others that are interested in similar things but have different approach to them, which has opened my mind to new horizons. When you take Philosophy, Religion, Political views, technology, Culture, Languages and expertise, we all have at least 1 point of view different to someone else, guaranteed, which is what makes Lemmy such an enriching experience when we're willing to listen yo the rest with the mindset that "nobody has the absolute truth". Those not willing to do this, I've nothing against them, as its their loss, not mine.

<3

Thank you Lemmboys!

I am grateful for Lemmy as well. Reddit has become a censored hivemind of shit. The enshittification is real.

you're welcome

From an absolutely neutral perspective, how do you feel about the allegations that users are getting banned on this instance for political views?

I pooped my suit in the wave pool at action park resort in the summer of 1994.

I just swam out and left. I was but a child.

Way too long didn't read but you're welcome 🤗

I’m really not convinced that the .ml instance has anything but the Chinese government’s interests at heart, so I love the vibes you’re bringing, but the fediverse is definitely not equal.

A bit late to the party but yeah i agree with everything you said and also wanted to add that developing sublinks is just harming the idea of FOSS and isn't on anyone's best interest except some entitled people. I would've 100 percent supported them if they opened a PR or if lemmy devs denied their merge request but as it is not the case let the assholes go and lemmy will be better for it (also i do think the lemmy devs were a bit rude but the people were asking for it like you can't insult foss devs and expect for them to not insult you . Like do you think they deserve thos shit ?)