lemmy.ml Tankies

I defederated months ago for exactly why you described. Night and day difference in how enjoyable Lemmy can be.

Like, yes, capitalism is failing us. But jumping into every comment thread and shutting down every conversation that's not advocating for the complete and utter destruction of the current economic model is exhausting. And that's the least toxic reason I chose to block that instance.

At first, I did miss some big FOSS communities that were there, but over time, similar communities elsewhere became more active. Good riddance.

Indeed. I enjoyed the asklemmy community over there, but lately there have been some "questions" posted that clearly have an agenda. Basically begging the question. I'm not saying I'm some free-market, anti-regulation libertarian. Far from it. But like you said, not every post has to be about that, and that we can discuss other things other than the downfall of capitalism. So I unsubscribed from that community, and even considered leaving Lemmy altogether since I feel like those types of posts/comments are so pervasive lately.
- if you were not aware, you can block the instance without de-federation
  
  Blocking the hexbear.net lemmy.ml & lemmygrad.ml will make Lemmy a much better day to day experience
- So I unsubscribed from that community, and even considered leaving Lemmy altogether since I feel like those types of posts/comments are so pervasive lately.
  
  I was at that same point back in November/December. Finally just defederated from .ml entirely and started blocking any agenda-pushing accounts in general, and wow, what a difference.
  
  .ml wasn't as bad back when I first started on Lemmy during the Rexodus (most of that was all on grad), but it's definitely become grad-lite since then. My guess is at least a portion of the grad crowd migrated over since it's a commonly defederated instance.
  
  I kinda wish .ml wasn't the official / de-facto flagship instance. I wonder how many people would have joined the Reddit-style corner of the Fediverse but were put off by .ml thinking that's what it's all like.
Yes capitalism is failing us but their belief that forcing everyone into their "ism" will lead to utopia is a disingenuous lie.
- Not so hard to understand that a government representing people instead of a government representing corporations makes a hell of a lot more sense for humanity.

As someone who made an account there when first coming to the fediverse I can say man, what a bunch of assholes.

Seconded, or thirded, or whatever. I've only just realized that lemmy.ml posts are the reason I've kept a healthy distance from this place during the last couple of weeks. Is that instance like a testbed / launchpad for China's latest trollbots?

Same, once I blocked it and hexbear lemmy went back to being a better version of reddit again. Substantially less shitpost and bad faith baiting.
- You'd probably be better off going to an instance that defederates from those instances from the get-go.
I wouldn't be surprised. The CCP is keen on building a ChatGPT style LLM on its own. Their traditional SNS is WeChat, which was a WhatsApp alternative, and thus was not as powerful as Reddit.

They are investing in Reddit alternatives I read, and they want these SNSes to be pro-CCP because that's how they'd enforce their LLM to be pro-CCP. .ml and the Lemmy code project itself would be a perfect example.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions. I'll bring this up to the other Beehaw admins and share this thread with them.

Thank you.

I'm in favour of defederating. Some of their posts seem downright insane

Might as well take this opportunity to point out that beehaw is still defederated from sh.itjust.works. I thought it was a bizarre decision at the time and the fact that it hasn't been reassessed after all this time is even more baffling. Beehaw and SJW are two of the best moderated instances on Lemmy, and yet we aren't federated with each other.

You can view the original announcement from beehaw here and the reaction from SJW here. ~~You'll also note that beehaw has since refederated with lemmy.world.~~

I have been informed that beehaw is still defederated from lemmy.world, my mistake.

Nearly a year later, it's obvious that the decisions of beehaw admins during that critical period of time when redditors were first trying Lemmy were highly disruptive towards the development of the platform as a whole. The first level of disruption came from the direct fragmentation of communities caused by that defederation decision.

The second and more devastating impact was the impact on the perceptions of new users, who were given a manifestation of their worst fears about Lemmy and it's federated structure. Many potential users were turned off Lemmy because they didn't like the fact that they could suddenly be blocked off from major communities on other servers due to arbitrary admin decisions, and beehaw essentially provided the perfect example of that at a critical growth phase.

At the time that they defederated SJW, Beehaw was more that 3 times larger, at about 12k total/3k monthly users. Now, SJW is more than 5 times larger than Beehaw, which has dwindled to just 450 monthly users.

With regard to lemmy.ml, I think the main issue is that beehaw has disabled downvotes. The tankies are significantly outnumbered on Lemmy as a whole and a combination of downvoting and active moderation from other admins effectively minimizes the problem for most other major servers. But because beehaw doesn't allow downvotes, has dwindled to a small userbase, and has isolated itself from other non-extremist servers (SJW), you have been left much more exposed to the tankie propaganda, with your only recourse being the nuclear option of defederation.

Obviously, my point is that beehaw admins should accept that they made a mistake and refederate with sh.itjust.works. I would also recommend upgrading to the latest version of Lemmy, because it at least gives users the option of instance blocking. I understand that you intend to move to Sublinks or another platform in the future, but in the meantime you are neglecting your users by allowing the current implementation on Lemmy to languish.

I don't mean this to be an attack on the beehaw admins, because I think they have done a number of great things for Lemmy and the fediverse and I believe that our objectives are generally aligned. But I feel that I must express these frustrations, because as I have just explained, the actions of the beehaw admins also have direct consequences on fediverse users from other servers.

I think that beehaw admins, not dissimilarly to hexbear admins, tend to disregard how their actions impact the fediverse as a whole and focus solely on the proximate impact on their own userbase. This is a faulty mindset, because the fediverse is the ecosystem which we all share, and that ecosystem needs to be protected and maintained in order for all of the different organisms (instances) residing therein to thrive. Without our connection to the fediverse, all of our instances would simply wither away.

Obviously, my point is that beehaw admins should accept that they made a mistake and refederate with sh.itjust.works. I would also recommend upgrading to the latest version of Lemmy, because it at least gives users the option of instance blocking. I understand that you intend to move to Sublinks or another platform in the future, but in the meantime you are neglecting your users by allowing the current implementation on Lemmy to languish.

unless we're compelled to, it is exceedingly unlikely we will upgrade. we are fully committed to moving off the platform so it just makes no sense to prioritize Lemmy updates.

with respect to refederation: we already polled that with both SJW and LW months ago and were given a very definitive no, do not refederate from our userbase. only 11% and 17% of our users were in favor of refederation respectively, and majorities were fine with continued defederation from both. our defederation policy was also strongly supported. (i believe this is the first time these numbers have been posted because they were so definitively in favor of the status quo.)

At the time that they defederated SJW, Beehaw was more that 3 times larger, at about 12k total/3k monthly users. Now, SJW is more than 5 times larger than Beehaw, which has dwindled to just 450 monthly users.

we're not and have never been in this for numbers so this is immaterial to us--we've been quite public that we'd be fine having a community of a few dozen people, because that's what we were before the Reddit fiasco. in any case: please understand that we are not responsible for the health of the Lemmy ecosystem. and even if we were (which we reject categorically) we have definitively been told to leave the platform because of our disagreements with the Lemmy developers. bettering this platform is no longer a priority for us in any way--and it is the general opinion of the team that we wasted a lot of time prioritizing that given the developer antipathy toward us. you can read more on that here if you'd like.
- If I remember correctly, I definitely voted with the majority on this one, for what it's worth.
  
  I don't agree with every moderator decision that's been made, but there isn't a site on the planet where I'm going to agree with every moderator decision, even if I'm running the damn thing. I do strongly agree though that bigger isn't better, and that 'that other one is bigger' isn't a compelling argument for re-federating.
  
  I chime in with criticism often enough, so I figured I'd just poke my head in and say I think y'all are right on target with this one.
- Thanks for the response. I didn't realize that you had conducted polls about refederation, that's good to hear. I'm familiar with the situation with the Lemmy developers.
  
  I understand why you have chosen this course of action and I don't mean to say you're responsible for the health of Lemmy. I was just pointing out that from my perspective, a rising tide lifts all boats, and it's helpful to have a network of similar communities because it makes each one stronger.
  
  For instance, if someone on SJW complains about us being defederated from lemmygrad and hexbear, I can simply tell them to make an account on lemm.ee, thus allowing them to remain a part of any communities on SJW but also allowing them to have the experience they wanted. And lemm.ee also gets a new user out of it. When you don't have those options, the disgruntled user is much more likely to stop using the platform entirely.
  
  However, you obviously already have plenty of experience cultivating and maintaining a community, so I have faith that you will be able to continue to do so regardless of the extent of federation that you deem appropriate or which platform you use, and I wish you luck going forward.
- You should do what your users want. Growth in users for the sake of "line goes up" is a faulty attitude. Dozens of users sounds like a community of good faith users, very nice. You do you!
Here is my view/reaction as a Beehaw user. I am not an admin or mod, just a regular user. I don't want this to seem like an attack, but know ahead of time that I disagree with a lot of what you said.

Nearly a year later, it’s obvious that the decisions of beehaw admins during that critical period of time when redditors were first trying Lemmy were highly disruptive towards the development of the platform as a whole.

How so? It is not obvious to me, and some examples would be great.

The first level of disruption came from the direct fragmentation of communities caused by that defederation decision.

As a personal opinion, the communities Beehaw defederated from are communities I don't want to interact with. This is not a net negative for me.

The second and more devastating impact was the impact on the perceptions of new users, who were given a manifestation of their worst fears about Lemmy and it’s federated structure. Many potential users were turned off Lemmy because they didn’t like the fact that they could suddenly be blocked off from major communities on other servers due to arbitrary admin decisions, and beehaw essentially provided the perfect example of that at a critical growth phase.

Do you have evidence of this? It is a pretty bold claim and if it is so impactful, there should be evidence. As side note, Beehaw's goals (from a user perspective mind you, I am not speaking for the admins or mods) are not exponential user growth, but quality community. If users are turned off by the fact Beehaw is pro defederation with communities that are a large source of trolls or hate (not saying SJW is one of those), then Beehaw isn't the right community anyhow.

With regard to lemmy.ml, I think the main issue is that beehaw has disabled downvotes. The tankies are significantly outnumbered on Lemmy as a whole and a combination of downvoting and active moderation from other admins effectively minimizes the problem for most other major servers.

I like the removal of the downvote. It makes for a more positive community, and because Beehaw has an active mod/admin team we don't tend to have issues that are not taken care of fairly quickly.

The tankies are significantly outnumbered on Lemmy as a whole and a combination of downvoting and active moderation from other admins effectively minimizes the problem for most other major servers.

To me, the issue is that this relies on a lot of other large communities to moderate users, and more often than not that is more difficult than it sounds for the good ones, or non-existent in the crappy ones. Especially with the Lemmy devs resistant to adding good moderation tools.

But because beehaw doesn’t allow downvotes, has dwindled to a small userbase, and has isolated itself from other non-extremist servers (SJW),

Again, Beehaw's focus is quality over quantity. Honestly this felt like it was meant to be an insult, but in the grand scheme of things doesn't have much relevance to me

you have been left much more exposed to the tankie propaganda, with your only recourse being the nuclear option of defederation.

Defederation is the most extreme, but if so much bad stuff is coming from a single source that is not properly moderated, it seems like the most logical to me. I think this goes back to a lack of moderation tools and poor moderation in other instances, not to Beehaw's relatively smaller user base or defederation from other instances.

Obviously, my point is that beehaw admins should accept that they made a mistake and refederate with sh.itjust.works.

Does sh.itjust.works still have open sign ups? Then I don't think a mistake was made nor should the admins refederate.

I would also recommend upgrading to the latest version of Lemmy, because it at least gives users the option of instance blocking. I understand that you intend to move to Sublinks or another platform in the future, but in the meantime you are neglecting your users by allowing the current implementation on Lemmy to languish.

I am not privy to the inner workings of Beehaw, but I know they are focusing on moving to a new platform, so this seems like it would be a lot of wasted effort for the small team that is Beehaw.

I think that beehaw admins, not dissimilarly to hexbear admins, tend to disregard how their actions impact the fediverse as a whole and focus solely on the proximate impact on their own userbase.

This is a difference of philosophy (at least for Beehaw, hexbear is a different story/issue). Beehaw's focus on it's userbase is why I am here in the first place. The greater fediverse isn't my concern, and it is not the admins responsibility.

This is a faulty mindset, because the fediverse is the ecosystem which we all share, and that ecosystem needs to be protected and maintained in order for all of the different organisms (instances) residing therein to thrive. Without our connection to the fediverse, all of our instances would simply wither away.

I think when Beehaw moves platforms, things may change. Better tools might allow for a more open relationship. That being said, Lemmy has been hostile to Beehaw (when they tried to reach out the Lemmy devs to petition for better mod tools, they were told in no uncertain terms they were welcome to GTFO). I know Lemmy isn't the whole fediverse, but putting in a bunch of effort on a platform Beehaw is leaving seems silly.

Again, these are just my thoughts as a Beehaw user, but to me the issues you bring up are not issues for me at all, and in a lot of cases are actual boons.
- I've spent a lot of time trying to evangelize Lemmy on reddit, and one of the most common criticisms is the possibility of defederation and getting cut off from major communities. Most people who have been using Lemmy for a while understand that it's way less of an issue than it sounds like, because there has to be a major reason for a defederation between servers and it doesn't usually happen out of nowhere.
  
  But in the case of Beehaw, it actually did happen quite abruptly, and it involved 3 of the largest servers at the time. We know that Lemmy slowly bled tens of thousands of users in the months following the reddit API exodus as users drifted back to reddit. Although it's impossible to know how many of those users were annoyed by the defederation drama, I think it's safe to say that the number wasn't zero.
  
  The steep decline in active users on Beehaw in the months following the decision is probably the best source of hard evidence supporting my claim.
  
  The removal of downvotes is not something that I have any particular problem with, although I wouldn't choose it for myself. I'm just pointing out that in this specific situation of wanting to mitigate tankie posts, the downvote is self-evidently an effective tool.
  
  I think this goes back to a lack of moderation tools and poor moderation in other instances, not to Beehaw’s relatively smaller user base or defederation from other instances.
  
  Can't it be both? If certain moderation tools existed then you could use them to solve the problem. But they don't exist, so other instances are currently using the strategies that I have mentioned in order to deal with the problem as best they can.
  
  Sh.itjust.works does have open signups.
  
  I totally understand and respect your perspective as a beehaw user, even as I obviously have a completely different perspective as someone who has never been a part of the beehaw community but instead has been observing from a distance.
My understanding is that a lot of the reasons for defederation stemmed from a fundamental lack of sufficient moderator tools. Tools that have not appeared and the lack of which has prompted Beehaw to consider moving to a different ActivityPub supporting platform in the fediverse.
You bring up good points. I can't say I ever truly understood why beehaw defederated from that particular instance. You think beehaw is going to die? I'm not sure most on here want it to get bigger. This isn't a commercial enterprise. But maybe the mods understand the intricacies of the SJW thing better than I do and will reconsider. Anyway, lemmy.ml sucks and is a problem, at the moment.
- Thank you. I don't necessarily think beehaw is going to die and I agree that it doesn't need to get bigger.
  
  But this was just my perspective as a sh.itjust.works user and admin that I've been wanting to get off my chest. SJW got cut off from beehaw users and communities soon after I joined Lemmy and it's been bothering me ever since and this seemed like a good opportunity to communicate my perspective.

There are some lemmy.ml communities I lurk, but yeah, the toxicity that comes out of the instance is ridiculous. I think Beehaw has defederated lemmy.ml in the past due to lack of moderation issues.

I really think they are a part of the alt-right/Russian playbook now. Russia has always been known to stir up shit and the GOP is on a serious misinformation Kool-aid binge right now. I'll even go so far as to say that the current conflict in the Middle East has Russian fingerprints on it. They have done it before.

I’ve been thinking the same thing. Don’t count out China either. I wouldn’t be surprised if a good portion of these accounts are part of a campaign to paint left-leaning people as violent and to attempt the same sort of radicalisation that has been successful turning young men into fascists ever since Gamer Gate. The memes, invading of space where the target groups hang out online, more memes, genocide apologists, yet more memes. The memes are especially important for this strategy, though I don’t think they’ve hit on anything as potent as the gaming, misogyny, and dog whistle memes that appeal to guys in their teens and 20s.

Permanently Deleted

Come over here to beehaw.org. We have nice admins.
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I'm on mobile using Voyager and I can select a user then block user. I can also block a community and block an instance. My block list is huge and growing.

Seems like sharing block lists (similar to ad block) might be a good feature. If I see someone knowing lie or act in bad faith or just generally are unhelpful, unknowledgeable, etc. I block them.
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I’m considering leaving the fediverse altogether

I've had moments where I considered it too, because of all the tankies and propaganda, but I'm still here because I really want to see it succeed.

Unfortunately, I won't even admit to anyone that I use it, let alone recommend it. I think from a rational outside perspective, the unfiltered Fediverse is an extremist echochamber. Some of the things that get said and heavily upvoted are wild.

I've had death threats multiple times from Hexbear users, and I've abandoned an account because Lemmy.ml users followed me around and downvoted everything I posted (which was mostly memes at the time).

We can't expect people to deal with all of that when there's already a relatively steep learning curve when joining. There's no corporation running the show to fight propaganda, we have to deal with it, or the Fediverse is at risk of going the way of Voat.
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- I mean, sounds like you just need to go to an instance that defederates from those places. Lemm.ee doesn't defederate a lot but it sounds like you'd prefer an instance that does.
I'm on lemm.ee, in mobile, and can block instances.

Hamburger --> username --> settings --> blocks; scroll down to instances. I'm not using any app either, just the web "app" or w/e the tech term is.
- the tech term is website
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I can’t find a way to block certain users or entire instances.

Blocking users - go to their profile and block.
If it's always the same users, just block them. I'm also exclusively on Mobile and my app (Relay) has a context menu for users where you can block them. So does Voyager. This is part of lemmy, and sever based (your profile blocks that user). Meaning you will not be served his comments or posts, in this client or any other, or on the Web.

Like I found Reddit's far right problem annoying, I find the tankies and the libs on Lemmy to be frustrating, especially on meme pages for whatever reason. This instance does a good job at keeping the transphobes off but my personal preference would be to stop seeing crap posts defending the state, whatever it calls itself.

especially on meme pages for whatever reason.

I feel you. Memes are the main reason I've subscribed to .ml communities, and these are lately getting flooded with tankie propaganda. If only the pictures were even remotely funny, it might still be somewhat tolerable, but...

If beehaw defederates because people are promoting communism I am 100% out of here. You should actively question capitalism and the neoliberal programming we've grown up with.

It's possible to promote communism while simultaneously not promoting China, North Korea or such states as desirable examples.
- Bro, do you have any idea how many undesirables we can eliminate?
  
  /S
They are promoting authoritarian governments with shit human rights records. The opposite of what communism and socialism are.
It's not the promoting of communism that makes them suck; it's the promotion of authoritarian ideals disguised as communism.
- Yes. I know the "not real communism" thing is a bit of a meme, but tankies are actually just fascists.
- Also the genocide denial
I think much of Beehaw is heavily leftist. I don't think many here are specifically against communism and recognize that there are governments abusing it and their power. With the government siding with the people over corporations being the core reason for Anti-Capitalists, my experience Tankies are no different in that regard. It's the same breed of fascism that failed Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism. i.e. Authoritarian Mass Murderers.

There is no defending that. Full stop. And that is why Tankies are bad, just like Alt-Right Capitalist Religious Fascism. They are celebrating the exact same thing for their version of the exact same results. I can't really see how acknowledging this is anti-communist, I would argue it's quite the opposite since they are inherently a threat to it, given the history.
You have a weird designation for an airplane. Usually there are more numbers.

The tech subs that I'm subbed to on that instance have seemed fine. Is it specific communities where this is occurring?

The tech subs often don't go political.

Occasionally there will be posts on Lemmy development goals and those are where Tankies write Tankies stuff.
It seems to be mostly political or meme comms, which happen to be most of the comms I personally block as well, so I haven't seen it much either. But it does apparently happen in those comms.

Just out of curiosity, could someone link an example of one of these posts? I don't see them myself much but I think I may have just blocked the communities where it happens.

This is one of the lasts ones I saw https://lemmy.ml/post/15546627
- ... wow. On the one hand, this is quite heavily downvoted (by several lemmy.ml users too), so that's something. On the other hand, it is a little concerning that multiple admins of lemmy.ml are among the upvoters on that post (yea yea I looked at the votes, let's not pretend they're private when they aren't).
  
  Also, check some of the removed comments (you can see them in the modlog). Like this comment that said this:
  
  There is a massive difference between liking a concept or the implementation of that concept. Communism is an utopia, socialism is seen as the way to get there. Socialism did not proof to be viable in reality, with dictators claiming to set up communist states, while not setting up working socialist societies. The thing is that implementing such a society includes a massive restructuring of government and ownership of goods. Those measures have a very strong tendency to dissolve in civil wars and dictatorships. It is of course an option to label anyone who doesn’t want to give up resources an enemy of the class / state and imprison and torture them, but it does not create a stable society in which people actually choose to live, if they can decide on that. Shit is complex.
  
  This was removed with the reason "Rule 1, 2", which presumably refers to the "no bigotry" and "Be respectful, especially when disagreeing" site-wide rules on lemmy.ml. I mean, you can certainly disagree with the comment if you want, but it doesn't contain any bigotry or disrespect if you ask me. This feels like political censoring on the part of the lemmy.ml admins. Not a great look.
- I think there's even someone from North Korea..
  
  As a side note, I realized North Koreans would prefer to call their country DPRK because that's the only proper Korea in their mind.
- Wow... TIL there are actually people that believe North Korea is an amazing country.

It's almost as if the trolls from hexbear got lonely after being federated so heavily so they made new accounts on .ml. (Like how CTH turned into hexbear)

Instance blocking and user blocking isn't a good long term solution as these types migrate often as to affect progressive communities who have already defederated.

The writing is on the wall, this space was created to give these types a platform.

I don't think there really can be a long term solution for this sort of thing. I think we just have to block and such as they pop up, defederate if a threshold is crossed. I dunno.
These types are likely Russian and Chinese trolls, and a few useful idiots. This is all too similar to the Gamer Gate playbook.