yay 🍻

There are issues that have been on my mind for a few days, and I wanted to talk about them with you.

Downvotes

As you may notice, downvotes have been completely off for the last few days. I did this because I couldn't resist the pressure of some friends :/ I still don't know what to do about this. The majority of members probably want it to be completely open. As mods, posters and admins; some think it should be closed, some think it should be restricted (I guess).

I guess there is no solution that makes everyone happy. I realized I don't have admin skills in stressful situations, I'm a fucking stupid lol :D I miss @gabe so much.

lemmyposter212 suggested "fuzzy votes" or something that can work for us too. I think I'll just ghost this issue for a while.

Donations

As you know, all our donation accounts have been closed. Since it was my first time opening a site in the NSFW area, I had no experience. I reviewed some adult donation sites but most of them were shady. Honestly I couldn't trust them.

There are only coins now. But I guess most people don't want to deal with coins. It is because I didn't get any donations about 4 months now :D Those sent from Github Sponsor or Patreon were also returned to donators as well. I received $200-ish donations so far.

We are currently the 2nd largest instance in Lemmy. After lemmy.world, we're bigger than lemmy.ml and lemm.ee! I don't think it will work this way anymore. On an annual basis, I need to spend a month's salary for Lemmy NSFW.

Does anyone have an idea to solve this problem?

In our previous announcement, we announced that we closed downvotes.

Some people found it right, some people hated it, some people hesitated. At the end of the day, since we are on a disorganised platform like fediverse, I find the decision we took right. However, I was also annoyed by the lack of downvotes. So I searched for a solution.

I think the planned post flair support will be a good improvement in this regard. But it seems to take a long time to develop.

What do you think about limiting downvotes to only members of that community? I see it as the optimal way in the current situation.

Please vote with empathy, not just as a user, but assuming you are a poster user. Is it right decision?

Poll: https://strawpoll.com/DwyoDBooDnA

Result: done.

Quick notes;

• Clients may not work with the beta version for now. Please log out and log in back again to test it. Please request support from client devs.
• Blur NSFW and auto expand features are part of official Lemmy now, you can find these on profile settings.
• Beta version has some bugs, please report them on the repo.
• You can now block instances with this version

Update: if you're seeing this text, then we've completed the migration :) 🎉

TL;DR: We are downgrading the server.

Currently, the instance has a monthly cost of approximately $200, and we can barely cover this expense with donations. But more importantly, we think that the current server specs are too much for the needs.

We are the 3rd instance with the most users and one of the most stable instances with 99.55% uptime, but still more than half of the server components are not used.

Therefore, we will slowly downgrade the server to use donations more optimally. By the way, thank you to everyone who supporting us 🙏

• Old specs: 16 core, 48 ram for 160$
• New specs: 12 core, 32 ram for 125$

The migration will start in 12PM UTC, you can check from your own timezone from here: https://notime.zone/NdyvH8JtJkJmZ

Instance will be available with a few downtimes, but posts/comments after 12PM will be deleted. Please follow this post...

I haven't been able to fix these sooner as I've been busy the last few days. I got it now.

The Voyager app (voyager.lemmynsfw.com) on the instance works as expected and updates automatically now.

Post listing settings (blur nsfw/auto expand images) are back again. I will not update Lemmy version before I patch new version so it will not be unpleasant as before.

Also we're having trouble with the donation platforms. We may be making a change soon. Friends who have donated from sites such as Github Sponsors and Patreon before, what do you think about making donations from sites such as fanbox.cc or subscribestar.adult?

I was waiting for new versions, but the disk filled up faster than I expected. I'm moving 400GB image archive from local disk to object-storage. Unfortunately the process is very slow. It will take several hours.

Update: Migration finished 🎉

An ex-admin to whom we have given access to the server, has reported us to the server provider. Also we were already planning to migrate somewhere else. So right now we're moving to a more secure server.

I'll try to make a smooth transition. Any interaction (post, comment, like etc.) after 11AM (CET) will be deleted, but the site will not be down during migration. It will be an estimated 1 hour process.

Update: its done. Hopefully without problems. If you see this, you are on the new server.

Update: I contacted with current big owners, other older friends and lastly from some friends from here. Mostly all of them living in US so they don’t want/can’t host it. So I’ll keep hosting without being on moderation side. @gavi@lemmynsfw.com will post about details I guess. @gavi@lemmynsfw.com is the new top admin.

As you know, it has been 2 weeks since I opened the instance and it has grown quite a lot. Likewise, the time I have to devote to this work has increased a lot.

I'm dealing with lemmynsfw more than my IRL job right now :D This is bothering me. Also, having an NSFW instance instead of a normal instance makes things much more difficult. If you remember; I had my biggest scale fuck up with the post "we allow loli content" :) This situation wore me out. Also a lot of problems are bothering me, both as a software and as a community.

That's why I'm thinking of transferring the instance and the domain to a person I trust. Who can maintain the deployments and also know this stuff. I will also roll over any donations made, excluding the current month's expenses.

I'm sorry if I've upset anyone. That's all from me.

We are currently the 2nd largest instance in terms of monthly active users. This brings a financial burden and we would appreciate your help about it.

If you want to donate, here's donation platforms we use:

• Throne.com: No need to register. I tried and received payment. So it works.
• Ethereum: 0x4e4af5dc2f86235ac496542c2a1c00f3c4de40c6
• Monero: 48VYVWPKk65KiDiBaLhvSggKSbDQ4vtdq6HHbDa2HxWLiBWVcZ65gTgMBu7UeSUcm4dasAMMaKHnJNJSgRKi7Q5R5HN9adg
• Trocador.app (multiple cryptocurrencies)

Financial status

Finally, our instance became self-sustainable with donations! We received a lot of donations especially in February. Therefore, I would like to report the financial status here.

| date | description | fiat | ETH | XMR | |---|---|---|---|---| | 2024-06-24 | - load balance server | $430 | 0.002 ETH | 1.3460 XMR (-0.0731 XMR) | | 2024-06-14 | - main server | $430 (-$75) | 0.002 ETH | 1.4192 XMR | | 2024-06-13 | + donation | $505 (+$20) | 0.002 ETH | 1.4192 XMR | | 2024-06-12 | - media storage | $485 (-$25) | 0.002 ETH | 1.4192 XMR | | 2024-06-06 | + donation | $510 (+$20) | 0.002 ETH | 1.4192 XMR | | 2024-06-04 | / coin to fiat | $490 (+$473) | 0.002 ETH (-0.125 ETH) | 1.4192 XMR | | 2024-05-22 | - load balance server | $17 | 0.1276 ETH | 1.4192 XMR (-0.0861 XMR) | | 2024-05-22 | + donation | $17 | 0.1276 ETH | 1.5050 XMR (+0.1442 XMR) | | 2024-05-21 | + donation | $17 | 0.1276 ETH | 1.3611 XMR (+1 XMR) | | 2024-05-17 | + donation | $17 | 0.1276 ETH | 0.3611 XMR (+042069 XMR 🚬) | | 2024-05-17 | + donation | $17 (+$20) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.3190 XMR | | 2024-05-15 | - main server | -$3 (-$75) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.3190 XMR | | 2024-05-13 | - media storage | $72 (-$24) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.3190 XMR | | 2024-04-28 | + donation | $96 (+$50) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.3190 XMR | | 2024-04-26 | + donation | $46 (+$20) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.3190 XMR | | 2024-04-24 | - load balance server | $26 | 0.1276 ETH | 0.3190 XMR (-0.0993 XMR) | | 2024-04-21 | + donation | $26 (+$50) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.4184 XMR | | 2024-04-15 | - main server | -$24 (-$65) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.4184 XMR | | 2024-04-10 | - media storage | $41 (-$19) | 0.1276 ETH | 0.4184 XMR | | 2024-04-09 | + donation | $60 | 0.1276 ETH (+0.06969 ETH 🙃) | 0.4184 XMR | | 2024-04-01 | + donations | $60 (+$25) | 0.0579 ETH | 0.4184 XMR (+0.1827 XMR) | | 2024-03-30 | - load balance server | $35 | 0.0579 ETH | 0.2357 XMR (-0.0890 XMR) | | 2024-03-04 | + donation | $35 | 0.0579 ETH | 0.3247 XMR (+0.0420 XMR) | | 2024-03-02 | - main server | $35 (-$65) | 0.0579 ETH | 0.2827 XMR | | 2024-02-28 | + donation | $100 | 0.0579 ETH (+0.0073 ETH) | 0.2827 XMR | | 2024-02-27 | - load balance server | $100 | 0.0506 ETH | 0.2827 XMR (-0.1516 XMR) | | 2024-02-01 | - new server and email provider | $100 (-$75) | 0.0506 ETH | 0.3738 XMR | | 2024-02-01 | / approximate initial value | $175 | 0.0506 ETH | 0.3738 XMR |

A little note about about this financial status report

• Throne
  • it is fiat type and I will only add money here when I withdraw it.
• Cryptocurrencies
  • I will truncate numbers to 4 decimal places.
  • It may not always be up to date. You can check up to date ETH balance by clicking to it.
  • No matter which coin you send from Trocador, the money will merge into Monero.

Bots of this type have appeared recently, and people are asking if it's okay to use them. I'm not sure about this either, so I think it would make sense to ask users.

These bots follow some subreddits on Reddit and automatically post it to Lemmy when a post is created there.

I've seen an example site for it: lemmit.online. This instance is dedicated solely to mirroring Reddit posts to the Lemmy instance.

Maybe instead of mirroring to a community on Lemmy NSFW, we can subscribe to lemmit.online via Lemmy NSFW. This way we could have kept Lemmy NSFW free of bots. Currently, even if accepted, I believe it should be done under admin control to prevent duplicates.

Here is the poll: https://strawpoll.com/polls/PbZqRw82byN

I'm open to suggestions.

If a moderator is not active or banned, you can request to be a mod for that community. Just check community rules before posting.

https://lemmynsfw.com/c/community_requests

I decided not to remove the old mod. What do you think about it? I believe I shouldn't do this, but I would still like to hear your opinion. Is it unfair to remove that mod if inactive for a week?

Also; @Solaire@lemmynsfw.com is banned and s/he has so many communities. I can appoint if there are some volunteers.

note: bottomless and lesbians communities are reserved for now.

We don't want to overmoderate, but we have to add some rules for ease of moderation and cooperation with other instances in the federation.

• 1. Non-flagged NSFW posts: Although we already had a rule about it, we were applying it a little more flexibly. From now on, posts that are not properly flagged as NSFW will be deleted without notice.

• 2. NSFW community icons: As NSFW status can be added to communities, we think that hiding/blurring community icons is the responsibility of clients like Mlem, Jerboa or Lemmy-UI. That's why NSFW community icons are allowed.

• 3. NSFW user avatars: Unlike community icons, users do not have an NSFW status. For this reason, NSFW user icons are banned. This rule may change as a result of improvements in Lemmy.

In order to apply the 3rd rule, the user will be informed first. Any post or comment made afterward may result in a ban due to non-compliance with the rule.

I'm not sure how long it took, but for a while the instance had crashed. For some reason the Lemmy photo upload service took up 150GB of free space and hence the server crashed because of it. I'm not sure about the possibility of recurrence as I don't know the exact reason.

For this reason, you can follow our Mastodon account, which I have just opened, to follow or report possible crashes.

https://mastodon.world/@lemmynsfw

You can now turn on/off the following options:

• Blur NSFW images
• Blur NSFW community avatars (in list)
• Auto expand images

You can find it in the "Local Settings" section in the settings. If you are on mobile, you have to scroll down from the settings block. Also you may need to clear caches.

Note:

These options are kept on the device and are not synchronized between devices.

https://lemmyverse.net/communities (check "show nsfw" option)

https://lemmynsfw.com/communities/listing_type/Local/page/1

Now that we have a list, there is no need to enter it manually. Thanks for what you've sent so far.

In this instance, should we ban NSFL, hardcore gore content? I think it's not a problem since anyone can subscribe to the community they want but if the vast majority don't want it, we can ban it. Decisions must be made from the beginning.

Here's a StrawPoll link.

Edit: Looks like we are going to ban it. Commenters are right that we cannot currently list NSFW and NSFL content separately on the homepage. Since anyone can open an instance, we should let other people to open an instance on lemmynsfl.com. Also moderating these communities can be hard too. So it's okay.