I’ve seen a few posts today mulling over possible solutions to some of the issues caused by Lemmy’s explosive growth in the past few weeks. I’d like to walk through the situation as I see it, point out a few differences I’ve noticed in the federated model vs. what users of other social media may be used to, and offer a suggestion for the way forward.

As I see it now -

  • Most of us who have setup an account in the last couple of weeks are refugees of various corporate run sites where planning and decision making took a very top down approach. An individual, or small group would survey their domain and, by executive fiat, declare “A will now be B, and C will now be D! This is the best way, because I have seen it is so.”

  • Those of us who quiet liked A being A, and C being C, ruminated, fumed, posted about the disadvantages of B and D, lamented the loss of A and C, commented on the shortsightedness and perhaps stupidity of any leadership that would try to implement B and D, packed our things, and left.

  • Trolls beneath a bridge over which billygoats seldom pass, go hungry. And so like rats in the age of sail, it seems we may have brought some of our trolls with us. Whether they are ban evading by setting up accounts on different instances, spamming new community setups, or just refusing to shed the toxic mentalities previous communities fostered, these trolls are scrambling beneath the bridge we are trying to build between what we once had, and what Lemmy could be.

A different world -

  • Lemmy, and the Fediverse as a whole, lack the top down structure of our previous abodes. There is no executive, let alone fiat. There is no ruling council, no C*Os, no board of directors, no share holders, no employees, and no customers. Anyone with a few free weekends to learn can spin up a small instance for friends or family, those with the calling to lean into it have given us all what you see here. No gods, no kings, just people, people like you and me.

  • People, by their imperfect nature, make beautifully imperfect things. The Fediverse sells you nothing, reaps from you nothing, asks only for what you care to give, and in return provides only what you ask of it. It is, of course, far from perfect. From both a technical and organizational point of view there are rough edges and sharp corners. It lacks the commercial “polish” we’ve come to expect because, well, it’s not commercial.

  • Lemmy and the Fediverse were born from the FOSS movement. For the uninitiated, FOSS stands for Free and Open Source Software, one of the founding ideals of which was “the economy of abundance”, the idea that usable and valuable software can be produced in such quantities and of such a quality currently, that the effort and costs for maintaining it could be met using only volunteers and donations.

  • Carrying this ideal in their very DNA, Lemmy and the Fediverse discard the idea of catering to or capturing a large audience, providing content to the “least common denominator”, or the idea the metrics are numbers to be run up on some imaginary scoreboard. The Fediverse, it seems to me, aims for “deep” at the expense of “wide”. This ideal isn’t just reflected in the technical side, but also how its systems are organized. There is not one group of admins, but many. Each instance is free to decide on its own rules and best practices without a half dozen marketing MBAs fretting in front of a white board over how this will affect things with the 19-25 male demographic. Perhaps more salient to current events, there is also no overarching authority vested solely in an individual whose singular decisions can significantly impact a user base of millions.

My suggestion is this -

Embrace what makes the Lemmy and the Fediverse different. This is a brave new world. For once we all here have the freedom to lean into it. There are issues, but these issues are being addressed not by some stuffy room full of suits sweating how they will pull their numbers out of the red by the end of Q3, but by regular, beautiful people like you and me. They will make beautiful mistakes and we may yet witness spectacular failures. Give them the freedom to do so, in the same way you have been given the freedom to be part of something bigger and brighter than what has come before.

Throughout the fediverse, there are many dedicated and hardworking folks whose part time hobby has exploded nearly overnight into almost a second job. The beauty of the FOSS framework is that they are free, with little restriction, to address their community’s growing pains as they see fit. Like a live action Monte Carlo simulation, scores of instance admins are applying themselves to the problem of “How?” As the community reaches for and shares the solutions they find the system will improve upon itself. This process my involve stumbles, and may take more time than many you anticipate (nine women can’t make a baby in a month), but it will come. When it does, each instance will have at hand the tools they require tailored for its particular communities. Most beautifully of all, we will do it together.

We are all in this together, across instances and communities. I suppose all I’m suggesting is we have the same strength of faith in the folks who built this place as they had in us when they opened their doors to us when we needed a place to shelter from the cold.

If you made it this far, thank you for your time, this carried on longer than I intended, but that is something I am prone to and one of the reasons I was not a frequent poster elsewhere. For the Fediverse grognards who made it this far, thank you especially for sharing your home with us, I hope we’ll try and collectively keep our feet off the furniture.

  • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So beautifully put, it was a pleasure to read!

    I fully agree, I came here before the blackout started, with the purpose of being involved in lemmy communities as much as possible to stop caring about reddit (it worked btw :D).

    Since then I’ve seen a few complaining lemmy doesn’t have this or that, lemmy is not ready, etc., forgetting that reddit wasn’t done in a day either.

    I think the most important thing to remember is that we - the users - have all the power to build up communities, not the higher-ups always running after profitable quarters, it’s we who built up reddit from nothing and we can do the same here, we just have to be willing and patient, as you rightfully said, and not give up at the small obstacles along the way.

  • Elkaki123@vlemmy.net
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    1 year ago

    You are quite the poetic person, I bookmarked this post because of how much I liked the analogies and expressions, I really like how you write!

    That being said, really liked your observations and your description of the effects of it being FOSS.

    I do feel thought that you didn’t really give concrete suggestions, as I understand it your points are:

    • take the freedom this platform gives, now it doesn’t have to be decided with corporate interests behind, just look at the community.
    • the issues this platform currently faces are for yhe communities to take creative approaches to, not necessarily to imitate what is already done since it’s a chance to do things different.
    • all those that just came in should trust on the people building this communities, rome wasn’t built in a day.

    It is more of an inspiring message rather than concrete recommendations right? Not a criticism, I’m just checking if I got it right.

    That said, once again, beautifully put.

    • the_kung_fu_emu@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Apologies for the late reply, wefwef ate my reply (but is getting better by the day, I think there were two or three updates just yesterday).

      You are exactly spot on. I’ve seen suggestions put forward varying from implementing a karma system, to having admins taking a heavy handed and monolithic approach to community issues, all the way to default non-federation with new instances. All of which, after taking a look around, seem quite “un-Lemmy”. My suggestion is one of perspective and tone. Lemmy has wonderfully rough edges, but I like to think about it like crashing on a friend’s couch vs. staying at a hotel. A more homely experience perhaps, but much more personable.

      Let’s get settled in, by all means, but let’s also take a look around and recognize that the system Lemmy and the larger Fediverse have built allowed it to be built not by some multi-billion dollar company or VC funded startup, but by just some regular folks. If that system got us all this far together, there might be something to trust there.

  • tenth@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My apologies in advance but I tried to read but could not understand the essential points

    Can you please summaries your posts into a tldr ?

    • kodaian@pawb.social
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      1 year ago

      Not op but the very short version of what I got from the post is this:

      Be patient and enjoy where we’re at right now; we’re part of a new, different community that isn’t reddit. Respect that, and if you can, help it grow in a new, better way while respecting its differences.

      Edit: I just saw that OP responded to your comment lower down after I wrote my comment. I’ll still leave this here cause why not.

      • tenth@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thanks for your reply. Your version is much easier to understand. No offence to the OP but it was my comprehension

  • TheInsane42@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Totally agree.

    For the forum options that are on the internet, I see it evolve from loads of self hosted fora (loads of accounts) to one central environment (1 ceo to rule them all) to federated. This is how everything seems to evolve as well, internet, political systems as well as how countries stand in the world. Can’t wait to see where it all leads. (and kick-off a few instances myself)

  • tenth@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My apologies in advance but I tried to read but could not understand the essential points

    Can you please summaries your posts into a tldr?

    • the_kung_fu_emu@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I’ll give it a shot!

      If we’re new users, where we are at now (Lemmy) is different than the sites we used to frequent in subtle but important ways.

      I believe those differences are an important reason why Lemmy has cultivated such a vibrant and positive community up to this point.

      I believe it is important that new users unfamiliar with the space allow Lemmy patience as issues caused by the recent influx are dealt with in a uniquely “Lemmy” way.

      I believe it is this uniquely “Lemmy” way of solving problems that sets it apart from the “corporate” alternative.