I recommended piefed.social just because it's the flagship piefed instance. What I really love is the software. Namely the on boarding where piefed asks you of topics one might be interested in, subscribe to those topics and their comms, upfront saying one can block certain terms and the user capability to make multicomms. Because what I struggled with the last 2 times trying Lemmy is the content, of the lack of "helping hand" and tips to control a new user's experience having All firehose of content. My third time I tried again starting with Lemmy, then mbin asi read around, then right around the birth of this account, piefed showed up. Instantly clicked, and I stayed.

So probably other piefed based instance, but I've yet to decide which one. I'm leaning towards piefed.zip just because they block the least instances I've seen. But that will be for my own next home, not necessarily for all strangers that I might recommend

Edit: also it must be some degree of irony someone is accusing others of vote manipulation, yet their own comms only allow upvotes. Hmm

Farming engagement has no incentive.

I'm not so sure as I recall a power user on Reddit who consistently hit the front page as he figured out how to engage users (best times to post, which topics, phrasing, secondary accounts for initial boost). I forget his name, but he effectively was researching how to grab attention and then I think even went to marketing firms with his research on his viral methods.

At the time I recall people saying to me "it's just karma, it has no value" but attention was the value, and attention is something that companies can and will pay money for. Lemmy is not necesarily immune to this gamification of content

wow, look at that!

the thing I complained about came true.

piefed was just a grift to kill federation.

piefed was just a grift to kill federation.

what

This is what I'm saying. Posting/voting isn't a limited resource that can be distributed unfairly. People do it or don't do it as much or as little as they want. Why restrict that on an ecosystem that you want to grow?

If the issue is compute, or resources to run the compute, or admins to maintain the compute environments, then focusing on those issues would be better. Ask for donations to add a new server, encourage people who can to set up their own servers to distribute the load, request that more people play an active role as admins. But restricting engagement/activity of your users sounds like the beginning of the end of your ecosystem...

Reddit is different for multiple reasons.

It has karma, the fediverse doesn't.

It has millions of daily users, the fediverse doesn't.

It's a publicly traded company with a profit motive, the fediverse isn't.

It allows paid advertisements, the fediverse doesn't.

There's therefore a monetary incentive to farming karma on reddit, there isn't on the fediverse.

Some people farm karma on reddit accounts just to sell them to advertisers or propagandists. This wouldn't work on the fediverse for the above reasons, and because there's no market for it for the same reasons.

Reddit feeds are governed by closed-source algorithms designed by a centralized company, fediverse feeds are not.

And lastly, you said yourself that the guy used secondary accounts to boost himself. This is voting abuse and should be dealt with whenever it can be positively identified.

Like I said, he's really just concerned with playing to a crowd that I'm not part of, so yeah.

Yes it's fantastic how PieFed has absolutely solved the problem of onboarding. I even recommend it to people who are adamant about not switching from their existing Lemmy accounts - just taking a look at the PieFed onboarding can help inform things on their existing account, plus there's always the chance that they may fall in love and stay... :-)

Although now that PieFed is outright censoring votes, that's not going to play well with people trying to escape The Algorithm, which decides for them what they are allowed to see or not. An opt-in new sorting function would have been entirely different but as it stands the only way to opt-out is to avoid every instance that implements the vote quota, which is not easily or authoritatively even possible to find out before joining (and could get changed upon each subsequent update).

Maybe you can try to convey the controversy - like PieFed is great in some ways but others may not like it for "reasons", but ofc that increases the complexity of the recommendation. And it's not like Lemmy has zero controversy to its name as well. So perhaps just include one of each, without any explanation?

Also, use of a 3rd-party app negates most of PieFed's onboarding utility also, which is a further complication.

PieFed.zip is a fine recommendation - maybe no need to go into any of the above and just recommend checking it out? If 3rd-party apps don't support the onboarding, that's kinda on them and isn't PieFed's fault.

Edit: oops I seem to have misunderstood what you meant in your edit paragraph. Well, I'll leave this here in case it is interesting but it is not so precisely relevant (although it does kinda touch on the subject somewhat in general?), I see that and apologize. I disagree about labeling downvotes being disabled as "manipulation" bc anything that is done TRANSPARENTLY is not nefarious. While if stated plainly and clearly in the rules (I haven't checked that for this community, so take the following with a grain of salt), then it seems fine? Users can simply choose to use another community if they don't like this one - or even make their own. When you are in someone else's house, you follow their rules.

In reality, this shit is complicated, yo. Like PugJesus did not "manipulate" so much as he "affected" the visibility of content, using traditional means of using votes for the exact purpose they were designed for. But then is Rimu the one now "manipulating" the votes...? In one sense yes but perhaps in the greater sense no, bc it isn't a nefarious underhanded changing of them so much as an unclearly-stated alteration of the literal rules of how votes work. So manipulation of the rules rather than of votes themselves directly, and ostensibly for some kind of a purpose, albeit a very very bad one that rather than providing an opt-in new scoring scheme to not allow highly active voters as much influence as previously, instead altering the vote counts themselves directly.

In short, Rimu has just implemented an "Algorithm" that now controls what we see on the Threadiverse, deciding for everyone using it (even people on Lemmy! if they are federating with a community located on PieFed) what we are allowed to know or not. Which brings PieFed instances closer to acting more like Reddit, Threads, and X(hitter), at a time when people are desperately trying to get AWAY from such.

So while I disagree that disabilng downvotes is similar in degree (quantity of impact), yes I see the connection that it is similar in kind (quality).

Basically every PieFed community would now need a warning message attached about how it does not "fully" federate and has various caveats attached, which even that would be insufficient since iirc this change also affects votes sent to communities located on Lemmy instances as well.

Honestly this change is SO BAD that I expect it will be rolled back soon. Even then though... it will still have ripple effects for years to come.

Aw hell naw it's that guy? Yeah the history posts are the best thing!

Wait are you really leaving?

when piefed was publicly released there was a concerted effort to flood lemmy federated platforms. People were writing, now obvious, LLM generated comments about how much better piefed was over lemmy.

I even went as far as to call piefed a cult with how viciously piefed users "defended" piefed.

I warned people that the movements seemed unusual for a new platform and more like a hostile takeover. I was downvoted and told to stfu.

so here we are today. I'm not entirely sure why a social media platform would want to do what piefed is doing other than just attempting to fracture and destroy the federation.

PieFed.social is outright censoring votes now, deciding what people are allowed to see or not - and this affects not only people choosing to use PieFed, but also Lemmings (& users of Mbin, Mastodon, Friendica, nodeBB, etc.) as well. The Algorithm has returned to social media, taking away your personal control and instead putting it into the hands of Big Daddy who knows best what's good for you.

Then again, Lemmy.ml is famous for doing this consistently for literally YEARS. Every single community on there is an echo chamber where certain "undesirable" types of people are not allowed to interact. You could prove me wrong btw by going into any active community and speaking plainly in a negative manner about Russia, China, or North Korea. I'll wait...? 🤪

Remember that at one time Lemmy devs also implemented a slur word filter, DIRECTLY into the codebase, in a HARD-CODED manner no less, and when the community cried out against that, Nutomic said in response:

If you dont like it, fork it. Stop bothering us about it, we will never fully remove the slur filter.

We hoped for better from PieFed. Instead we merely got "different". Though the pull towards authoritarianism is hard to resist - so often it is the quickest and by far least painful path towards a desirable solution (see e.g. Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars), and I can't fully judge anyone for considering it. Worse, it might be the height of naïveté to even so much as think that anything else could exist outside of pure theory (aka fantasy)? After all, who is offering a "better" platform - YOU? (me? anyone else stepping up to offer?)

So then what is "the solution", in your mind? Based on your instance, I am guessing you will say Lemmy? In that case, what about PieFed.zip, running its own version of PieFed with the voting quota anti-feature stripped out? Maybe at the end of the day, the software becomes just a starting point, and it's the instance admins that are the ones who decide which parts of the software will run or not.

(I still cannot see myself donating to the further development of Lemmy software though - if only for the reason that the enormous amount of time spent moderating the Lemmy.ml instance seems to leave little time leftover to actually work on new code changes, though ngl the genocidal attitude towards actively wishing the deaths of everyone living in a Western civilization does put me off a tad bit as well!)

PugJesus is on an instance (server) called piefed, which is run by complete idiots, who have now decided that each user can only make x upvotes per day. PugJesus is a very active user, and will almost certainly go over that limit. So they're quitting in protest.

You will not be affected since you are on a different server.

Yeah. Continuing to post on Piefed.social feels futile, and I just... don't have the energy to migrate and rebuild my comms again.

I'm not happy about it, and I wish I had more to give. But I also learned a long time ago not to press myself beyond my limits.

I feel like we're having two separate conversations.

What the Lemmy devs do with their instance is separate from what they do with their software, imo.

I've said this many times before but as I see it we have two bad choices:

Lemmy, whose devs are arguably questionable with worrysome personal politics and philosophy but who do not bake said philosophy into their software.

Or Piefes, whose devs are arguably much more acceptable and well-meaning, but who bakes their social philosophy into their software.

To me, these are both bad options, but I'll pick the side that develops agnostically without nannying tendencies. That they chose to enact stricter political bounds within their home territory is irrelevant to me because I don't spend time there and that feels well within their rights without encroaching on the autonomy of others, to me.

Or, in short: I don't care even a little bit about Lemmy.ml, I only care about Lemmy.

thank you so much for all that you gave to us. You were one of the cornerstones of the fediverse and I thank you for all the information you gave us. I hope you have a great life. All the best.

Lemmy, whose devs are arguably questionable with worrysome personal politics and philosophy but who do not bake said philosophy into their software.

But as OpenStars pointed out, the Lemmy devs did just such a thing in a much more egregious (hard-coded) way previously. The slur filter is now optional after considerable time and outcry.

Piefed's vote restriction is an option that admins of any instance can fiddle with, or, effectively, disable entirely. Like the slur filter currently in Lemmy, and thus less forced than the slur filter as it was initially rolled out on Lemmy. The issue, for me, is that I made a home on Piefed.social, specifically, and now it's... not home for me.

If you don't care about what admins do on their own instance, this shouldn't bother you. I care - both in the abstract and insofar as it affects me, and so am... winding down my participation.

All I’m saying is that, regardless of the reasons, too much internet can create brainworms, bad politics, and toxicity.

Imagine saying this as an Uyghur genocide denier and PRC bootlicker.

Even if it were true that he had no choice but to be terminally online, his personality is insufferable, he digs in hard to his positions and can’t be reasoned with.

Sorry that you don't like it when I provide evidence and you refuse to read it, as in the comment sections you linked.

I believe he’s had drama with trans spaces (something about neopronouns, it was a long time ago) before because of that sort of thing.

"Something about neopronouns"

Ah, this old canard. Unsurprising that you'd spread more blatant misinformation.

I believe my last conversation with him involved him screaming at me and calling me a fascist because I said that I wouldn’t believe claims without evidence.

Amusing that you literally link to me providing evidence multiple times.

And then following me around calling me a fascist while still refusing to provide a shred of evidence for his claims.

Sorry that you don't like it when it's pointed out that you're an Uyghur Genocide denier.

Aren't you supposed to be logging off? Now that you've noticed I've unblocked you, I doubt you'll be able to stay away for a week.

Aren’t you supposed to be logging off?

Didn't you claim to have me blocked?

Sorry that I'm active in my fucking farewell thread, I know that's such a radical idea.

Now that you’ve noticed I’ve unblocked you, I doubt you’ll be able to stay away for a week.

lmao.

Reddit wasn't initially different though is my point -- it wasn't publicly traded, it had trickles of users initially, and didn't have adverts. Hell, it popularized the canary reporting as part of its yearly ethics report.

Some feddit instances are more popular than others, and once they gain traction amongst the masses, might be rife for viral media targeting. Yes, the defederated architecture in theory prevents against that, but if one server swallows up all the users by offering something the others can't, then that somewhat easy balance between instances might get upset

Who knows what the future holds, but we've seen what happened to other sites and it would be epitome of hubris to believe it couldn't happen here

Didn’t you claim to have me blocked?

I did have you blocked. I unblocked when I heard you left.

Sorry that I’m active in my fucking farewell thread

Your farewell thread from two days ago? Quite the Southern Goodbye.

Not sure why that's the last straw? I thought that feature was why we like this place??

I did have you blocked. I unblocked when I heard you left.

What's the logic there, I'm curious. Other than, of course, the usual logic of repeating blatant misinformation and genocide denial wherever you can?

Your farewell thread from two days ago? Quite the Southern Goodbye.

Sorry that you think a thread is timed like a real-world conversation? lmao.

What’s the logic there, I’m curious.

I prefer to keep a short blocklist.

Sorry that you think a thread is timed like a real-world conversation? lmao.

I'm just wondering what the statute of limitations is here. Are you still gonna be in your farewell thread next week? Next month?

Don't worry, I'll block you again soon. I know you can't resist engaging with me.

I’m just wondering what the statute of limitations is here. Are you still gonna be in your farewell thread next week? Next month?

I'll probably check up intermittently as long as it's active, and when it's inactive, I won't be here. Sorry that you think it's regulated by some law?

Don’t worry, I’ll block you again soon. I know you can’t resist engaging with me.

Cute coming from someone who unblocked me specifically to engage with me. :)

I responded to your dogshit any time I see it, regardless of whether or not you had me blocked, so I don't know what you think that blocking me changed, lmao.

Vote limiting was only implemented (or even suggested) earlier this month.

I came to the Fediverse in the hopes of cultivating a non-corporate-controlled forum/social media alternative to Reddit. I came to Piefed.social in the hopes of avoiding the fascist genocide denying devs of Lemmy.

Vote limiting isn't nearly as bad as fascism or genocide denial. But vote limiting makes my experience significantly shittier, and I'm only here, ultimately, as long as the experience is more good (by my perception) than bad.

Now that the experience is more frustrating than not, my choices are to migrate (and thus, since most of my activity is concentrated in comms that are currently on Piefed.social, moving and trying to rebuild the communities from scratch, for a fourth time in my Fediverse career), or to simply... stop using the Fediverse.

I don't have the energy to migrate a fourth time, though I wish I did. The thought itself is... crushing in its Sisyphean futility. So... I'll probably just go back to doomscrolling Tumblr and playing games with my free time, instead of shitposting about history.

Sorry that you think it’s regulated by some law?

Typically people leave after saying goodbye but ok.

I responded to your dogshit any time I see it, regardless of whether or not you had me blocked, so I don’t know what you think that blocking me changed, lmao.

Well, when I see you baselessly accuse me of things, I of course reply to defend myself. And then you reply and we get into the whole thing where I keep asking you to provide a shred of evidence to substantiate your beliefs, and you reply that one must not test our Lord God the State Department and that blessed is he who believes the US government without having seen and skepticism is the tool of the devil, blah blah blah. And since you can't seem to resist preaching your holy gospel or chastising the faithless skeptics, I think I'm making it harder for you to abide by your decision to leave. So, for both of our sakes, I will now block you again.

Typically people leave after saying goodbye but ok.

Imagine going to a farewell party and being surprised that the person leaving is attending, lmao.

And then you reply and we get into the whole thing where I keep asking you to provide a shred of evidence to substantiate your beliefs, and you reply that one must not test our Lord God the State Department and that blessed is he who believes the US government without having seen and skepticism is the tool of the devil, blah blah blah.

Cute, considering that you've been in numerous disputes on that matter, and were provided with reliable sources which you rejected as "Adrian Zenz" despite the fact that the vast majority of the evidence provided in said sources had nothing to do with Zenz.

But hey, genocide deniers aren't here because you listen to evidence. You're here because you're fascist bootlickers who love the slaughter of minorities, as long as it's by 'your' camp.

So, for both of our sakes, I will now block you again.

Don't know why you felt the need to announce that since pretty clearly blocking me is apparently meaningless to you, but okay.

If it sounded like what I was trying to say was "PugJesus should have just picked and stuck with Lemmy!", then I apologize, because that is enormously not what I'm trying to say.

If anything I'm saying I understand your frustration and was just lamenting a lack of a good solution, and attempting to point to the insufficiency of all available options.

I only targeted towards Piefed because of the kind of "kumbuya" idealists that claim it's superior while being blind to its flaws.

I don't disagree with you, your frustrations, or your decision to step away rather than re-invest somewhere with another shaky foundation

I agreed with you up until the slur filter:

If you dont like it, fork it. Stop bothering us about it, we will never fully remove the slur filter.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me, unless you're one of those weirdos who just NEEDS to say slurs

I didn't take you as saying that.

I'm just saying that there isn't a difference here between the slur filter as is and the vote limiter as is in terms of implementing philosophy into the software. Both are options for admins in the software, not mandatory.

The Lemmy devs, however, initially attempted to make the slur filter mandatory, meaning that their attempt to implement their philosophy into the software was much more heavy-handed, and only walked-back after considerable outcry.

Basically, Rimu's choice here is immensely shitty, but is fundamentally more a choice of Rimu as an admin than as a dev. As a dev choice, the voting limit is of questionable utility, but not forced on instances - it's a number that admins can easily (effectively) abolish.

It's much more a Piefed.social problem than a Piefed (all instances) problem.

The hostile takeover before piefed I remember was the failed forced migration of 196 from Blahaj to .world. And that was by a gaggle of transphobes who ultimately opposed Blahaj’s zero tolerance policy on transphobia. Those transphobes have considered Blahaj to be a tankie instance and all of Lemmy to be tankie since.

... it's astounding that you think the original 196 mod team, which was comprised primarily of trans folk, left Blahaj because they were transphobes.

I guess I'm just not enough of a "free speech absolutionist" to think that a slur filter, which admittedly I'm still not in support of as I think we're all adults who can police themselves, is on the same level of nannying and philosophical injection as literal vote restriction.

But I see your point, thank you for clarifying and clearing up my misunderstanding

For a Lemmy.world example, I was discussing medieval siege warfare (either I or someone else was quoting a primary source, I think?) when I found out that either 'fags' or 'faggots' was censored.

Had no clue before that.

Essentially, nearly every slur either has other usages (I'm reminded of overzealous word filters censoring niggardly and snigger, or 'a chink in the armor') or may still be relevant in the context of quotation (calling someone 'cunty' is being Australian, probably; calling someone 'chink' is being racist; knowing which 5-letter profanity starting with 'c' was used may be relevant in forming an opinion on someone's behavior).

Slurs should get the ban hammer, not an autocensor; and bans should be handed out by people who can judge context.

Good points, and also good thing I'm not a moderator

Of the two, I regard vote restriction as the more inconvenient and troublesome, certainly. But in terms of philosophy-to-code, it seems the same principle - giving admins tools in-line with the devs' values, rather than hard-coding those values into the software.

The more core issue is that Rimu, as an admin, has used that tool in a shitty way (restricting votes specifically to cut down the 'top voters', rather than any of the marginal utility uses).

That's completly misinterpretating the purpose and ideas of the vote quota. I don't understand your reaction on limiting the vote from the top 10% voters.

The voting quota is set above the average vote made by users. So most of users won't ever reach that limit. That meant 90% of users. For me it's a good thing to limit our interaction a little and our influence on the fediverse.

But if you disagree with the choice made by piefed's dev, you can try pylova from quokk.au. she will take a different path than Rimu and it will fit everyone because we will have different flavours of the same software. ;)

That’s completly misinterpretating the purpose and ideas of the vote quota. I don’t understand your reaction on limiteng the vote from top voter.

The voting quota is set above the average vote made by users. So most of users won’t ever reach that limit.

"We want less engagement and participation from the top users on our instance" is still "We want less engagement and participation on our instance"

That meant 90% of users. For me it’s a good thing to limit our interaction a little and our influence on the fediverse.

... so yes, it's exactly what the meme is saying. You want less engagement and participation on your instance.

But if you disagree with the choice made by piefed dev, you can try pylova from quokk.au. she will take a different path and it will fit everyone. ;)

I'm fucking through. I've moved my comms three times, building them up from scratch each time. I don't have a fourth in me, and the Fediverse isn't lively enough on my fields of interest for me to go without and just browse, even if I migrated only my account and not my comms.

I don't have another comm move in me, and I no longer trust the Piefed.social staff going forward, even if this is reversed. It's too big a breach in trust, and, what's worse, in-line with prior stated values and thinking. Not just some fluke or half-baked impulse.

I just didn't think those thoughts and values would be implemented into the fucking instance.

I'm out. I had three years, and they were fun, but this is it. You wanted fewer power users with 'outsized influence', enjoy one less.

Aww man, I'm sorry. You were always awesome, and boy do I understand not wanting to start over. The Fediverse is great in some ways, but the Roguelike Social Media aspect is... not it's most endearing feature.

I can't even savescum like I did with ADOM back on my shitty laptop in 2005 DX

That sucks man I enjoyed your memes. I get it though. Maybe after some time away you might want to come back, but either way, thank you for your contributions to the fediverse o7

But would restricting the votes of a single user really be, in any way, a remedy to that theoretical problem? Much less restricting them now, when the issue on the Fediverse is largely not enough activity, not excessive artificial activity? And specifically targeting users that are not creating artificial activity, but simply those who are creating 'too much' activity?

Rimu himself said that he didn't think that the top voters he was concerned with were bots or coordinated in any way. He just thought they were voting too much.

I'd argue that activity from a single user to overcome the sleepy shortcomings of other users just sways the fediverse overall towards that single user's preferences and beliefs. This might give a false idea of what the fediverse is actually about, as the silent majority are somewhat out-shouted by a vocal minority.

Yes it's stimulating and interesting, but I wouldn't describe it as balanced. I don't know what Rimu's motives are, but they do seem fairer w.r.t to the more silent users, even if those users may never post

Yeah... man, I understand the technical limitations but it sure would be convenient if you could transfer user profiles.

Well, I know I can't convince you, so, good luck on your life out there! :)

… so yes, it’s exactly what the meme is saying. You want less engagement and participation on your instance.

If we post a lot, why not. Yet we are both the top posters but that's not a good thing. I think that's a good way to limit the power we have on the fediverse and let other people express their opinion.

Even if we know jot thing, share lot things, i wouldn't mind if someone told me to slow down.

And i don't know where you got this idea that it was different. Since the beggining piefed tell how much hour we are connected and have a blocklist on far right website.

I consider it as part of our wellness to limit use of our screentime. But maybe you need it much more than us to escape this reality and be with the people you love.

I’m fucking through. I’ve moved my comms three times, building them up from scratch each time. I don’t have a fourth in me, and the Fediverse isn’t lively enough on my fields of interest for me to go without and just browse, even if I migrated only my account and not my comms.

That's both the curse and the joy of free software. I alway moved to follow my values even thought i lose a lot each time. In a sense that's also why i dom't blame reddit users, they have enough and don't want to change. They just want to be there with their friends. Sorry if the recent change didn't fit your needs. I though a pylova account would be enough for you (not migrating you communities). :(

Maybe you have an alternative idea to suggest to piefed dev but mind that's not a post quota but a vote quota.

Anyway, i understand if people desagree, i didn't suggest it but i agree with the core idea, the reasons behind it. If there is a counterargument, i can change my opinion.

Man, you comment far more than the average user, much less the 'silent majority'. The average user doesn't upvote much; they comment even less. Would it be 'fairer' for your comments to be limited? After all, you're a 'vocal minority' whose activity is swaying the Fediverse. Wouldn't it be 'fairer' if you participated less, regardless of the fact that your participation does not actually consume (meaningfully) limited resources or space?