Like, if you're totally fine with not being able to effectively moderate a server you operate, then by all means, test out #kbin and #lemmy, but encouraging folks to use either en-mass as if they're anywhere near the calibre of Mastodon or Pixelfed* then you're in for a very very bad time.
Alpha software does need alpha users to test and provide feedback, but we should be VERY careful recommending alpha software to mainstream massive audiences as an alternative to $centralisedPlatform.
hanks for doing this @thisismissem -- looking forward to the fuler report. History unsurpriingly repeats itself: "Get ready for trolls, hate speech, harassment, spam, porn, and disinformation" and "Invest in moderation tools" were two of the tpics I covered in "Don't tell people "it's easy", and six more things Kbin, Lemmy, and the fediverse can learn from Mastodon" https://privacy.thenexus.today/kbin-lemmy-fediverse-learnings-from-mastodon/
@thisismissem It is unfortunate timing as kbin only recently opened to the public (just a few months ago) and this was just too much growth, too soon. I hope that fediverse developers like yourself can continuing providing guidance and contributions rather than abandoning support altogether for the platform. Thanks for your review of the platforms!
@box464 yeah, I'm not saying abandon either lemmy or kbin, just stop promoting them to regular web users as a viable Reddit alternative, because it's simply not right now. Maybe in another 6 months to 2 years of development.
@thisismissem How hard would it be to make an easy to plugin moderation tool for server admins that would work across ActivityPub based services?
I was thinking of a way to have another program monitor the incoming and outgoing posts and moderate that directly. Then just have the program run alongside the main service.
Note: I still need to read the ActivityPub specs in full so this could be a pipe dream.
@thisismissem I really want to get into coding work for fediverse related software.
Designing something that works for any service seems like a good thing to look into. Mastodon, Lemmy and Kbin use ActivityPub mostly so I planned on looking into that protocol first.
Although Hubzilla uses several protocols and some other services probably do too. Not sure how to design a tool for all of them.
@Zach777 right, but you'll still need to do work in each of these projects.. ActivityPub is just a small (but important) part of these software services.
So, for instance, you could write a proxy that parses ActivityPub requests, and then does something with just the Flag activities, but that'd only give you a small snippet of the data needed for moderation, and you'd still need to integrate software-specific APIs to perform the actual moderation action.
@thisismissem I figured. My original thought was to make a sort of main stream reader that would have plugins to interface with the various services it would be used for.
@Zach777 yeah, it's arguably a lot more complex than that. I've a reasonably good idea of what's needed, but it'll be at least 3-6 months of heavy development work.
@thisismissem@Zach777 happy that #Hubzilla popped up :-) I am no fan of its UX among other thungs, but it is a different take on architecture, in that lemmy-like or pixelfed-like services are plug-ins, and rich authentication and authorization options (basically, account-level moderation) and service building blocks are the core.
then i will move my pleroma server to pleroma.ownyourdata.site, literally right now i'm in the middle of setting up our kbin server for use at the kbin subdomain, etc etc.
for about a dozen different fedi "services" (including nextcloud, mattermost, etc.). choose your own fediverse adventure.
the end goal is to have a user just register one identity @ownyourdata.site, but then be able to interact (transparently) on all the different subdomains they wish to, using the associated "primary" account.
originally i thought maybe we need to re-write a whole new mega-client backend but then i realized we can just handle all of that internally for the user. they sign up for the one account, then there's (for example) a pulldown to:
Make me look like twitter
Make me look like Instagram
...
then the user also has a new "mixed media" timeline that includes all of the variety of different "instance data types" in one aggregated feed.
wow that was a mouthful! do you get it? i'm working on a deck rn.
@pinkyfloyd@thisismissem Sounds interesting. Have you looked at Hubzilla? They seem to have done something similar while also allowed user centered decentralization.
Basically a user can clone their account and have it mirrored perfectly to other servers in case one goes down. Mainly possible because of the Zot protocol.
@Zach777@pinkyfloyd hey, could you two discuss this in a separate thread / not tag me, as your conversation is now just noise in my notifications. Thanks!
@thisismissem I'm not really involved in the administration or moderation side of things, but my experimentation on the user side definitely suggests that everything is very much still in alpha state. Definitely a promising concept, but not something I'd be comfortable putting much faith in at the moment.
@FieryDarkstar yeah, it's very early days — I've no doubt that either kbin or lemmy will grow up to be a fantastic piece of software in the future for folks who like forum/reddit-style social media.
However, right now, it's just not there where it needs to be for mass-adoption
@thisismissem meh. This sounds a little too “parental” to me. I think adults seeking something new can handle some bumps in the road on the way to something new and better. If you cannot handle that, I doubt you can even figure out how to sign up for #lemmy and #kbin. While I see how you are trying to brag on mastodon and pixelfed, this just comes across as elitist to me.
@richie510 this is really the wrong way of looking at it. “some bumps" is definitely not what the lack of moderation tooling is, that's going to be a show-stopper for preventing yourself from getting in very big legal trouble, as well as having people get angry at you for abuse they receive through a service you operate.
I'm not bragging on Mastodon and Pixelfed, I'm simply stating that they both have reasonably comprehensive moderation tools.
@richie510 to make an analogy, Mastodon and Pixelfed are like reasonably modern cars, sure, they have their problems, but overall, you're fairly safe in them.
Lemmy and kbin are like a model-t ford from the 1900s: drive that on the roads today, and there's a very strong likelihood of serious harm due to lack of basic safety features.
@thisismissem I'm not totally opposed to the analogy, but I perceive it differently. I have driven a 1900s Ford Model T. They are very slow, and legally cannot be driven on the freeway. That makes them inherently somewhat safe as most loss of life car accidents happen on the freeway, not local surface streets. I'm witnessing moderation happen on lemmy.world, and I think it is working. The small user base and organic moderation feels like surface streets. Mastodon has already evolved to 45+ MPH.
@richie510 right, so you could manage with the moderation tools if you keep a small & closed community, but now we're at ~160k users, that's quite large, so we're very quickly on the onramp to the highway even though we're not highway safe.
@thisismissem The timing of the exodus is a bit unfortunate. Kbin has potential, but as you point out, it's still very early in development. The dev calls it "prototype". Nowhere feature complete or "production ready".
Lemmy has similar maturity issues, but also additionally the devs /operators of the main instance seem to have very have questionable views about human rights.
@KellyandRoger I've not personally used or seen the moderator tools there, but have seen screenshots & info shared by @dansup — have reached out asking for a demo / walk through
@thisismissem@dansup Thanks
I started using it properly yesterday and whilst I haven't fully identified the moderation functions from an individual's perspective, I think my only concern is the difference in functionality between the web site and Android app.
@thisismissem there's a subtle irony in posting this from hachyderm but good thread. Do you have anything like a comparative breakdown? Is one closer than the other to meeting a reasonable moderation level?
@stevelord lemmy definitely has "more" but we're comparing inches here when other fediverse software is miles ahead.
Also, hachyderm has a really great mod team, even if there are missteps or miscommunications. But also, Hachyderm is Mastodon, so has Mastodon's tools for moderating.
Goal eventually is to do a comparative review, but it's not the sort of thing that you do in response to massive enquiries about new software & moderating/deploying it.
I don't really agree with this. I'm running a kbin instance with open registration and it's been awesome
I know there isn't much by way of mod tools, but even then it has more than the reddit app. sure it's young, but everything starts that way. don't let that stop you from experimenting and having fun
@ivy@genebean I mean, there's basic things that aren't handled like, usernames and magazine names are case-sensitive at the moment, which allows me to create an Ivy@fedi196.gay and to impersonate you. Likewise, there's no way to distinguish local vs remote reports, and no way to see forwarded reports, and no tools to take action directly on reports. And no way to go from the admin user list to suspend or silence a user.
I do wish usernames were case insensitive, that does bug me a lot, but it's very easy for me as an admin and mod to just ban an account. suspending is something that's missing so I would have to jump to banning their account or changing their credentials so they can't log in. either way it's not great but I have never seen software come together so fast. the amount of features just in pull requests on the repo is crazy. sure more mod tools are important, but they are definitely on the way
@ivy I've absolutely no doubt that better mod tools will be added to at least kbin, but as of today, I can't recommend it due to the lack of them (same reason I couldn't recommend using BlueSky when it had absolutely zero moderation tools)
But we really need to move past every project reinventing the same tools.
I mean, to be fair, kbin works very differently than lemmy under the hood. one major point is that I'm writing this reply within kbin as it fully supports both microblog and thread content. when it comes to mod tools, it's not reinventing the same tools, it's implementing the tools. you can't just copy and paste the tools from one project to another, they need to be built based on things like how the database is structured and the overall architecture of the project.
I will continue recommending people to try kbin, because I know I will do my best to keep my instance a safe and comfortable space and any other admin should do the same. it won't be long until we get better tools, but what we have right now does work well enough
@ivy@genebean it is reinventing when it comes to the UI, the accessibility, the audit logs, etc. That can all be generalised to a large extent, at least as far as Instance-level Moderation goes.
Yes, you'd still need to implement APIs to handle the moderation actions, but the rest would be built for you.
have you used kbin yet? it's ui is very new and I don't know of anything else on the fedi that really matches it. for accessibility, it already has alt text and being a web app, it should be usable with a screen reader. there are some things that need to be worked out but that happens through trial and error. if no one tries anything new because it isn't perfect yet, then nothing new will ever get built.
I know the tooling isn't really there yet, but I've been compensating for it by keeping a much closer eye on the instance. the tooling needs to be much better for long term use, but we shouldn't have to wait long
@thisismissem as someone now on kbin, the options for me really are: kbin or don't use fediverse. I can't get into the mastodon-side of things and I haven't really found anything close to what's comfortable for me. is there something you'd suggest using instead?
@thisismissem Anytime I bring this up (or other similar concerns about accessibility and safety) I am met with "but its just a couple people putting their passion into an open source project, gee why don't YOU help them 😢 " like that absolves people of responsibility when building community platforms like these.
@hbuchel yeah, we do need to stop assuming that people who raise issues or ideas should contribute directly to the development of open-source software.
In my case, I do actually have some experience in most of the languages that Fediverse servers are written in, like, I can read PHP but it's been like 15 years since I've written it, so I can kinda contribute, but only in ways that make best use of my time.
The fine folks over at Beehaw.org have also written up a post full of moderation features that they'd love to see implemented in #kbin: https://discuss.online/post/12787
Edit: I think I meant #lemmy there. Oh well. Both would stand to benefit from seeing that post.
So to keep me permanently working on the #fediverse & building tools needed for moderation, trust & safety, etc in a full time capacity, I'd need approximately €4000/mo.
That's only 200 people each donating €20 a month on my Ko-Fi, maybe less if certain plans in the works come to fruition.
(as I'd have to pay for health insurance at freelance rates, so up to €960/mo — I've been paying €210/mo the past 4-6 months whilst I've had no income at all, but now my savings are gone).
@sefufuller grants are currently only for fully open source which doesn't sound like the stuff that's needing building, not entirely. I've looked at it, but there's a lot of work, but no guarantee in funding. I'd rather just be building.
@thisismissem@stux@ruud@feditips
It's easy to want to make the same comparison for #Reddit as the Twitter migration but that seems to be a false equivalence.
#Kbin and #Lemmy aren't anywhere near as polished as Mastodon so first impressions will be bad when regular users join and expect things to work.
@cragsand@thisismissem@stux@ruud@feditips Yeah I mean…yeah, they’re rough. So was Mastodon. But we have a horde of Reddit users looking for a home, and we need to be there for them. Contribute to your local federated instances, contribute to development, and make the fediverse a nice place to be. We can’t afford to wait and deploy it later - we need it now.
@nicolas I'm gonna say: software engineers that use reddit & write php/javascript: contribute to Lemmy or kbin!
The average web user should probably stay well clear though, and we shouldn't be marketing these towards non-technical users at this time, as their lack of moderation features would make that unethical and irresponsible.
@thisismissem I mean I agree, we need all the development we can get.
Devils advocate though: it’s more unethical and irresponsible to send users to a site that is clearly user hostile and is currently in the process of kicking out protestors to replace with yes-men(persons).
Freedom overrides your moderation. Reddits moderation is quite Orwellian, right now. Better to be free than safe.
@nicolas I'm more saying "there isn't an alternative to reddit on the fediverse at present, but there are two projects under development (lemmy and kbin) — the best alternative right now would be to host your own forum using software like Discourse or similar forum software”
@cragsand right, the motivation behind my post is to very concretely say that Lemmy and kbin are not to Reddit what Mastodon is to Twitter.
Seriously, there's basic user safety functionality missing, no real moderation tools (you can only access its limited tools via the [...] on each post, not from an admin dashboard.
We should NOT be suggesting reddit users come and try lemmy & kbin as a replacement for Reddit, that is very dangerous.
@thisismissem@cragsand Have you tried Calckey? I’ve been a Mastodon user for months now, but yesterday joined a Clackey instance to try it. The UI seems pretty polished compared to other fediverse projects.
@mustafaalbazy@cragsand I've not, I'm quite happy using Mastodon. I have reached out to Chris Trottier asking if he could demo the moderation tooling in calckey to me.
That said, I have reviewed parts of calckey's code, and.. um.. just on that alone, no thanks for me (I disagree with it's architecture and design decisions & think it's horribly inefficient on the database)
@ccunning oh, absolutely! I was part of that wave with FOSTA/SESTA and switter.at (I was an early switter.at moderator, and ended up contributing several moderation tools to mastodon following my experiences of trying to moderate an instance growing at double every hour or day)
@cragsand I’ve pretty much decided to wait and see on #Lemmy or #kbin for the time being, and have just migrated here. I believe in the #fediverse but the timing was not quite right with those two.
@thisismissem Great, thank you - I fit that bill, and I'm digesting a lot of moderation, federation and self-sovereign identity distribution stuff right now. Very interested in it.
@thisismissem Yeah, open-source doesn't automatically means safe.
Can't wait for AI tool, that would run locally, and give each person opportuinity to audit, whatever open-source software they want, AND (optional) explain what lines of code do.
And of course part of that AI audit, would be security, privacy flaws, leaks etc... Perhaps even offer a feature to optimaze the software for your specific hardware, making it energy, and resource efficient.
@thisismissem So that I can understand the situation, please could you explain in what way the moderation tools are deficient? Or is your review available ? Many thanks
@thisismissem it's a shame moderation is not in place before growth but that's almost bound to be the case, as with Mastodon and every other online service.
Saying wait until it's there hampers growth and without that you won't get moderation tools so I don't agree with your conclusion.
Reviewing has value, highlighting deficiencies and lobbying for improvements is great, but hampering growth is not IMO. It's also good to let users know the risks of joining so they can make that choice.
@markhughes I'm saying it's far too early to recommend mass adoption of these platforms, as critical trust & safety features are missing or broken. If work was done to get these platforms up to a moderate-able state, then I'd say go all in, but until that work is done, fast growth will be at the risk of your users and you reputation.
@thisismissem I'm trying to work out if DEfederation on communities-based platforms like lemmy and kbin will create problems which are more obvious and impactful there re not being able to see a subset of posts/replies in a community (hosted by a 3rd instance, where instance 1 has defed'ed instance 2) than what we have with accounts/people-based platforms like Mastodon, where it's more of a momentary inconvenience.
Moderation compromises may be harder there, even once the tech is in place???
@emmaaum I think it'd have to handle this and show a tombstone post <defederated post> as a comment in the thread (assuming that doesn't break the thread)
@thisismissem sorry to be piling on top of an already lengthy conversation. Out of curiosity, in your research, have you seen evidence of developers deciding to intentionally leave out certain "features" because of mental health risks and risks of bad social behaviour?
For example, devs of mastodon refused to implement quote tweeting functionality because it encourages outrage (or something akin to that). Have you seen evidence for such deliberations among devs of Lemmy / Kbin?
@eternaltyro not at this time, I'm not as familiar with kbin & lemmy developments, I can't speak to their leadership or development models or practices. I can only for now speak as to how the software exposes moderation functionality.
@fool 32,000 isn't "small" (kbin), nor is 138,000 (lemmy). Small is 5-10k or less.
I'm personally not a reddit user, and my report is by no means 100% comprehensive — I'm not a researcher publishing reports as my day job. I'm mostly looking at how moderation features compare & interact across the fediverse.
@thisismissem hello Emelia, it'd be nice if you publish your full report so that @ernest can take a look at it. He's the main developer of kbin and the admin of kbin.social. He's very responsive to the community and works with a surprising amount of transparency. Although he might be busy right now, I believe this would be something that he is interested in.
@thisismissem@stux@ruud@feditips as my beloved townie subreddit went dark, I vowed to bring up a fediverse-based alternative for our folks before Reddit’s July 1 API cutoff date.
Sounds like I spoke unwisely. Much appreciated heads up.
@Cmdrmoto like, if you’re doing it as a closed registration server, it might be okay, but I'd definitely recommend starting small, and learning the moderation features before going to invite heaps of people.
@Cmdrmoto Alternatively, maybe running a Discourse forum for your community or something might be better? It all depends on what your community is like and how adept that are with technology and how problematic they might make use of said technology.
@thisismissem or just accepting that, now the subreddit is public again, the mood has turned, and it would be like trying to pry my parents from their Facebook groups.
@nevial I'm trying to be very objective, and not factor in personal matters into what a project does or doesn't do — we can totally discuss and be aware of certain project's leadership's issues, but when assessing just on the level of “can we moderate this effectively" I'm not going to conflate their individual issues with that.
@retiolus it’s too long to share on mastodon, that's all. I don't currently have a good place to put it, but am looking at creating a general “Moderation Report" that looks at all fediverse software and how moderation works on them and between them.
@narF@retiolus for now, it's a post in the IFTAS matrix server. I'm intending on working on a fuller report for moderation tooling across the entire fediverse, and how those tools interop.
@thisismissem@stux@ruud thank you all for it. Can't say I'm surprised, but it definitely is an issue due to the timing: the Reddit migration is happening now. I hope the platform devs find the help they need to bring the features up to par in the shortest time to cope with the growth.
So ummm, weird thing about this is that the cat is out of the bag already, right? @ruud , you’re already running the biggest instance that many are happily moving to, and Reddit users know of lemmy as the alternative on the fediverse.
The Star Trek subreddit (r/startrek and two other related subreddits) literally moved over to their own instance, indefinitely it seems (startrek.webpage).
So, though it’s beyond the scope of your review, and maybe expertise, what can and should be done now by users, admins and devs alike?
How bad is it and what sort of problems are likely to arise (I know you haven’t published your report yet, but a basic heads up maybe)? Is there anything that users and moderators can do collectively at a cultural level to cover the gap?
Have you contacted the devs of lemmy and kbin (as overrun as they may be)?
As naive as this may sound, are there platform format differences that play into this and if so how (I’m thinking about threads being more publicly visible and having up and downvotes as some sort of signal).
@maegul@stux@ruud for now, I'm not directly involved in the development of kbin or lemmy. However, I'm almost certain that the issues that lead to me making this recommendation have been raised / are reasonably easy to see.
I think it's really just a case of very alpha software needing a bunch more time to mature a bit before throwing thousands of users at it.
@maegul@stux@ruud It's easy enough to look at the tools that Mastodon or Pixelfed have for performing moderation (or asking someone to show you) to develop decent tools.
However, really, I think the answer is that we need to stop reinventing the same damn tools for every single piece of fediverse software.
Everything on the fedi needs to be able to block instances, block users, remove content, etc.
However, really, I think the answer is that we need to stop reinventing the same damn tools for every single piece of fediverse software.
Yes!!
Also, I’m not a lemmy/kbin dev or contributor, just in case it wasn’t clear. Just thinking about the present moment where there are things with clear momentum already at play, and what can be done like right now especially if the fediverse is going to try to avoid another moderation “incident” (I’m thinking of the issues BIPOC people have had on mastodon, though I have no special knowledge regarding that).
From what you’re saying though, it’s only a matter of time before at least some Reddit migrants encounter “unpleasant” things, realise the fediverse is still a prototype, and maybe move off unimpressed?
For example, one major lemmy instance has also defederated over what seems to be insufficient moderation tooling being unable to keep up (see https://lemmy.ml/post/1281130). It’s already been cited as “splitting the lemmyverse” already.
Not your problem or fault of course, really just trying to characterise the moment as someone who doesn’t know the details of moderation.
@maegul it's more, as an administrator of a server, you do have certain obligations to your users (and the law). e.g., if you don't have a way for a moderator to easily see the things to moderate, along with buttons to take actions reasonably quickly and accurately, you're gonna have a very bad time when a bunch of bad actors roll into town.
Yes, there should be some friction on some moderation actions, but you shouldn't have to go searching for the buttons to do the action.
@thisismissem@stux@ruud@feditips Yeah, I've been involving myself with a development focused instance of Lemmy, and there's a lot of work to do. It's a lot of good, important work, but it's definitely not ready for the big leagues yet.
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