I mean, that’s one part of it, but I do recommend reading the link on my comment here if you haven’t already. Before the redditors came, moderation was comparatively easy - lemmy traffic was pretty small. Additionally, most instances had (still have) a vetting process to try and weed out the trolls. sh.itjust.works is a free for all in comparison, and that’s one of the reasons I love it. Give a username and a password, and you’re off to the races (for how much longer, idk).
But imagine you’re a Lemmy instance admin in a pre-APIocolypse world. You’re building a community with certain values/norms, most everyone is agreeing to play ball, and you’ve got a nice little group. Then you have a bunch of sh.it.heads sign up. Some of them want to be shitheads. It gets extremely difficult to separate the shitheads from the sh.it.heads, because all of your tools are geared towards managing your previously small, mostly pre-vetted userbase and a small, mostly pre-vetted number of outsiders. End of the day, you’re one of only 4 hobbyist admins. So chaos ensues - not even just because of the shitheads, but just the sheer jump in activity in general. And there are some immediate choices to make.
I think this is a good object lesson in the realities of federated services and gaps that need to be addressed to make it as positive an experience as possible. Better to happen now than later. Lots of lessons to be learned over the coming weeks and months.
The main “gap” I see in all this, is the lack of user account migration.
Instances defederating is a feature, not a bug, it’s how instances with incompatible Codes of Conduct are supposed to interact: just go each their own way.
What’s lost in the process, is users getting taken for the ride. There should be an easy way for users to hop from one instance to another when they realize their current instance doesn’t meet their expectations.
That might require having to get verified into a new Code of Conduct on a different instance, maybe a review of whatever post history they want to import, maybe just a multi-accont UI. It’s something to be worked out.
I mean, that’s one part of it, but I do recommend reading the link on my comment here if you haven’t already. Before the redditors came, moderation was comparatively easy - lemmy traffic was pretty small. Additionally, most instances had (still have) a vetting process to try and weed out the trolls. sh.itjust.works is a free for all in comparison, and that’s one of the reasons I love it. Give a username and a password, and you’re off to the races (for how much longer, idk).
But imagine you’re a Lemmy instance admin in a pre-APIocolypse world. You’re building a community with certain values/norms, most everyone is agreeing to play ball, and you’ve got a nice little group. Then you have a bunch of sh.it.heads sign up. Some of them want to be shitheads. It gets extremely difficult to separate the shitheads from the sh.it.heads, because all of your tools are geared towards managing your previously small, mostly pre-vetted userbase and a small, mostly pre-vetted number of outsiders. End of the day, you’re one of only 4 hobbyist admins. So chaos ensues - not even just because of the shitheads, but just the sheer jump in activity in general. And there are some immediate choices to make.
I think this is a good object lesson in the realities of federated services and gaps that need to be addressed to make it as positive an experience as possible. Better to happen now than later. Lots of lessons to be learned over the coming weeks and months.
The main “gap” I see in all this, is the lack of user account migration.
Instances defederating is a feature, not a bug, it’s how instances with incompatible Codes of Conduct are supposed to interact: just go each their own way.
What’s lost in the process, is users getting taken for the ride. There should be an easy way for users to hop from one instance to another when they realize their current instance doesn’t meet their expectations.
That might require having to get verified into a new Code of Conduct on a different instance, maybe a review of whatever post history they want to import, maybe just a multi-accont UI. It’s something to be worked out.