So this Lemmy place is pretty awesome, and I see it growing by the hour! Just like others link external sites for content here, we should really also share Lemmy content to external (e.g. Reddit, Twitter, etc.) to show others where the users are going now.
Redditors will talk about Lemmy and moving communities here, but it is really best shown that the communities are rebuilding here. Thoughts? I’ve started with a few memes and am starting a new community here as well!
Myself, I had no problem with picking and instance. But the one I mostly randomly picked had approvals turned on. Once I realized I wasn’t gonna get to use my account immediately, I abandoned it.
It’s utterly critical that manual approval is not part of the sign up. I tried another site, but many users won’t. Nor will they necessarily come back when their account gets approved in a week (that’s how long mine took).
Honestly shocked you were willing to wait that long. I guess if I saw the notification, I would, but my email is mostly a place to store spam. That is a solid issue, and it’s not like any instance has the manpower atm to delegate approvals to a person/team as a full-time job (which it absolutely would be).
I have to admit, seeing the influx of bots on some lemmy instances makes me nervous about Ernest keeping ours open. It’s really the best defense right now and despite the comparable lack of content I’ve been breathing pretty easy not having seen one single bot in two weeks now.
No astroturfing yet. No vote manipulation. That “vaccines cause autism” bot poster I used to see all the time is still on reddit. I think I’ve seen someone being a shithead twice. Any reposts are people crossposting to other instances or just trying to transfer content here.
But the only way to keep it this way for good is not the kind of culture the internet currently has. Checking everyone’s ID at the door would mostly solve the bot issue that made reddit an untrustworthy, insufferable plague, but in practice it’ll make people look elsewhere. They haven’t been raised to wait.
Having some open instances for the noobs and some walled gardens for anyone sick of it may be the best we can do. Unfortunately, they would have to be very walled, basically only federating with each other. Their pushback would make them seem like snobby elites to non-members and like very tantilzing targets for ad companies to worm into or destroy.
