I have a number of Lemmy instances meant for discussion groups around specific topics. They are not being as used as I expected/hoped. I would like to set them up in a way that they can be owned by a consortium of different admins so that they are collectively owned. My only requirement: these instances should remain closed for registrations and used only to create communities.
Objection! Hehe… No, wait. Really, I see a problem…
If registration are closed, mods would be exclusively from outside. And, since reports are not federated, this communities would be prone to difficulties for moderation. Unless reports are correctly federated, I don’t think this is a good idea. And, even if you were to open registrations only for mods, we would have only moved the inconvenience to this (who wants to have so many accounts, really?)
There’s also the problem with centralization of domain names under you. I don’t know you, and perhaps you’re well intended… So, it’s fine for the most part, let’s just assume that’s okay. Now, what happens if you had an accident or decided to go live in a farm? Without domain name renewals, etc. all communities would be in trouble. There’s centralization in the shape of a single point of failure.
I can’t see this happening even if the domain names are cool.
And, leaving disadvantages aside. What’s the point on this? Can you name any advantage?? I agree that it would be more ordered and I like that. But it’s quite subjective, and hardly anything huge to really break the inertia or status quo of things as they’re now…
Thanks for the intentions. Let’s focus on some new ideas, they’ll come…
If registration are closed, mods would be exclusively from outside. And, since reports are not federated, this communities would be prone to difficulties for moderation. Unless reports are correctly federated, I don’t think this is a good idea.
It wouldn’t be that difficult to write a little bot that can keep track of each moderator is on each community, and make the report on the instance of the moderator directly.
centralization of domain names under you.
The idea is to have the domains under the control of this collective.
Can you name any advantage??
- Less concerns about political fights among “user” instances affecting communication among communities
- Less tribalism regarding “what community is the canonical one”. Users and admins are of course completely free to create their own communities, but for the majority at large they could just look at the topic-based instance and think “ok, that one will be a good entry point”.
- Less load on all servers. LW has a good chunk of the most active communities, so all activity from other users end up going through that. More instances with cleaner separation => better load balancing.
- Easier content discovery: no matter if users go to a small or big instance, they can be pointed to the different servers to browse according to their interests.
hardly anything huge to really break the inertia or status quo of things as they’re now…
As it is right now, yes. But I am working for a potential future where we can migrate 10, 20, 50 times more users than we already have. Consider that I am also working on a tool to help people migrate from Reddit and in making some modifications on the Voyager app to integrate automatic migration from Reddit to Lemmy. If the gates finally open, this will be very much needed.
I was the only one who could create communities on them.
Typically the only one who can create magazines/communities are local users of the instance. With registration closed, that means only you (or the new instance owner) would be able to do this.
Though one can get around this with some bot magic ( lemmit.online had a magazine that was dedicated to new sub/magazine requests - once someone made the request, the bot would create and own the magazine but add the requestor as the moderator )
Do you intend to have open magazine creation on these instances or would that still be restricted to the owners of the consortium?
They are not being as used as I expected/hoped.
Have you considered it’s because of this?:
My only requirement: these instances should remain closed for registrations and used only to create communities.
I wouldn’t run an instance that didn’t allow users to sign up as it would impede growth and uptake.
It also would have the interesting effect of pushing a lot of the load onto other instances, which doesn’t seem true to the Fediverse spirit.
Well, surely, but this constraint is there by design. The point of these users is not to attract users, but to have thematic communities that can be followed by users elsewhere on the Fediverse.
ITT: People who don’t understand IAM or how to build a healthy federated structure. There should be identity services and instances just to host content separately. This way a spammer from a service won’t de-federate content from everyone else and there could be easier moderation splitting the task between users and the comms.
lol I think you are right about this. You’ll never get these lemmitors to see it i guess.
there could be easier moderation splitting the task between users and the comms.
On the other hand, for some communities moderation of the communities and the members are specific and should not be generalized.
Beehaw is an example that comes to mind, lemmy.ml as well
Even though the community is contained the cloud resources should still be split in two between identity and operations to be in alignment with all the industry best practices and potential for scalability. Remember the unix philosophy is do one thing well.
Beehaw should operate their own Beehaw fediverse IDP (Identity provider) for the users to sign in with, that would manage their tos agreements, privacy policies and user based security. Separately they should operate their Lemmy server which hosts pictures and links organized by communities. They could just use a single IDP for their instance and have the same experience as now only better with better architecture.
Source: I am a cloud services architect.
I’m familiar with IAM concepts, and indeed having a separate IdP and content instances would be a better architecture.
However the reality is that the platforms (Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed) are being developed by very small teams (Piefed is a 2 or 3 people team, and Lemmy might be around 5).
Lemmy is focusing on features delivery (https://join-lemmy.org/news/2024-09-11_-_New_NLnet_funding_for_Lemmy), which could help the platform grow more than a new IAM architecture.
There will probably be a point in time where performance will require a rework, but at the moment, it does not seem to be a priority
Looks more like you are interested in more influence power, and control for yourself.
What qualifies you to be in a leadership position that directly affects content control?
Your instances are not being used the way you wanted, so you propose structural and organizational changes that, suprise, benefit your administrative influence from your instances.
You’re so focused on the details of your solution, you don’t seem to be holding or acknowledging any objective perspectives.
benefit your administrative influence from your instances
They are not going to be “my” instances.
acknowledging any objective perspectives.
Oh, I thought it was pretty clear: my objective with these instances have been to build the infrastructure necessary to get people out of Reddit. I want to gain from the growth of the network, where I expect to profit from getting customers on my hosting business.
I don’t need/want to make money out of these instances, I am just commoditizing the complements.
