The flesh colors and title contributed a bit:-).
Fortunately Lemmy is excellent about marking things as NSFW imho.
The only website that I know of that breaks using Dark Reader is PieFed - which gave me the idea to try setting that to light mode (so the extension will flip it), except that's now going to mess up my desktop access, and the result is plain white and black without a colored dark theme. So it kinda works but it affects my whole workflow.:-(
We might be past the point where notes, or facts, help rather than hinder anymore:-(.
I am going the other way with that: first on a mobile it was barely noticable bc the tall video left not much room around the edges, so it was just a hint of accessory color, and it gave the site some flair. It was also not bright nor dark but a really nice shade in between. I'm sure on a desktop with lots more room around the edges it would have been more overwhelming though.
But now the basic and BRIGHT 🌞😎 white makes me not able to view these videos in a dark room any longer:-(. I turned on a Firefox Extension to switch it to black, but now that messes up every single other page on PieFed.
Mobile design and especially UX really truly is just different from that of desktop. I wish they'd switch it back, even if only for mobile view and only use the white on desktop machines. Or at least choose a much less blinding whiteness:-(.
I noticed the pitch of his voice changed. Also the background is no longer yellow - am I weird bc I miss it? (Or simply for all the other reasons unrelated to that one.)
I mean, it'll make it harder / less likely for people to oppose things. Unless I'm still way too naive even after this last term. I'm still way too naive even after this last term aren't I!?:-(
He is not, but centrists who aren't paying close attention are.
Most American's don't pay close attention, and many are vulnerable to such an optic.
This fuels the thought that the Dems are corrupt - which ofc they are (not saying that this is an example of that, just in general) - though they are by no means equally so to the other side.
I'm not even suggesting that he should have done differently - maybe? but what do I know? - I am saying that this will become fodder for the other side to claim corruption.
Yes but now it will be that much more difficult to fight against it - assuming anyone even tries.
Hunter himself pleaded guilty, and this pardon is prior to sentencing (there are reasons for such obviously), and the justification is not that he is innocent, but that people who commit this crime usually are punished in a civil rather than criminal manner. Plus Biden seemed to be firm that he would never do this, until then he changed his mind and did - which on top of "DOJ bad" adds a measure of "President can do however he pleases". Especially for people who aren't paying attention, these are powerful symbols.
Conservatives were going to try, and who are we kidding almost certainly will have succeeded (definitely eventually anyway, even if heavy pushback might have lengthened the timetable more than they would have preferred), but their chances of succeeding right away are now higher than they were last week.
I wonder what the alternative would have been - 16 months in jail for the crimes he committed (that was only for one of the two though), vs. what now that will shake the foundation of our nation?
The new Presidency will absolutely spin and use this event.
Oh yes, totally agreed there, I just presumed that such would most naturally arise from inside the USA itself. Then again, isn't feddit.uk based in Germany? All it would take would be for someone to start it up, and begin attracting new users to it - though neither of those are small tasks, even if it could share hardware with another instance, such as feddit.uk? So if Discuss.Online were to step up instead, that does seem wonderful news!:-D
Ah, so is this what happened to lemmy.cafe?
And will Lemmy.World wait until that is fixed do you know? MrKaplan said perhaps a week ago that they were not ready to announce any plans, but perhaps you've heard something since then. I don't know how stable 0.19.6 itself is in that case, or if they need to first wait until 0.19.8 and then wait further for the bugs in it, like 0.19.7 (and 0.19.6 too), to be discovered and patched.
Edit: in any case, thanks for sharing!:-)
By the way, Piefed does not pull in remote communities by default. It only does it once a local user subscribes. And that's why a lot of them are missing on my own instance.
Oh yes absolutely - and Lemmy is the same way, so this too is not something specific to PieFed. For instance, that post I mentioned previously where my vote counts are all over the place, when viewed from StarTrek.Website has zero comment associated with it, and no upvotes beyond the default - and I have another post that is the same way, though it seems like later that same day someone subscribed and from that point onwards the community starts to have comments and some of the votes seen from other instances.
Or perhaps it is that these posts were locked somehow / for some reason? Which looks to be accidental from a new, inexperienced moderator in this brand-new community, and it was reversed a couple of days later - although that fact again depends on where you look. With an account at StarTrek.Website, I look at the post moderation history and it says that it is still locked: https://startrek.website/modlog?postId=16510256. However, with an account on DiscussOnline (substitute with whatever other alt you may have - hendrik@lemmy.ml?) I see that not only was it unlocked, but that unlock event happened 7 days ago: https://discuss.online/modlog?postId=13575162.
Even so, the post when viewed from DiscussOnline shows 98 upvotes and 8 comments, but when viewed from Lemmy.World (where the !tech_memes@lemmy.world community is located) it shows 191 upvotes and 9 comments (or I think it's 193 upvotes and 2 downvotes, but the web UI no longer shows those individually, unless you jump through many many, undocumented, hoops - e.g. I think I can see those broken down into their individual components on a mobile device in Firefox, possibly solely when viewing a individual users list of posts but not when looking at a post directly or in the standard community view, and definitely you cannot see this breakdown from either Chrome or Firefox on a desktop, etc.). And since it has been 7+ days, this is now enshrined in stone, and we can be confident that having not caught up by now, it never will. A decade from now, if e.g. DiscussOnline is still with us, it will show this post as having 98 upvotes rather than the true value of 193, and StarTrekOnline will still show the default upvotes=1 and no comments, thus providing 3 different stories for this same identical post, depending on how you try to view it - and only one of those stories being explanable by the fact that nobody on StarTrek.Website had subscribed to the community yet (MAYBE, b/c there are 2 other posts that are even older in that community, which have +1 upvote added!? so perhaps this is a complex mixture of that + the locking effect, with the unlock action having not been propagated correctly).
The above stories reveal - federation is NOTHING AT ALL LIKE EMAIL. In the latter, the message either gets passed or it does not, whereas in federation, you can see partial messages as I've shown. And this has not even begun to delve into the variety of defederations that further complicate any mess - especially with a unidirectional defederation where one account can talk to someone on a server that has defederated from them, though the recipient will never be alerted to that fact nor have the capability to respond. Thus it is my opinion that trying to fit the square peg into the circular hole is never going to work - the email analogy is hopelessly simplified, so much so that as soon as users begin to encounter such complexities when they make their posts, especially the content creator types that we very much want to come here, they may outright leave, and moreover be very vocal about how we are not what was promised to them. So while we could say "it's a little bit like sending email", I don't think we should push too hard on that avenue, making it sound so simple, b/c it's really not!
Here is an example link (edit: I originally had this example link, which also has the issue but then does not match the same posting as the other links below so the first one would have been better). Apologies in advance that the content of this video is political, but you can pause it immediately and not watch if you prefer yet still see the effect.
Caveats:
- on most desktop browsers I have tried the auto-play is blocked; however in Firefox on Android it auto-plays with sound. For me, (edit: whoops what happened to the word "Chrome") shows the video embed yet pauses it, properly refusing to allow it to play unless I hit the giant Play button in the center. It has been too long but this may not be standard behavior for Chrome, although I did confirm this effect on 2 different devices from different manufacturers (yet if I made any configuration changes in the past to block auto-playing videos, I definitely would have done it to both:-P).
- Lemmy.World users are safe for now, as too are users on sh.itjust.works, both presumably b/c they are instances not yet running the latest Lemmy code - though note that that just means that it is coming for you eventually, even if not quite here yet
- none of PieFed,
Mbin(edit: apparently this one does too, after a fashion, read in comments below), or Tesseract auto-play videos either, or as I mentioned seemingly any Lemmy instance prior to 0.19.6, though e.g. viewing this post from lemm.ee, the 3rd largest Lemmy instance, auto-plays it. Others that auto-play it include view this post from Discuss.Online, view this post from StarTrek.Website. - Edit: an interesting wrinkle, sometimes when you click the link directly, the video does not auto-play (most desktop situations seem this way, and some mobile devices too). But if you navigate to that post more naturally, e.g. click the link to the community first, then find the post (although note in this case that there are many posts describing this situation, e.g. have the word "ceasefire" in them) and click the link to it (or just hit the back button), then the video does auto-play.
This troubles me. Once again this kind of opt-out behavior offered "for my convenience" reminds me of some other place... although even Reddit offers the option to stop the auto-play feature (except for ads I suppose), whereas I see no such option in Lemmy (the closest would be "Auto expand media", which I have set to OFF). The number of places - like Netflix - that offers these kinds of “well ackshually these are not ads you see b/c..." really is off-putting to me.
The more you know I suppose.
Mbin in the last six months doubled their number of comments being sent out across the wider Fediverse. PieFed is making strides forward all the time. Sublinks hasn't seemed to keep up, but Lemmy.World has floated the idea of potentially moving to it at some point.
So we are not all just "Lemmy" anymore. Though "Fediverse" seems far too broad a term, when it can include such diverse aspects as PixelFed (like Instagram) as well as Mbin or Xhitter as well as Lemmy or PieFed or Sublinks - see e.g. A lot of good stuff is happening in the fediverses!
So people have taken to calling us the "Threadiverse". Tbf that name predated Mark Zuckerberg's "Threads", but still that name now seems tainted by it? Though otherwise accurate & precisely descriptive as it emphasizes how people talk in topic-based conversations, rather than the user-focused approach of Mastodon and Xhitter.
So what I do (when I don't say that we are on the Fediverse) is simply list out all the possibilities - Lemmy, Mbin, PieFed, and soon Sublinks - though that gets cumbersome. Or maybe there's a new term that we could use? @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com mentioned:
> most people think of microblogging when they hear "Fediverse". Maybe "Nestedverse" or "Forumverse"?
Or I suppose we could say "Threadiverse except don't worry we specifically exclude Threads", whenever we talk about ourselves, especially to mainstream people (who don't use Arch btw!:-P) e.g. to people on Reddit. (oh who am I kidding, ofc I mean @blaze@feddit.org, who regularly tries to attract new users to here and deserves some kind of award like "Ambassador of Lemmy" - oh and there we go again, just what the heck are we!?:-P)
Also, it is up to each instance whether they want to specifically exclude threads.net or not - and one could in theory not do that, so that whenever threads.net decides to turn on its federation it would absolutely flood that instance with content, drowning out the source from Lemmy (or WHATEVER we are!:-D).
So it can all get so complicated - what would help simplify it? Just call it "Lemmy" and leave it at that? Unless Lemmy.World moves to Sublinks, that is where >80% of the userbase lies and therefore much of the content is coming from atm. Or "Fediverse" even if that is too broad? Or "Threadiverse" even though that's a loaded word now? Or something new? (ngl, I kinda REALLY like "Forumverse")
People will call it whatever they want ofc - I intended this to be a silly & fun question to provoke us into thinking about it:-). Especially since I'm posting to Lemmy from PieFed - which is fucking beautiful that none of those details actually matters and we all can just share the content and enjoy it, together!:-D
I keep seeing people ask for this. There are basically only two ways, neither of which are terribly easy unless you are willing to switch to a Lemmy alternative and then it can be a breeze with just a couple of button clicks.
First, note that on base Lemmy, it basically cannot be done, short of either spinning up your own instance or trying to do some advanced programming with spamblock filtering rules (that is likely to mess up the pages in some way). There is a related feature though - in User -> Settings -> Blocks -> scroll waaay down -> Block instance - except that unlike blocking a community or a user, this does not actually "block an instance", and instead merely (& misleadingly?) hides the communities on those instances. You will still see comments from those users, they can still downvote you, and ping your notifications, etc.
About the only thing the above approach offers beyond blocking those communities individually is that if ever new communities were to be made from those instances, they would be automatically hidden from your account. So not all that helpful imho.
(1) Use an App
I have heard that the Sync and Connect apps (+ maybe others?) offer this, as well as a plethora of other features. Note that Voyager does not work for this - it is the same type of blocking as mentioned above.
Check them out? If anyone wants to supplement this section, please submit a post to this community to help people who want to know! (and/or at least add it in the comments here)
(2) Lemmy Alternatives
What I do use is PieFed.social, which in addition to this feature also offers several other advancements not currently available in Lemmy such as Categories of Communities that makes finding additional content a breeze (though overall it is not as feature-rich or easy to use as base Lemmy; and yet its choice to use Python rather than Rust should help it to catch up extremely quickly, plus the admins are extraordinarily responsive to deal with any issues).
To block all users from a PieFed instance, the easiest way is to start from a user on that instance, click their account, then click More -> Block everyone from [instance_name]. Or you could go to a page with the instance name in the url, like https://piefed.social/instance/lemmy.ml and just click "Block everyone from [instance_name]" there.
PieFed also offers additional opportunities in-between blocking trolls vs. not doing so: accounts that meet certain criteria levels will have icons placed next to the account name, so that you can still see their content (rather than have it automatically removed) but not have to spend as much time parsing it as you would something that is more likely to have been offered in good faith.
Mbin likewise offers Categories, and cross-connection with Mastodon. Overall I find that whole style confusing - e.g. "communities" become "magazines", downvotes become "reduces", upvotes are both "favorites" and also upvotes exist too that are entirely separate from that, plus you can see who offers favorites, but only from other Mbin/Kbin users and you cannot see the same for reduces. Though if you want Mastodon integration with Lemmy in one account, this is definitely the way to go (b/c it's the only one that does both:-). From @nictophilia@fedia.io:
> It's not anywhere in the settings at all, lol. Like a hidden option. You have to go to the url https://fedia.io/d/[instance_domain_name], like https://fedia.io/d/lemmy.ml. Then it will give you the ability to block, and that block will be reflected in your settings page.
Edit: according to @DarkThoughts@fedia.io, this does not actually work:-(.
Either of these alternatives should make you quite happy with the result!:-)
(3) Honorable mention: relying upon an instance admin
As a normal user, not an admin yourself, you cannot implement a custom block of users from any specified instance. However, you can either ask your current admins to implement such a block for you (would need the support of the entire community on that instance ofc), or move your account to one that has already done so?
The only instances I've ever heard of that block the big-3 (lemmygrad.ml, hexbear.net, and lemmy.ml) are:
- lemmy.cafe - has very welcoming messages, including a link guiding new users to this community!:-)
- Tesseract on dubvee.org - extremely impressive, if not for everyone, but definitely worth a look
- quokk.au
The caveat to all of these is that each is a single-admin instance. Those of us who recall the story of e.g. Kbin.social (or dmv.social or so many others) know how worrisome that can be in that it could vanish overnight with little to no warning. Then again, unlike Kbin.social, they seem quite healthy for now - definitely worth at least taking a look?
I have enjoyed PieFed much more from my desktop and I finally figured out why: the theme keeps disappearing, leaving blank white text that is harder to read.
Starting fresh (restarting my mobile device, force-quitting the Firefox app, and loading it again), and starting from the homepage at https://piefed.social, clicking most links will cause the theme to be discarded. On mobile Firefox though not mobile Chrome, nor various desktop browsers. I am using Firefox version 132.0, last updated October 21, 2024, and Android version 14, and this effect has persisted I think since I made my account here last week. Firefox mobile seems an important target for our FOSS userbase:-).
The themes affected include PieFed and Card Shadow, though Hercules 1982 seems unaffected (I did not test that one as extensively). The button links I tried visiting included: the homepage (again, even if already on it), any post, any community, my Account->View profile, the "more communities" button, etc. - even the "back" button, after force-quitting the App and restarting it again. Always the text would switch from blue to white. Reloading the page does not help - only force-quitting the app and restarting it will restore functionality, until a link is clicked that is. Even after the theme is discarded, opening a link in a new tab will restore it to work - only in the new tab ofc, not the old one.
I hope this report helps PieFed to improve!:-)
I gather that it had a use unrelated to Lemmy but for Lemmy posts I make a case here that it is more misleading than helpful. For a moment, please ignore the underlying reasons why things are the way they are and focus on how the issue presents to the end-users.
(1) By pulling in solely the post, but not any of the comments, it at best provides only partial information - which if all you wanted to read was the post, then why bother pulling it here at all? (as opposed to retrieving from its original location - I mean, to do it you already need the full URL...) While if instead you wanted all of the comments... - e.g. to be able to reply to - then too bad, b/c it won't do that?
(2) It also does not pull in any of the old vote counts. So if hypothetically a post had 1000 upvotes, and then after pulling it here it received adjustments +2 from upvotes and -4 from downvotes, then its total would then be 998, right? Except PieFed would instead display "-2", a qualitatively different score for a highly popular post that is a terrible misrepresentation of the actual facts about it.
(3) It conveys a distorted view of things to the end-users. e.g. see !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com where there are 6 posts from the last 2 months, right? Right?! No, there is actually only a single post there in its entirety, then a few more that I and what I assume was Blaze pulled in - note how those other 5 have zero comments, and total scores near zero, due to the aforementioned issues. Really the "earliest" post that PieFed.social reliably has from that community is from 4 days ago, and then beyond that is a scattered, partial mess. There are actually MANY more posts from the last two months, which are not represented here. Ergo, the initial impression that a quick glance at this community offers turns out to be false, due to these federation issues.
(4) showing only partial information is often called a "false positive" or type I style of error, whereas showing nothing at all for those posts that are not fully here avoids that pitfall. If certain content is not here then... well it is not here, and that's that, but for only some of it to be here leads to much confusion, imho.
Almost entirely distinct from this issue, the ability to find an existing post given its URL should be added to the search menu, b/c that is where people will go to find it. But ofc all the more so if the retrieval button is removed or made less prominent, so that that find ability is not lost along with that.
I understand that there are hard limitations of the federated model itself. So if e.g. older comments and votes cannot retroactively be pulled in - or possibly even if so - then maybe this function should just be abolished? Or perhaps a couple more layers of "are you sure you want to do this?" added, or better yet moving it from its prominent place showing up to everyone on almost every page to a more subdued location where only those who know what it is and what will happen if it is used are likely to access it? I now feel that I actively made the situation in !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com worse by pulling in those posts, and wished now that I hadn't done so, as it could lead people astray into thinking "this is all the posts that the community has to offer from this time-period" (NO, it actually has MANY MANY more than that, on the original server!?!!). Now that I know this I can refrain from using it, but it would be nice to help others who climb this ladder after me as well:-). So I am sharing my thoughts with you in case that helps.
PieFed is freaking awesome and you all who work on it are magnificently extraordinary to share your knowledge with the world:-).
See e.g. https://piefed.social/communities?search=forward - there are 2 communities listed there, both go to the same place if you click them, and that place has no posts from the last 3 days.
It almost looks like the existence of the second version of that community - changed mere seconds ago at the time of my writing this, except again, when you click the link it doesn't show anything new for several days - is soaking up all the new posts, but since it is inaccessible by the normal means those new entities cannot be accessed.
This is my favorite spot in the Fediverse, so I hope it is addressed soon! That community in particular is doing great work to make the Fediverse fun & welcoming to come to by all us nerds:-).
