this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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So, it seems like PieFed is becoming a real alternative to lemmy.

What are the differences between these two? From a tech perspective, and also morality/ethics, if you want. Any differences in vision for these services?

Say whatever is on your mind. I want to know.

On which one should we put our weight?

Edit: I will leave this post here, which is a post by one of the devs of Lemmy that enumerates some of the things Lemmy 1.0 has. Lemmy 1.0 seems to be already in alpha stage and is already testable. The feature selection does look fantastic. Here is the post I am referring to: https://lemmy.ml/post/40744781

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[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

That's terrible and immediately makes me question the trustworthiness and motivations of a dev team that decides to block instances by default.

I'm not saying they're not trustworthy but that just feels icky.

If you've gotten to the point of something as advanced as spinning up your own instance of a federated software you probably know who you want to federate with.

[–] wjs018@piefed.social 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Here is the list of defederated instances when a fresh install happens. This is editable in the admin UI after installation is complete. So, if you really want your instance to federate with the good folks of cum.salon, you are more than welcome to.

This is really just intended to provide what we think of as a good set of defaults for a typical user. Of course this is somewhat opinionated, just like something like an operating system has a set of opinionated defaults for stuff like default programs, window styling, etc.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I think the biggest thing is just including one of the oldest and most active instances in there. Hexbear (or Lemmygrad) is not everyone's cup of tea but a default block, or even to lump them in with an instance like the one you mentioned is kinda crazy. Some of the other bigger instances out there federate with one or both just fine.

[–] wjs018@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago

Some of the other bigger instances out there federate with one or both just fine

I mean, the same is true for other PieFed instances. piefed.zip, for example, is federated with both (same admin team as lemmy.zip).

Like I said, this is inherently opinionated as any kind of defaults would be (themes, colors, user settings, etc.). I just don't agree that just because an instance is old and active means that it is a positive influence on or provides a positive experience for the average user. Just like I don't think forums like 4chan should be looked at positively just due to its age and activity. I know there are many that disagree with this, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Specifically, the piefed.social instance is a bit more opinionated than most other instances out there because rimu has pretty strong feelings about social media. Some of my contributions to the code have been to make PieFed less opinionated or to take some of those very strongly opinionated options/filters and make them configurable or optional at an admin level. So far, rimu has been pretty receptive to this kind of contribution.

At the end of the day, I am glad that all three threadiverse software platforms exist (people too often forget about mbin) and have been able to maintain a cordial working relationship. They each have different opinions, defaults, and features that might appeal to some users over others.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s also one of the most defederated instances around. People don’t want to interact with they site for a damn good reason.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Clearly it's polarizing. Clearly anyone spinning up a new instance certainly would know what site of that fence they fall on.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

They can remove it then.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s not polarising, it’s the norm.

The majority of all instances defederate with them.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Uh, out of the top 10 instances by monthly active users (https://fedidb.com/servers) it looks like ~~5 federate with them and 5 don't.~~

Edit: I was mistaken, it was 4 do and 6 don't. But still, clearly not universal and tons of people are able to coexist just fine with them.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

2 of those 4 are the other triad members, with lemmygrad being even more blocked than Hexbear.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Huh?

lemmy.ml lemmy.zip lemmy.dbzer0.com discuss.tchncs.de

I suppose you're talking about .ml but that's only 1 of 4.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

lemmy.zip if I recall has a sort of soft-block in that new users are warned about those instances and offered to block them. I was told about 50% of lemmy.zip users block them.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

I can find the conversation with an instance admin if you like but yes, it reportedly automatically blocks those for users and provides instructions for how to remove them, making seeing their content as opt-in rather than having to be opt-out, and thus the PieFed.zip instance is truly Newbie-friendly.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Huh, my bad. For some reason it showed grad before for me. I must've done something on my end.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I did a code review just about a week ago, see https://hexbear.net/comment/6827649 for what I found.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Moderators of a community can kick you from a community, which unsubscribes you from it, and does not notify you.

Kindly pass this on, but this is actually defunct code that is not actually functionally active on Piefed.

Mostly everything else being complained about is objecting to Piefeds attempts to weeding out spammers, trolls and AI spammers with arguably punitive detective functions - but the purpose is to mitigate that.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

not actually functionally active

What does that mean.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It doesn't work even if he wanted it to. Rimu himself didn't even add it. He's not the only contributor to the code.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

Ok, thanks for telling me. It's of course difficult when just viewing the code somewhat detached to tell something like that.

Also I have said nothing about Rimu. And I know he isn't the only contributor.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Some of your code review is not understanding that Piefed handles things differently. So in the context of blocking, if someone blocks you on piefed - you simply can't reply to them anymore. This isn't out of sync with how many services operate. Now Lemmy does not operate like this, but the disconnect between how Lemmy and Piefed handle it cause discrepencies like this.

if your reply contains a blocked_phrase, it won't accept the comment.

This code exists, but is unused to my knowledge. Certainly for Piefed.social.

I also do not see this as inherently bad as it can be used to stop slurs.

If your account is created_very_recently and the reply contains an em dash (—) it sends a notification to the admins

This is anti-AI checking functions. Most of the other things you refer to generally here within the code are simply mitigation tools against spam, trolls and AI posters.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

This code exists, but is unused to my knowledge. Certainly for Piefed.social.

wjs018 says it is in use, https://lemmy.ml/post/42044700/23491105 / https://piefed.social/comment/9793872

I hope that piefed will publish the blocked phrases in the api at some point, like lemmy publishes the slur regex in /site. (This isn't trying to be "look lemmy is better," I mean this)

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So in the context of blocking, if someone blocks you on piefed - you simply can’t reply to them anymore

And maybe it wouldn't be a problem if we weren't for federation. The result is a desync, where either all but the instance with the blocker can see the comment, or only the blocked users instance can see the comment.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, it's a contradiction with how lemmy handles the block function vs. how piefed currently handles it.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No. I can reply to my piefed.social account with the piefed.zip account it has blocked.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

Then there must be a bug.