OpenStars

ST-TNG dad jokes? That concept seems familiar somehow, almost as if, maybe...

Possibly... if it is likewise attempting to upvote, then that would be a violation of the rules!

Username checks out, except... por que no los dos? 😳🤢🙃

Your comment seems if not outright wrong then at least imprecise.

The PieFed.social instance is very much against tankies, but the software can be tuned however the admin installing it wishes. Like how reddthat famously turned off downvoting, you can turn on or off any PieFed feature that you wish. So e.g. if someone disliked downvoting, there's still a Lemmy server for them! The instances are very much different than the software.

One feature vaguely similar to what you describe is the user indicator icons. New user accounts (of <2 weeks iirc) have a label placed next to the usernames, so that people realize that they are talking with a newb. That does not block making posts or comments, just an icon next to the username (which any instance admin can disable if they want).

Likewise, people who receive 10x more downvotes than upvotes will have an icon placed next to their username. It won't block submissions, just display that icon, so that someone is aware that they are about to reply to a known troll. It is not underhanded, not a secret, it is instead very open and thus overhanded. But indeed, if you don't like it, then don't use it. I'm sure there is a way to turn it off for someone's user account (it might not be as simple as merely pressing a button in the settings).

Beyond that... I don't know what you could mean. There is a feature, turned on by default, to automatically collapse or even automatically hide comments if their score falls below a certain threshold. I don't personally use either of these options, so I disabled them by setting the threshold to a ridiculous value of -10000. However, they are there if someone wants them, and I don't begrudge someone else doing whatever they feel is right.

Oh, maybe you mean the image filtering stuff? That has largely been debunked - yes there is some code that will do filtering, but what people failed to realize is that when wrapped inside an if() statement, it becomes optional - it only happens if the instance admin specifically selects that option to happen? And thus again, it's a per-instance decision, not so much something mandated by the software.

But yeah, if you don't enjoy PieFed, then by all means do not use it. I begrudge nobody their choice there. I just wanted to make sure that people have accurate information upon which to base their decision.

Your username seems to imply otherwise though... 🤪

If those are great instances, then it's good to be directing people there. On the other hand, there are just a ton of other instances (like Discuss.Online, leminalaspace, reddthat - although that one disables downvotes) that are likewise general purpose yet excluded for some reason(s) - that is "unfair" aka unequal treatment.

And more to the point, it's not "a random Lemmy instance" at all, to only pick from just those 2. Instead it's more "just come join my instance"... which I genuinely am actually totally fine with, I only am arguing against the usage of language that seems to misleadingly imply that it was instead a more equal distribution of picks among all (suitable by some criteria?) Lemmy instances.

There are SO MANY features that PieFed offers to help new users learn more about the Threadiverse - e.g. the entire set of community rules placed below each and every post that you read from it.

In this case, one thing that helps newbies is to either defederate or otherwise block new users from being exposed to the likes of !Chapotraphouse@hexbear.net, without being informed first about what that place is like. MANY people came here from Reddit, got chewed up by trolls, then quickly noped out and complained bitterly about Lemmy on Reddit, X, Bluesky, etc. Someone who is forewarned can handle that, hence the name "Choose your own adventure", but if you want an instance to hold your hand for you and protect you from anything bad that might happen, then "Newbie-friendly" ones are more like that than the alternative.

PieFed already provides a HUGE aid to help here, and while Lemmy currently lacks this I believe that a future version is imminent that will help in this regard as well. I am talking about federating mod reports across instances, which will allow mods to remain on their home instance without having to continually check an alt account(s) on the same instance that houses the community. This will increase the pool of available mods for any specific community.

Is that just some of the communities, or the instance itself, do you think? I thought their overarching tolerance policy was because they are anarchists, not actual tankies - like, would they be equally as tolerant of conservative viewpoints?

Anyway thank you for posting the link to learn more.

True. Fwiw, PieFed offers a number of neat automated moderation tools, like a setting providing a community moderator with the ability to limit voting to only Subscribers, which helps curtail drive-by downvoting from All. But if you mean CSAM type of filtering, that I do not know which software has better tools.

For a single-user instance, I would wholeheartedly recommend PieFed over Lemmy, no questions asked. For a small instance sharing accounts with friends... probably still PieFed there as well, but less confidently than it is always the better choice under all conditions. Also the UI of Lemmy is slightly better for the core features and Lemmy's search functionality is superb, whereas PieFed's is practically non-existent by comparison (by design), so especially if someone wants to do a lot of searching on their own instance, I could see using Lemmy for that use case. For everything else, PieFed tends to be more useful.

It's not "random" though if it is always those two choices. And I also confirm that it is ALWAYS those 2 options - I've literally never seen a 3rd option offered that way. It's highly biased towards those two very tiny instances (of <200 people each)... as in exclusively so. Which could be fine, the issue I have here is in calling that as "random".

Also, if I were signing up that way, I would want to know the answer to questions such as: (1) are there multiple people on the instance admin team, (2) are they well-funded, since a negative answer to either of those might mean that the server disappears six months from now, which is a major inconvenience.

I can see why the instance picker might not choose to put that into front and center, but like... even with me having been on the Threadiverse since the Rexodus, I personally have no idea as to their answers. In contrast, something like PieFed.zip has an extremely established track record, with a very solid admin team. (To be clear, I am not saying that those other two instances do not, just that I do not know if they do or do not, and I didn't see an explanation on the instance picker page).

Like this? https://feddit.online/auth/instance_chooser