As a matter of community building, lets make this a monthly thing 😊

Community gardening

As stated in our Wiki, we allow members to create their own communities as a way to encourage contributions, but this comes with the responsibility of active moderation. The site admins can’t moderate all communities and unless a posts gets reported, they might not even know about spam etc. Thus we will regularly prune seemingly abandoned communities.

The current list set for pruning is:

So unless someone wants to step up and take them over for moderation and active contribution, they will be removed at the end of the month.

In addition there are these two communities that attract quite a bit of moderation workload and the current mods need support with that (otherwise it might be better to prune them as well):

Technical updates

The originally planned move to a smaller dedicated server was only partially completed and ran into some issue with 8GB RAM being slightly too small for our current Lemmy database use. It might be just a a memory leak issue that should be fixed with the next Lemmy release, but given some related consideration I decided to try use another server with 16GB RAM instead. This move has not been started yet, but I will try to keep the down-time to a minimum.

This server also has a built in GPU that would likely allow automatic scanning for illegal images via Lemmy-safty. This image recognition script is fully local, so no data is transmitted to any 3rd party, but it will likely result in some false-positives (Likely NSFW / child themed ones, which seems not like a major problem for our instance). Any hits will be removed from the storage automatically so this will also protect our moderators from having to deal with such potentially traumatic imagery.

I also made some progress with the account integration between Lemmy and an XMPP/Jabber server. The idea is that you will be able to use your existing username@slrpnk.net ID also for federated chat via the Jabber network. This is more secure than the internal Lemmy DMs as Jabber clients support end to end encryption (like Signal more or less). If in the future some Lemmy clients will add privacy preserving UnifiedPush we can also support that via this XMPP server.

I also started trialling a Movim web-client for it, which besides being a nice chat interface for private 1:1 and group chats, can also act as a long-form blogging site (kinda like Medium or Substack) for our members. Lets see if there is an interest in that 🤔

In theory bridges to Matrix, Discord, Telegram etc. could also be added, but it will need some more testing and might not work out. Voice and video calls will also initially not be supported due to some technical issue, but I plan to fix that ASAP.

Draft code of conduct

I am also still looking for feedback on and maybe some contributions to our incomplete draft code of conduct.

Open discussion

If you have any other topics related to our community here on slrpnk.net please comment below.

  • hazeebabee@slrpnk.netEnglish
    12·
    2 years ago

    This all looks super awesome! I appriciate all the work you are doing & look forward to being able to use my srlpnk login for a variety of fediverse services :)

    Also its really cool db0 created a automated photoscanning tool. No one should be forced to personally review content for things like csam 🤢

    Also here are some code of conduct points that could maybe be useful:

    1. Solarpunk is about looking towards brighter futures. Please try to find optimism in what can be very grim realities. This means moving away from doomer talk about how all hope is lost. We all know there are problems so lets work together to create solutions.

    2. Stay civil when talking to others. We all have different views, and many of us are passionate about them. This does not give you the right to insult, brigade, or bully another person. If something is truely harmful, disgusting or hateful, please report it to moderators so it can be removed.

    3. Activism puts the punk in solarpunk. As all punks know though, some plans must be made in secret. Lemmy is an inherently open and accessible space. ANYONE can read when is written here: the FEDs, lawyers, even the company youre planning on sabatoging. Do not use this space to plan activist work. Use secure channels instead, such as an end to end encrypted messaging service.

    4. Encourage others to take positive steps, even if they are small ones. Lets lift each other up and make this a welcoming space for people to explore how we can make tomorrow a better place.

  • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
    8·
    2 years ago

    I also made some progress with the account integration between Lemmy and an XMPP/Jabber server.

    Great idea, kudos. Is this generally implemented in Lemmy instances, or your own genius ?

  • Treevan 🇦🇺@aussie.zoneEnglish
    8·
    2 years ago

    Not a SLRPNK member but enjoyed reading your statements.

    As my opinion is worth little, I agree with your pruning suggestions and wished it was repeated all over. Some of us tried to tell people to not go community-creating crazy and there are a lot of empty ones sitting around.

    Am very interested in the XMPP server and frontend. Will that open up to other users?

    • poVoq@slrpnk.netOPMEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      The XMPP service will be directly linked to the user-database of Slrpnk.net, but of course since XMPP is federated as well you will be able to interact with an external Jabber account. Movim works in theory with any Jabber account, but I will likely restrict logging in to people with slrpnk.net accounts as otherwise it becomes a moderation hassle for the blog posts.

  • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.netEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    Just wanted to say thank you very much for your work on this instance, both the community and technical side. I’m really glad you’re keeping the system current and figuring out new features. I don’t have any objections to the community gardening thoughts, and will review the draft code of conduct soon.

    Movim sounds cool and I’m interested to try it out, I have a free WordPress site but wouldn’t mind moving to a federated alternative of some sort and I really like it here so that could be great.

  • punkisundead [they/them]@slrpnk.netEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    Just wondering: Is it technically possible to close communities till there is moderation? Like no posts, votes and comments allowed but current state is preserved.

    Besides that I really enjoy when I browse the local timeline on slrpnk.net and thats because the communities here are awesome and interesting.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.netOPMEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      There is an option to only allow moderators to post in a community, but I think that still allows votes and comments from others.

    • stabby_cicada@slrpnk.netEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      I think that’s a better response to inactive communities. Instead of “pruning” them, make them “dormant” (to keep the garden metaphor going) so old content can still be viewed and if in future someone wants to take over and grow the community they can.

      But if the communities can’t be locked down to keep spam and illegal material out of comments I agree it’s sadly better to prune.

      The cost of being a small community in a big nasty Internet. Makes you yearn for the days of walled garden BBSes.

      • poVoq@slrpnk.netOPMEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        I can remove them, which doesn’t really delete them and they can be restored. But that also means that they are hidden from non-admin users.

        Just completely locking communities would probably need a change in the main Lemmy codebase.

        Edit: one could make it moderator post only and then manually lock all the old posts.

  • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.netEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    I would be willing to work on the code of conduct, but I need a TOC to work off of for additional topics, since I am pretty OOTL on typical items in a CoC.

    I think there needs to be a statement about graphic/illegal images (unless that’s covered by Lemmy in general). I also think you need a statement about bots and what type are allowed and what ones are not.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.netOPMEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      I don’t really want to make our CoC into the typical long legalese of over-specific rules. It’s more supposed to be a set of paragraphs that give people a good idea what kind of behaviour is expected of them in this community.

      If you have some good ideas for such paragraphs, maybe based on some good or bad behaviour you have seen happening on the network, just share them here for discussion.

      • silence7@slrpnk.netEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        I have to agree with this. Bad behavior gets tailored to rules when you’re engaged in a legalistic rules interpretation, which tends to be really problematic.

  • silence7@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    I’d like to understand the rationale behind the default sort order for posts and comments.