lemmit.online is a controversial lemmy server since its sole purpose is to run a bot that mirrors reddit posts to lemmy. Previous discussion 3 years ago about whether to block it: https://lemmy.ca/post/1380644

Currently it is blocked from lemmy.ca and I would like to unblock it to ease weaning off reddit gradually. If I can use lemmy.ca as my main site with links off to reddit on occassion I don’t need to use reddit anymore to browse but just drop in for a specific post of interest.

The main complaint is it can fill up the all category with high volume of low interaction posts. This can be dealt with on a per user basis by blocking either the lemmit.online instance or blocking the bot@lemmit.online user.

Looking at the top 10 lemmy instances on https://fedidb.com/software/lemmy here’s who allows or blocks the lemmit.online instance:

lemmy.world        ✅
lemmy.ml           ✅
sh.itjust.works    ✅
lemmy.dbzer0.com   ✅
lemmy.ca           ❌
programming.dev    ✅
lemmy.zip          ✅
lemmy.blahaj.zone  ❓
ttrpg.network      ✅
lemmy.one          ✅
  • Rentlar@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    4 days ago

    I’ve changed my mind a bit since Otter’s comment suggests Lemmy has some admin-accessible features I didn’t know about. I personally haven’t needed Reddit for several years now, and the Old Reddit redirect plugin works fine for my needs the odd time I do want to peek at a thread. My own transition period from Reddit to Lemmy was about 3-4 months, so I understand the want to wean off gradually.

    I think I can support LemmitOnline’s re-federation on the condition that it will not show up on any lemmy.ca user’s All or Local feeds, unless that user has subscribed to the lemmit.online community or the bot. It also shouldn’t show by default for logged out users.

    However, I still worry if it will bring overwhelming traffic, disk or other resource use for the lemmy.ca admins from re-enabling that federation. Something to consider.

    • humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      not show up on any lemmy.ca user’s All or Local feeds, unless that user has subscribed to the lemmit.online community

      subreddits should show in “all search” though. I like your “soft defederation/block” concept, but may require a lemmy software upgrade?

      • Rentlar@lemmy.caEnglish
        4·
        4 days ago

        I agree it should show in search. To be specific about the feature I’m talking about, I’m referencing this part of Otter’s comment:

        It might also be possible for us to hide the communities from public feeds, so only subscribed users will see the communities and associated content. We need to explore that some more: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/2943#issuecomment-1581485335

        And the link leads to nutomic’s comment:

        There is also an endpoint to hide posts from a specific community from the frontpage (/api/v3/community/hide). Note that this isnt implemented in lemmy-ui yet.

        So it seems to me it exists in the current Lemmy software but not in the frontend UI? I cannot confirm but I assume that it’s adjustable through config file changes or CLI commands.

        • Otter@lemmy.caMEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          I didn’t know about it until I stumbled across that issue. After playing around with it, it is a possible solution but I think we would need the lemmit admins to make that change in order for it to work.

          What I’ve learned:

          • right now it can be toggled by admins with a CLI command, after Lemmy v1 it will be known as unlisted and it will become a part of the main community visibility settings (public, unlisted, localonlypublic, localonlyprivate, private): https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/blob/main/crates/db_schema_file/src/enums.rs#L130
          • when it is enabled, only users that are subscribed and logged in can see the posts. For everyone else, you can only see the community info and post contents if you get a direct link to it

          Since it is a property of the community, trying to override it on our end might lead to federation issues because of the ambiguity.