hitagi

Some (maybe most) of these accounts are likely using custom domain linking instead of a server.

No, I don’t think it removes duplicate images.

Right now: 0.3GB per user per month. This number is probably much higher for other instances because I don’t keep copies of federated images anymore and I’ve been compressing images early on.

This doesn’t include bandwidth and backups.

I managed to bring down ani.social’s monthly costs to only ~14 USD when converted (which includes everything except backups). With 165 monthly users, that comes to around ~0.08 USD with a lot of accomodation.

Lemmy is efficient in resources except in storage (database and images) which grows infinitely. Unless you’re purging older posts and images, it keeps growing (very slowly).

I made it a small badge so people wouldn’t have to feel obligated to donate. But yes, the entire instance has been community funded already thanks to generous one-time and monthly donations!

Oops, I misunderstood how it works. You can add subdomains as your handle.

I thought subdomains were people using PDS. So I don’t know anyone running a PDS. I might try running one just to see what it’s like and actually learn the network.

But here’s an example of @user.domain.com: https://bsky.app/profile/tomoshika.voms.net

I don’t think they’re using a PDS though. In fact, it’s really hard to tell who’s using a PDS or not. I’m not sure what the effect of this is in community-building and I wonder if control over the network is really decentralized. This is really… confusing.

Anyway, the PDS is a lot more complicated than I thought: https://docs.bsky.app/docs/category/advanced-guides

The users with PDS use something like @user.domain.com. Users with just @domain.com are under Bluesky IIRC.

People have suggested making a portal/quiz for instance signups, but that adds to the barrier. There are also problems like how in-depth and inclusive it should be. It reminds me of Linux distro pickers that often suggest weird niche distros.

There are already big/default instances in the Fediverse though but there are people who actively discourage this. Maybe Mastodon just had a bad start and Bluesky learned from that. I wonder if Bluesky’s PDS will be like Fediverse instances though. Many Fediverse instances are built around shared interests but the PDS just looks like a glorified handle.

Personally, I think the Fediverse discourse should shift to designing social media with decentralization in mind rather than mimicking mainstream social media with a “decentralized twist”. I don’t think the Fediverse will ever be as big as Twitter, but it doesn’t have to be. It just needs to be sustainable enough to keep new conversations going.

Doesn’t answer the question but maybe it’s worth sharing anyway.

This Lemmy instance is much harder to maintain due to the fact that I can’t tell what images get uploaded here, which means anyone can use this as a free image host for illegal shit, and the fact that there’s no user list that I can easily see. Moderation tools are nonexistent on here.

0.19.4 provides a way to see uploaded images (although not the best) but this version was only recently released so I can see where the frustration is coming from especially since the CSAM attacks happened nearly a year ago. At the time, I had to make a copy of pictrs, view everything on a file manager, and manually remove those images. People can still upload images without anyone seeing it however.

It also eats up storage like crazy due to the fact that it rapidly caches images from scraped URLs and the few remaining instances that we still federate with.

This was fixed in 0.19.3 (released 7 months ago) where you can disable image “caching”. This has solved storage costs for us together with pictrs’ image processing.

plug in an expensive AI image checker to scan for illegal imagery

It’s unfortunate that we need this. Not everybody has the resources to run fedisafety nor does everyone live in USA where they can use Cloudflare’s CSAM scanner. I think a good way to deal with the issue is to have images that are not public, not be stored (or have no private images at all). This way images can be easily reported.

Overall, I understand the frustration and to some degree I also feel the same but I also limit my expectations considering the nature of the project.

Are server costs just generally cheaper/easier in colonial countries to run or is it purely a money and time thing?

They are cheaper. Locations outside US/EU and very few countries in Asia are sometimes called “exotic” and can be a bit expensive. Lemmy also has this issue where servers that are distant from each other lag behind.

Mods and admins can remove posts but they do stay only if they’re “removed”. But if they’re “purged”, then they’re deleted from the server.

The mod tools are too basic and barebones. I’d appreciate if we can get:

• Post approval system for new or low-karma accounts (it can be karma for local communities)
• Reporting system with multiple options (very hard to implement in the fediverse as everyone has different rules) so that the reports are sent to the proper channels. Admins shouldn’t have to deal with community-specific rules (for example, “memes only on mondays”).
• Automoderator (these might already exist? I have not tried them.)

I don’t know if I should split this comment into three or not but they’re some general suggestions to address the complaint of basic mod tools.

Click “All Columns” on the top right.

I don’t think there’s a fixed aspect ratio or resolution size for community banners. But your instance might have resolution or file size limits for uploading photos. You can ask your instance admin about it.

I wonder how it’ll compare to Matrix.

I like the idea. I think we need more niche-interest instances like lemmy.film, lemmy.studio, literature.cafe (yours), startrek.website, ttrpg.network, slrpnk.net, ani.social (ours), etc as their respective admins understand the needs and issues of their communities better. Also we already have so many generic and tech instances to choose from.

You aren’t hosting any of the images from federated instances

Images sometimes cache and create a copy locally. Sometimes they don’t. I don’t actually know when or under what conditions they cache.

You can ask one of the lemmy.ml admins.

lemmy.ml disabled new community creations. You need to join a different instance that has community creation enabled.

Whoops! I missed a letter. But yes that’s the one.