I have very short experience with Lemmy, having just moved here from Reddit. I joined one of the most popular forums on .ml unaware of the fame of this instance, and from my short experience “Treating the Internet respectfully” is the opposite of what is found there.
Comment on Please consider supporting Lemmy development
Spzi@lemm.ee 1 day agoit’s worth donating even if you disagree with the devs personally. My impression is they’re decent about making Lemmy a tech project not a personal political platform, and treating the Internet respectfully
I want to underline this. And ask the reader to put themselves in the devs’ shoes for a moment.
Usually, when people have strong opinions, like extreme political views, they try to further their goal wherever they can. To abstain from that desire, and create tools which can be freely used, even by their political enemies, requires a considerable amount of decency and deserves our respect.
Either this, or they value FOSS so much (more), that they still keep Lemmy open for everyone.
In a way, they support people from the opposite side of the political spectrum, by providing them their platform freely. Isn’t that exemplary in putting the fedi spirit above political differences?
person1@lemm.ee 1 day ago
doctortran@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Okay, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that these two developers, with their decisions in moderating that one instance, have dragged down the reputation of the entire platform. They’re asking for donations because they lost the donations they were already getting.
And instead of questioning why that is and addressing it, they’re asking for more.
This doesn’t inspire trust in them. I trust their ideology not to mess with the platform, what I don’t trust is their competence if they can’t stop hemorrhaging donation money by refusing to deal with the biggest wart on the platform.
More importantly, just from a straight development perspective, this whole operation is a way too flimsy if it’s depending on these two people, alone, forever. What happens if they finally get another developer that really knows Rust and wants to join the project but doesn’t “fit in”? How are they actually going to expand the team so this project can grow and not be so dependent on them when they have the reputation they do?
If the community were going to fork it, they would have forked it by now. I don’t think there are enough people around that can manage a fork of this platform as it exists, so we are tied to them. And I don’t think I like that. I would like to see this platform expand beyond them, but the current course doesn’t seem to indicate that will ever happen.
dessalines@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Nope, not even the tiniest bit. We know how vital lemmy is, and want to secure its long-term future by being entirely sustained by donations. We never at any point reached that goal, and given that nutomic had a new baby, this is more important now than ever.
I have no idea what this means. We’re paying our daily living expenses so we can comfortably work on lemmy without having to find other work. The costs are food and rent.
I’d love to be able to grow our co-op, and add more developers! Donations make that possible too, especially if they exceed 2 average dev salaries (we’re a long way off from that).
It’s clear you’ve never tried, because we’ve never and would never reject code contributers for petty reasons like “not fitting in”. If ppl don’t want to work with communists, that’s on them. Personally I’d never reject someone for their ideology, especially if what they’re doing is FOSS, which serves the common good.
We don’t stop people from forking lemmy and never would, that’s entirely their right.
milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 22 hours ago
As Dessalines replied, your assertion of losing donations is wrong.
But yes indeed, their views, those of .ml, and how both handle them, are driving some donors away. You’re asking them to lay down their views, hide or change their opinions, separate from the vocal community on their server (noting that .world is just as vocal, self-righteous and self-assured), in order to develop the software that you use freely (well, that you might then donate to).
Honestly I feel that makes sense and nonsense at the same time. I can see it making sense in some circumstances; but personally I don’t think so in these. Maybe the rhetoric I see on .ml just doesn’t impact me the same as you?
But as an overarching argument that for the sake of Lemmy they should change… That just seems too much to ask, over the internet. Maybe to ask politely and accept a no. Maybe in person, one might argue and counsel strongly. But people are entitled to their opinions and the internet isn’t actually such a good place to change them.
So if the devs keep devving Lemmy, let them. They’re providing a good thing for us, and I hope more people donate.
As to the technical aspects, it just feels like an emotional outburst. FOSS projects’ maintenance is always hard, and there are always difficulties. We do our best. They are trying to. And if a community came along that loves Lemmy and wants to develop it, they could either contribute or fork. Perhaps their fork would last longer? Perhaps not. But for now this Lemmy is here, and is Free, so we are glad to use it.