Hello all,
Welcome to Lemmy.zip’s September update! How time flies eh?!
This month is pretty important update, so I will be sending it out to everyone via the bot too (sorry in advance!).
Server Updates
Error 451 (Unavailable for Legal Reasons)
Many of you will have seen all of our images were taken down on August 28th due to Cloudflare restricting access via their automated CSAM scanning tool. The most important thing is that this was a false positive, there was no CSAM involved.
Unfortunately, Cloudflare did this by pattern matching all requests to https://i.lemmy.zip/api/v3/image_proxy - which is all of our proxied images, instead of one particular image. This in effect took down any image we don’t host locally or is served by the proxy, so almost all of them. Some things like community icons are served via https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/ rather than the proxy, but this is relatively few things these days - so for a short period most images just failed!
So the obvious affect was that we couldn’t serve any image via i.lemmy.zip as this would fall under the proxy and therefore be pattern matched by cloudflare and blocked. Not really what we want. So for now, we’ve swapped back to serving images directly via lemmy.zip, which bypasses the block (but reduces our capacity to cache things a little bit)
Despite the image being a false positive and me flagging this to cloudflare not long after the block, we are still waiting on them to review and remove the block, 4 days later. Not good. For now I’ve disabled the tool so it can’t accidentally take down the whole site, but I will look for a way to prevent this happening again.
Thanks to everyone who messaged me or let me know what had happened!
Mod Tools update
Last month I talked about our Mod Tools and how this was a work in progress for community mods to be able to better manage their communities. I’m glad to say that this is now released in early alpha, and can be access via modtools.lemmy.zip. If you do try it out, I would appreciate any feedback via DM or in the Matrix chat. And thank you to the mods in the Matrix chat who helped me to debug and improve it so far :)
(Please note, if you do use it, the OTP code can take a little while to be sent if Zippy is doing something else at the time you request it. Please be patient, especially if you try to use it within half an hour of this post being made, as Zippy will be busy annoying everyone with a link to this post!)
Current features are:
- Create, edit, and delete RSS feeds for your community
- Create, edit, and delete welcome messages for anyone subscribing to your community*
- Set and view scheduled posts for your community
- View the communities you currently moderate.
- View any giveaways you’ve set up**
*Currently subscribers from Piefed doesn’t work but we are aware
**Can’t create them via the UI yet but that is WIP.
I’ll be doing a lot more work to this over the next few months to expand the features available to mods. I am also taking any requests :)
IMPORTANT - Lemmy.zip Ownership Update
Lemmy.zip is now part of DotZip Ltd, a non-profit company set up to run and maintain the various .zip services we host (including Piefed.zip and Mastodon.zip).
What does this actually mean? In practice, it’s a way of putting into writing and into law my commitment that these sites will never be run for profit. Donations can only ever be used to cover the running costs of the services, and never for personal gain. This principle is written into the company’s memorandum and is legally binding.
DotZip Ltd is wholly owned by me, so I still ultimately own and manage the sites. But by taking this step, I want to show that we’re here for the long term and that I stand firmly by the ethos of the project.
Even if I bring someone in to run DotZip Ltd alongside me (Or I’m hit by a car tomorrow and someone else has to take over the running) this ensures that this ethos must continue. Long term too, there is an asset lock in place - this means that the site can’t just be sold off for profit down the line.
I’m happy to answer any questions below. Just to be clear, I don’t stand to gain anything from this (other than getting to put “Director” on my CV 😉) - I have just given myself more paperwork to do as a result. However the trade off for confirming that we’re operating as fairly, transparently, and legitimately as possible, makes it totally worth it.
The company is registered in the UK with company number 16625751.
I have updated the legal stuff with this detail, and you can find the company details on the mini-site, dotzip.ltd. (I still have a lot of work to do on this!)
Please don’t be a lurker!
If you’re new to Lemmy.zip - WELCOME! I hope you’re enjoying your time here :)
It really is true that the easiest way you can support Lemmy.zip is to actively engage with content here: upvoting content you enjoy, sharing your thoughts through posts and comments, sparking meaningful discussions, or even creating new communities that resonate with your interests.
It’s natural to see fluctuations in user activity over time, and we’ve seen this over the wider lemmy-verse for some time now. However, if you’ve found a home here and love this space, now is the perfect opportunity to help us thrive.
If you want to support us in a different way than financially, then actively interacting with the instance helps us out loads. If you’ve gone to the trouble of creating an account, then come and be part of the Fediverse! Please don’t be a lurker! :)
Donations
Lemmy.zip only continues to exist because of the generous donations of its users. The operating cost of Lemmy.zip is over 60 euros a month ($60, £50) and is mostly funded by the community!
We keep all the details around donations on our OpenCollective page, with full transparency around income and expenditure.
If you’re enjoying Lemmy.zip, please check out the OpenCollective page, we have a selection of one-off or recurring donation options. All funds go directly to hosting the site and keeping the virtual lights on.
We’ve also put up a link to our Ko-Fi page where you can donate via paypal instead of using a card. All Ko-Fi donations will be totalled up and added to OpenCollective each month for transparency. I’ve added a link in the sidebar, but you can also click the image below to go there:
We continue to have some really kind and generous donators and I can’t express my thanks enough. You can see all the kind donators in the Thank You thread - you could get your name in there too!
Please remember, traditional social media is only “free” to you because they sell your data. We don’t do that - if you want to support independent social websites like this one and you value your privacy, please consider a small donation. It really does help.
Graphs!
I know you skipped all the above and came straight here for the pretty pictures.
CPU use over last 30 days: Image
RAM over 30 days: Image
Lemmy DB growth: Image
Image storage: Image
Cloudflare stats over 30 days: (Yes, I swapped to dark mode)
Requests:
Bandwidth:
Visitors:
Country traffic: Image
So, that is it for this month.
Have a lovely September - before we know it, it’ll be 2026 😱
Thanks
Demigodrick
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Good to see that you moved the ownership to a company. At the very least it limits your own personal liability. With how UK has been going downhill it’s a wise move.
Thank you for the continued transparancy and often underappreciated work you and team are doing to run things smoothly.