Lemmy.ml has long had some political conflict among the userbase, especially in communities like worldnews. This is because the instance is composed of both leftists (anarchist/communist) and liberals (those who agree with the mainstream political views in western countries). Additionally, the instance admins all belong to the former group.

Recently we made an announcement offering free Lemmy instance hosting for one year, for non-politics instances. We are hereby making a similar offer to host a liberal or mainstream political instance, which can accomodate those who are unhappy with lemmy.ml moderation.

This has many advantages. Instance admins have full power to set the rules, block federated instances (like lemmygrad.ml), or remove unwanted content. An administration team that is closer aligned politically would certainly be an improvement for some of the users here.

So if you are interested to host such an instance, send an email to contact@join-lemmy.org some relevant details about yourself. You will also have to buy a domain. We will only host one such instance, so if multiple people are interested, you should coordinate among yourselves. As in the original offer, the hosting will be limited to one year.

On a side note, we would also like to help with the creation of a general-purpose instance that is less focused on politics than most of the existing instances. This is fully within the terms of the initial “free instance hosting” announcement, so if you are interested, send us an email!

  • @drone621
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    222 years ago

    Up until about a month ago, I thought lemmy.ml was plenty welcoming to people on the left that weren’t tankies. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that’s changed. The anarkiddie jokes get old really, really fast.

    • XxWe-Got-theBreadxX
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      142 years ago

      Yeah I’m not even anarchist or anarchist-leaning but it got old ages ago

  • QuentinCallaghan
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    2 years ago

    On a side note, we would also like to help with the creation of a general-purpose instance that is less focused on politics than most of the existing instances.

    My intention with sopuli.xyz was to create a general-purpose instance with no specific political leaning.

    • @nutomicOPMA
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      142 years ago

      I see, you make a good point. Your instance has been running for a year, but received very few users compared to lemmy.ml. My guess is that you receive new users mainly via join-lemmy.org/instances, is that correct? The problem is that most people only look at the top 2-4 instances, as you can see in the stats (removed everything thats not a Lemmy instance).

      Problem is, that list is sorted by most popular and strongly favors established instances. I think it would help a lot of we put 2-4 “recommended instances” at the top of that page, particularly small or general-purpose instances like yours. It would also be pretty simple to have different recommendations for each language, which should help regional instances. There could be a sort of tag system as well, but thats a bit more effort to implement. What do you think?

      cc @dessalines@lemmy.ml

      • DessalinesA
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        102 years ago

        Eventually I can add a tag / filtering type thing like joinmastodon does… especially for different language instances. But I think just sorting that page by popularity is pry fine for now tho. Joinlemmy is not the bottleneck IMO.

        The main issue is that communities are already on reddit or elsewhere, and they need to actively choose to migrate to lemmy. That often takes the moderators / admins of those communities doing that work, and bringing over a large chunk of users. That’s how the largest lemmy instances got to where they are, and there’s no way around that.

        • @nutomicOPMA
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          62 years ago

          Based on that screenshot, there are about 400 users per week who visit a Lemmy instance via join-lemmy.org. Thats a pretty significant number, and it likely contributes a large part of the new signups on lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml.

      • QuentinCallaghan
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        52 years ago

        My guess is that you receive new users mainly via join-lemmy.org/instances, is that correct?

        I haven’t really done promotion for my instance so that is correct.

        I think it would help a lot of we put 2-4 “recommended instances” at the top of that page, particularly small or general-purpose instances like yours. It would also be pretty simple to have different recommendations for each language, which should help regional instances. There could be a sort of tag system as well, but thats a bit more effort to implement. What do you think?

        That would be magnificent!

      • @Faresh
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        2 years ago

        I think in the mean time, one could by default randomly sort the instances.

        • @nutomicOPMA
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          52 years ago

          I dont think that would work well, because there is a large number of tiny instances with 1-2 monthly users that would show up at the top. Those are probably not the best place for new users.

          • @Faresh
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            22 years ago

            Maybe randomly sort the instances with more than x users?

            • @nutomicOPMA
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              22 years ago

              That could work, but it seems hard to figure out a good value for x. Plus it is likely that there would still be low-quality instances at the top sometimes. A hardcoded list of recommended instances gives much more control.

    • @pingveno
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      52 years ago

      I applied for the political instance, but given that sopuli.xyz is already established I would prefer that. I would be happy to help out in any way possible if wanted.

  • Water Bowl Slime
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    132 years ago

    That explains a lot. I thought all of lemmy was communist but it seems like that only applies to lemmygrad. Dunno who would want a lib lemmy instance when Reddit exists tho

      • I can also argue that they can adapt or fuck off, since basically all the internet is their own echo chamber, for fuck’s sake. It’s like when a bunch of religious go to an antitheist or religion traumatic syndrome recovery group and complain that “it has too much aggression towards beliefs that have harmed them!” when the majority of people is a believer in some spiritual sect, wtf.

    • @pingveno
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      62 years ago

      Reddit has had some issues with moderation lately. They have this unit, “Anti-Evil Operations”, that has been going over moderators’ heads to delete comments. They’ve been taking sides in some hot button political issues in the US, which has left the political debate sub I moderate in the uncomfortable spot of just banning those issues entirely. Their actions and decisions have been mostly opaque to moderators.

        • @pingveno
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          12 years ago

          I wonder how much of that is just because they got to Reddit early. A friend of mine is moderator over a smattering of enormous subreddits mostly because he started on Reddit when it was only a year old.

            • @pingveno
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              22 years ago

              Is it a problem, though?

                • Most of the internet is a liberal echo chamber. Libs can adapt to a place where their own believe set isn’t the mainstream for once, they wouldn’t care about us and would like to beat us, why should we be better to them and give them all they want everyplace, even ours, insteaf of them being like the guests they are and show some minimum politeness?

  • @Thann
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    122 years ago

    what about an instance for porn or sex-workers?

    • @aworldtowin
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      122 years ago

      I feel like hosting that is a lot more risky legally especially on such a small platform compared to say reddit or pornhub. Probably best for them to not have anything to do with people hosting porn, I’m not sure on the details of the law though.

      • @pingveno
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        82 years ago

        Yeah, my impression is that platforms for mature content have been running into that problem time and time again. The potential for child abuse content and revenge porn is high, and much of the remaining content is pirated. Policing all of that is expensive and sometimes scarring. Having volunteers do that sounds unlikely.

    • DessalinesA
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      2 years ago

      We’re not going to host anything like that for you.

      And also lemmy.ml wouldn’t federate with any instance like that due to the high legal risks involved.

  • krolden
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    102 years ago

    Really? Liberals have enough soap boxes, they can surely pay for another if they want it.

    I do dig the idea of more general purpose instances tho, as long as they keep up on spam mitigation.

    • @Faresh
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      192 years ago

      One of the criticisms that has sometimes been brought up against Lemmy is that it is just for “tankies” (which is not true, but they see the biggest instance described as “a community of leftist privacy and FOSS enthusiasts”, that contrary to all other social networks doesn’t label communists and other people as being part of a dangerous violent extremist movement; and the second biggest instance whose icon is the picture of a literal tank with red background, and a title that is a play on Leningrad and Lemmy). I therefore think that promoting diversity among instances in actions like these is a good idea.

      • @morrowind
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        92 years ago

        This is merely a product of people not being aware of / understanding federation.

        • QuentinCallaghan
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          112 years ago

          And the fact that the software and flagship instance have the same name adds to it.

        • @Faresh
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          2 years ago

          Yeah true, but I think we should also take into account the people that lack understanding of the concept of federation (maybe some kind of tag system on join-lemmy in the future like PeerTube has? And maybe randomized instances by default?)

      • @pingveno
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        42 years ago

        a title that is a play on Leningrad and Lemmy

        Technically, they just use the same Slavic suffix, -grad, for a town, city, or fortified settlement.

        • @Faresh
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          42 years ago

          Yeah, you are probably right, but I thought of leningrad, because both also begin in le.

    • @OsrsNeedsF2P
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      132 years ago
      • Less work for the Lemmy.ml admins (which leaves more room for development)
      • Increases the size of the Lemmy federation
      • Brings new leaders who will independently work towards Lemmy moving forward
  • @DoghouseCharlie@lemmygrad.ml
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    102 years ago

    Oh, that’s why world news was so lib. I’ll be honest I don’t understand how federation works, it seems complicated. Like multiple websites are latched on to one Reddit like service?

  • @altair222@beehaw.org
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    102 years ago

    Idk, I’d rather have an open platform that welcomes all good faith argument makers from all the side. But this is lemmy and it’s open for everyone, so do whatever anyone would like to do.

    • @FruitFactory
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      02 years ago

      I second this. As long they’re not right wing, I don’t think we should be overly concerned with ideological purity.

      • @pingveno
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        2 years ago

        But that’s already an ideological purity test. One which excludes a huge chunk of the population of most countries.

        • @FruitFactory
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          Yes but Lemmy.ml is explicitly leftist. I accepted that some level of gate-keeping was to be expected. I just don’t see the removal of “libs” to be a necessary part of that.

          Simply because this Instance is for leftists doesn’t mean “leftist” needs to be defined narrowly.

          That’s my two-cents anyways.

    • Vegafjord eo
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      -12 years ago

      Allowing liberals and leftists to coexist would kill all nuance. Letting in conservatives would kill all dialogue.

  • @Thann
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    92 years ago

    I would even support creating a centrist or right-leaning (non-extremist) instance to help de-radicalize the conservative sphere

      • XxWe-Got-theBreadxX
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        42 years ago

        they’re basically isolated (as they should be) so there would be no de-radicalization at all for them

        • @pingveno
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          62 years ago

          Yeah, I remember when their content started to flood through the federation channels. As much as I find the recent burst of genzedong content to be annoying, that was outright horrifying.

      • @Thann
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        12 years ago

        Yeah, there is already a radicalized instance lol

    • DessalinesA
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      112 years ago

      I too would like a vegan one, especially run by the ppl who run /r/vegancirclejerk. If you want to reach out to them I’d be glad to set one up for them.

      • @wazowski
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        2 years ago

        rip /r/dogdiet

        never forget o7

        enough reddit censorship 😎

  • @morrowind
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    82 years ago

    Oh man, I would like to, but I don’t have the technical knowledge

    • @nutomicOPMA
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      152 years ago

      There is no technical knowledge necessary. After one year for the hosting yes, but by then there should be some users with the knowledge and willingness to help.

  • @lobsterasteroid
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    72 years ago

    Why don’t liberals just spin up their own instance? Wasn’t that the point of making the code base open?

    • @poVoq
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      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

    • DessalinesA
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      62 years ago

      Unfortunately they still just prefer to stay on reddit, and none have wanted to do the very small amount of work to set up their own instance.

    • QuentinCallaghan
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      32 years ago

      When even i’ve been on sopuli.xyz, i would usually see finnish (?) posts so didn’t even know they catered towards english users too.

      It looks like I haven’t been vocal enough with my messaging regarding Sopuli. Yes, the instance has a Finnish name and we have wooed in some Finnish users but it is intended to be general-purpose. Making a purely Finnish instance wouldn’t be feasible.

    • @nutomicOPMA
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      82 years ago

      Its better if someone else hosts such an instance, we are already quite busy with development.

  • What happens after the first year if the hosting is not renewed? Will you help facilitate migration to another hosting option?

    I’m not interested in admining or joining it, just asking in case others had similar concerns.