I’m the instance admin of Tucson.social and I support this message.

You see, Lemmy is steeped in what I like to call “Tech bro culture” - maybe not the original devs, but definitely the community that espouses these “tips”. These folks, despite their education, often fail to understand how non-technical people think, or even just how less technical (but completely competent) folks think.

Let me tell you what it requires to host an instance:

• Intermediate Linux Skills
• Basic to Intermediate Docker Skills
• Intermediate to Advanced Networking skills
• Intermediate to Advanced Information Security Skills
• LOTs of Time, especially when no one else wants to moderate or administrate.

And that’s just the TIP of the iceberg. Sure you can run a completely private instance that negates the need for heavy moderation, but you still need to protect that instance and make sure it works from a wide range of devices and networks.

So yeah, we see many instances that were created that are now dead or dying because the instance admins didn’t know they needed DDOS protection, or CAPTCHA, or any number of security tools, and now they are at the whim of bad actors or simply couldn’t keep up with the poorly documented changes that have now broken their instance.

Then, once you get past that issue, and you have a popular instance, then Regulatory Compliance becomes an issue. This is intrinsically linked to the ability to moderate the content. Sure, there are ways to automatically report illegal content, but in say, a NSFW community that’s a never ending battle that could could end up with a subpoena or 10.

So yeah, I recommend anyone who isn’t a seasoned Infrastructure / DevOps / InfoSec / Full Stack Engineer stay away from creating their own instances for now because those that do end up creating “Bot Bastions” that make the fediverse worse, not better.

Sometimes I wonder if the early version of the internet (the one that millenials grew up with) were too accepting of the “online edgelord” mentality. You know, the people who don’t believe their own words, just spouting stuff because it makes them look edgy and cool. Like, I know a younger me thought being edgy was cool, and I took that version of myself to online spaces - it wasn’t shut down like it should’ve been. However, I did end up growing out of it, only to realize my old friends never did. Even in their 30’s they still act like “top kek memelords” and are some of the saddest and loneliest people I know.

It kinda made me realize that “grown up people” online need to NOT put up with that crap. Like, zero tolerance, “Oh, your being an edge lord today? Temp ban - come back when you grow up”.

These same people, that were my friends back in high-school days often feel “persecuted” when they can’t be an edgelord anymore. After all, it was just SO NORMAL before. “It’s just a joke bro!”. And now every time they interact with society it’s through a lens of persecution because they can’t be as edgy as they want anymore.

THEN it get’s to bad faith bullshit as external bad actors feed the narrative that they “get” to be an edgelord and that’s what freedom of speech means - which then becomes a slide into alt-right and incel territory.

It’s exhausting, and honestly, I have a bit of myself to blame here - when I was more accepting of that type of behavior rather than pushing back on it. I even think that extends to the larger millenial cohort as well. We just kind of “accepted” 4-chan and the trash that came out of it for so long that many just feel entitled to be an edgelord these days.

I mean, I use beehaw’s defederation list as a basis for mine over at tucson.social - I’d love to make it more automated so that I don’t have to copy-and-paste it over itself every few days (that list changes almost daily now).

The theory I have, and it’s something I want to test with tucson.social, is that a democratic community will ONLY work with local stakeholders. Internet randos will always ruin the democratic makeup of a community since they can be from anywhere and have conflicting allegiances. However, by ensuring that an online community is a mirror of the local community, there is a deeper respect for Democratic norms because the participants are actually a part of the community they affect. At least, that’s my theory anyways. There will certainly be other problems in this model, but I believe it may be the only real way that an online community can self govern without falling prey to internet extremism.

Heck, all the talk I see about TOR concerns me. Like, what are you wanting to do on tucson.social that requires TOR? I get it for online-only communities that are meant for a global audience, but for something hyper local and meant for people who are (arguably) not oppressed by government restrictions on free speech, I just don’t see the point.

Anyways I shall see if this even works. Perhaps a year later I’ll be writing a post-mortem on the failure of tucson.social at the hands of extreme members of the community - or maybe I’ll make an exuberant post about it’s success in self-moderating/self-administration?

Don’t forget to take it easy from time to time.

I think us Admins/Instance Owners could benefit from a sort of social federation ourselves. A sort of collection of trusted people and organizations who share similar visions of what an online community should be. Early in this platform such connections could serve as sources of advice, help, solidarity as we venture into uncharted territory.

I certainly think that if the fediverse succeeds it will end up looking like that indeed. I suppose I was thinking less of “best” in the sense of how the whole fediverse is structured, but more how Beehaw itself, and it’s goals might interact with local communities in a deeper way. Maybe a sort of additional federation of non-profits eventually - all focused on community intervention by owning their own social networks using the frameworks described in the sticky’s here.

I just agree with the community model described, and think there could be something there when combined with locally focused instances.

I can understand that for some places for sure. I used to live in a very rural area, and when I went back to see what it was like after moving away, I realized that the town became a really bad Fox News echo chamber. Information deserts are brutal… Dealing with a community like that with the goals mentioned by the mods here… Let’s just say whoever chooses that has the patience of a saint.

Oh for sure! I’m in no rush! This is a marathon, not a sprint after all!

Okay, so I wasn’t going a bit crazy there? I mean, there were also valid reasons to follow me on reddit, but it’s been ramped up to 11 during the blackout.

Feels oddly coordinated, IMO.