Hey folks!
I’m writing this because funding for the Lemmy project has dropped to critical levels, which could seriously impact its future development.
Thanks to the generous support of our lemm.ee community, our server infrastructure costs are covered, and we even have a few months of runway. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed - lemm.ee wouldn’t exist without your help.
However, infrastructure alone isn’t enough. Our servers run Lemmy software, and without ongoing development, the platform cannot grow or even be maintained.
Lemmy is an open-source project with many contributors, but the vast majority of development work has been carried out by a small group of core maintainers. A few maintainers work full-time on the project, relying solely on donations and occasional grants to support themselves.
I’ve seen Lemmy development up close, and the maintainers have consistently gone above and beyond what I consider the standard for small open-source teams - they are constantly writing code, mentoring contributors, and keeping everything running. Their work is essential, and without continued support, it cannot be sustained.
If you value Lemmy, please consider supporting its maintainers directly. Every bit helps.
Please check out this post for more details about how to support the maintainers: https://lemm.ee/post/63034576
Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great weekend!
Made a small donation. Every bit counts, I hope.
It’s so sad that liberals will literally cozy up to fascists and monetarily support them however they can… But a FOSS project run by commies gets them clutching their pearls super hard
Just had a whole argument about this on that lemmyworld post that’s at the top about boycotting ml cuz someone brought up how they can’t donate if the developers are gonna use some of that money on ml server cost. They can’t see the bigger picture. Instead they wanna cry over how their $5 or whatever donation is gonna be used. Pathetic.
What’s better is that’s also the user who either watches new on ml like a hawk or has a bot that just scrapes content to pull off ml comms to put on world comms.
Imo, it’s people just rationalizing not wanting to give $5 away. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with deciding you don’t want to donate, that’s your choice, but be honest with yourself. If they weren’t commies, people would be finding some other excuse to not donate.
Dessalines and Nutomic are criminally underpaid. Lemmy development still has a long way to go and we could get there much faster if people donated more. But in typical Lemmy fashion, people would rather sit on their high horses and throw stones from their glass houses.
I started donating to the developers 2 days after I joined Lemmy and have given over $1k since then. I find the developers to be competent, mature, and reasonable. Similarly to many other contentious topics on this platform, the conversation regarding their perceived or imagined political beliefs is completely lacking in objectivity, logic, and nuance. Y’all actually be gossiping like teenagers about these developers even while taking advantage of the fruits of their unpaid labor. I’ve seen the evidence of their extremism and it’s quite underwhelming when you lay it all out.
And even if I did have major qualms about the devs, I would still argue that it’s much harder to justify using any products or services from large corporations like Amazon or Reddit than it is to monetarily support a FOSS project such as Lemmy. Out of everything I’ve spent money on in my lifetime, Lemmy is easily among the most morally justifiable expenses.
I eventually had to reduce my monthly contribution once sh.itjust.works started accepting donations, because I also feel strongly about supporting my own instance. It’s unfortunate that so many lemmings seemingly understand the fact that reddit has become an evil cancer and an alternative is sorely needed, but don’t seem to understand that creating such an alternative is a project that requires a massive amount of time and effort. Donating to your instance is great, but without continued development of the underlying software, it’s a futile effort. Even if you want to die on the hill of not donating to the big bad Lemmy devs, at least donate to PieFed or something! 2 patrons?!? As an early adopter userbase, we can and should be doing a lot more to support the fediverse monetarily, imo.
If they weren’t tankies then I would
If the devs shit views destroy the project that’s their fault
As an Eastern European drone developer, I’m OK with donating even to people who might be called tankies …if what they do is building Lemmy. :)
(As a side note, “riseup.net” needs donations too. Anarchist-run e-mail service doesn’t come for free.)
Do you have an extra invite code for riseup.net? I’ve been wanting an account but I don’t know anyone with a code available.
Sadly, my only invite code was recently used up for inviting someone who I encountered in real life… and I’ve only ever invited people who I’ve met in real life - because RiseUp has a policy of exacting vengeance from the inviter, if the invited person does meet local standards.
I signed up for a medium donation.
While I don’t agree with some things happening on .ml We should not discard imperfect allies. Thank you devs for the great work you’re doing.
ml arent allies at all, they’re the problem, and they wont see a stinking cent from me. It would be like donating to elon musk because I like a twitter Account that posts there.
It’s like supporting Ukraine but donating to putins propaganda outlets.
Thank you!
Inherently incompatible ideologies =/= imperfect allies
Have you noticed that every other reddit alternative turned into right wing parapolitical forums? That’s so much worse.
Godwin’s Law in full effect all the way down. At record speed I might add.
I’d like to join my voice with those saying it’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 as a forum.
The Lemmy software supports so many communities to communicate, including the huge lemmy.world that famously hates .ml. Because the software is open, it can do that freely.
You who hate capitalism, do you donate your ad data to capitalists so they can grow sickeningly rich off your use of their software? Then you might at least let these devs live comfortably off your use of the software. And if you pay in ways you see, instead of ways you don’t, does that trouble you so much?
You don’t have to agree. And you can still use Lemmy freely! But since this software has been such a blessing to us wanting a non-reddit platform, I hope many will be happy to bless the devs back - and they’re only asking for a modest salary.
it’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?
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.
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. They have all of these people saying they would donate if they would just deal with this conflict, but they won’t. How badly do they need the money to keep developing if they’re not willing to separate?
Here’s the better question: do they even want to keep developing if they had to separate from it?
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. There have been a lot of really clumsy mistakes and lack of best practices.
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.
They’re asking for donations because they lost the donations they were already getting.
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.
hemorrhaging donation money
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.
this whole operation is a way too flimsy if it’s depending on these two people, alone, forever.
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).
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?
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.
I would like to see this platform expand beyond them,
We don’t stop people from forking lemmy and never would, that’s entirely their right.
The devs also say that they would gladly accept any development help as well, if you’re either unwilling or unable to financially contribute.
This needs to be more highlighted than just donations.
Not trying to call out politics. But I rather find a way to contribute open source than watch my money keep the lights on very specific servers.
Damn this community is a fucking joke. It’s actually not funny, just sad.
You all parade around the internet mounted on your high horses about FOSS this, decentralized that, libre this, reject capitalism that, etc.
But the moment you are asked to contribute your part you all start pretending to be holy saints lmfao. Most upvoted comments in these threads go like this:
“I can’t possibly donate to this project because this guy said that thing about trans”
And meanwhile every day you forgo your moral codes to buy all kinds of shit. Otherwise you’d be living in the middle of a remote island.
The people you all buy from don’t merely say something you find offensive, they do lobbying with their truckloads of money that affect how you live your life and further their own agenda.
These Lemmy devs put their work under a license that gives up the ownership and just ask for a living wage, yet by your logic they don’t deserve it?!
It’s so surprising that a forum with mostly commie ideologues has a hard time finding non-freeloaders amongst the members
We should not discard imperfect allies.
That’s correct. People actively shilling for authoritarian regimes committing human rights atrocities, denying genocides, and aggressively silencing all dissent do not deserve it.
All they’d have to do is develop from behind the scenes and not actively contribute to one of the worst places on the platform, and I’d have no problem donating to them.
But they don’t, and so I don’t, and instead I get to listen to your whataboutism, literally the guy in the “and yet you participate in society” meme.
Lemmy dev here, for what its worth I stopped posting about politics years ago, and also dont do any moderation on lemmy.ml besides occasionally banning an obvious spam account. I simply dont have the time or interest anymore, and prefer to focus my time on development which benefits all Lemmy users.
Posting from alt account because these comments are not federating to my home instance.
Hi Nutomic. I’m new to Lemmy. I was quite impressed with what you have built, and was looking forward to helping Lemmy grow. It must have taken a lot of your effort. I was really enthusiastic about the project and a few weeks back your appeal for funding would probably have had me donating something.
Unfortunately, I’ve already had some bad experiences on your instance. I probably would have stayed away from it had I known what it stood for, but - as someone pointed out - this is the oldest instance, has some of the largets forums, so naturally that’s where many people land first.
And it really is quite an image problem for Lemmy. Someone compared you to Elon tanking (sorry for the bad pun) Tesla sales. Sure, up to some point one can say, imperfect allies, separation of code and ideology, that kind of thing. But I think you see from the comments that for a lot of people it’s too much.
For me, the combination of your views and what’s represented by .ml fundamentally undermined my trust in Lemmy as a platform. I don’t have the means to validate claims of code or development processs being impartial. It could well be that you did a lot of excellent work and have superb integrity in separating your views from your contributions. I just honestly don’t trust that is the case.
If that were to become the enforced position of the entire dev team going forward, I promise that I will donate, and provide receipts.
That’s a perfectly sensible position, but the money doesn’t go just to you.
It also goes to lemmy.ml costs.
Only donations via Opencollective pay for lemmy.ml hosting. All other donation options are exclusively for developer salaries.
This seems pretty political. Have you apologised for it?
What would be the correct way to voice opposing views about these issues?
Genuinely asking as to my ignorant eyes this looks like a reasonable way of discussing the issues, so I must have some kind of wrongthink here and would love to be guided back to a place where people can discuss opposing views safely.
Speaking from a place of explicit respect for minorities’ lived experiences, and using appropriate terminology that is both scientifically accurate and minimises harm.
This comment fails on all three counts:
“Biological men” is not a scientific term, because biologists don’t study men and women, they study males and females. Man and woman are genders, which are studied by psychologists and sociologists.
“Biological men” is not a term that minimises harm. Calling trans women men is a form of misgendering, which has been well documented to cause psychological distress and worsen mental health.
The comment denies the statement from lived experience by trans people, that trans people are being targeted by the owning class. Members of a privileged majority telling the minority that they’re wrong about their daily experiences isn’t respectful.Drag will be happy to provide sources for any of the claims in this comment which you have doubts about. In return, drag asks that you keep an open scientific mind, seek to minimise harm, and listen to minorities about our lived experiences.
Thank you. No sources required, and I already try to do those things…hence my questions! I hope that my questions don’t cause harm, if they do I would like to find a way to learn without harming.
If they had said “biological male” then this would be okay? Sounds equally as hurtful to me…what is the correct term use? Trans woman?
The only thing I see them denying is that the same group of people spreading trans rights are also the ones spreading transphobia…which sounds logical to me?
I appreciate that this sounds like I’m defending them but I’m really not, I suspect from what’s said in this thread that they have a storied history of being hurtful on this topic which i think is indefensible. But I am out the loop and have very little idea who this person is.
Drag sees the effort you’re making and is grateful. You aren’t causing offense.
Yes, “biological male” would be scientifically valid language - in part - but it would not minimise harm. Trans women is much better, you’re right. Drag says it would be scientifically valid in part, because the trans women competing in the Olympics are required to no longer be entirely male. They must be on estrogen and testosterone blockers. That means regardless of what happened in the past, their body is currently performing many of the biological processes of a female, and not many of a male. In the parts of sex relevant to athletic performance, trans women are entirely non-male. Drag would say they’re females, except that trans women actually tend to be weaker than cis women due to lower testosterone. All bodies, male or female, produce testosterone. With testosterone blockers, trans women are at lower testosterone levels than a cis woman.
The only thing I see them denying is that the same group of people spreading trans rights are also the ones spreading transphobia…which sounds logical to me?
We, the trans community, spread trans rights. We pressured them into putting LGBT flags on buildings. The Olympic Committee are not the government, they’re a private organisation, and they weren’t pressured to allow trans women by governments, they were pressured by a group of scientists employed by the IOC Medical Commission (initially, in 2003. There have been developments since then).
We have been saying the owning class is attacking us for years. It should be obvious from Trump’s attacks on transgender people that billionaires hate us. And Rupert Murdoch owned media has been spreading transphobia all over the world for a lot longer than that.
If you’ll permit drag to speculate as to why: Capitalism and patriarchy are very closely linked. Trans people’s existence is a radical threat to the patriarchy at a basic level. If anyone can be any gender, if the “objective reality” of gender is destroyed, then gender oppression becomes nonsense. Rich white men want to preserve the social system that keeps them at the top, and trans people’s existence makes it obvious to everyone that they shouldn’t be.
That meme literally says ‘We should improve society somewhat’ and lemmy is a perfect example of something that is ‘improved somewhat’ when you compare it to literally any other social media driven solely by profit and algorithms that reward whatever content the owners want.
But the keyboard warriors now prefer lemmy die because comments of a dev who isn’t in control of the software said… Anyways I’m donating monthly now
Lemmy won’t die. They’ll have enough money to develop the software if they just take lemmy.ml offline, and then they’d get more donation money overnight.
this is like you going out of your way to offer to give me a ride to the airport, and then you get mad at me for not being gracious enough about it, and then you accidentally hit a pedestrian at some point afterwards and use that against me.
No, it’s about someone building a car for you while also driving their own car. The car they built for you is unquestionably good even if you don’t like where they drive their own version. I don’t think it’s unfair for them to ask compensation for maintenance they do on YOUR version
I’ll do my part, I just wish my country’s currency wasn’t worth 1/6 of an euro :/
Just donate 6 times the amount smh my head
omg I’m so dumb, thank you very much.
I’ve been around for long enough, time for me to donate.
Sure the two top admins have some shitty opinions, but they still are the main people who have put this software out. The two have been tirelessly working on it for years and years, and have made code that helps everyone, whether you share their opinions or not.
FWIW, I freaked out once over something relatively minor across the Lemmy-modality, and the dev (one of the two, can’t remember which) was just a calm, gem of a person upon my temporary paranoia.
Man, I was… blown away.
(thought I was going to be banned to hell, yadda-yadda)You are paying for their programming, not their opinions. I dont think its a big deal if they have flaws or opinions i dont agree with.
So they dont like trans people. How does that even matter? Any trans person can use the platform anyway. The code doesnt have any opinions, its just code, and that code can be used to support trans people. The little opinions of the devs have no effect on this.
I cant believe how spoiled some people are here. We have a platform, free of ads, quality mobile apps, lots of instances, quite a lot of users. And its not owned by big tech. We own it.
Focus on the pluses here. I dont think another Lemmy will come along anytime soon. Alternatives are not even close in quality.
Alternatives are not even close in quality.
Yes and we can go donate to those alternatives instead and help build them up.
Completely divorced of their political views, I don’t think I want to donate to them simply because I don’t believe they’re doing a good job managing the platform. Donations aren’t just down, they lost those donations. And when confronted with this fact, and told that they should probably change some things if they want to keep getting donations, they’ve staunchly refused.
This does not inspire faith in the development team.
Meanwhile lemmy’s development is either too guarded or too complicated for anybody else to join the team and assist. It’s still just these two. If the platform is growing, it cannot just be these two.
Well, we will see. It would be stupid if Lemmy died because the users couldnt accept the opinions of two little devs, but sure, it may happen.
Then a lot of users will go back to big tech, and the ad business will profit once again. Because we couldnt accept that two devs on planet earth had opinions we didnt like.
Two people.
But Cybertruck owners? Nah fuck 'em.
Tesla doesn’t open-source their plans so you can build your own, better version of the cybertruck.
People are avoiding supporting lemmy monetarily due to the actions of the developers. We do not reward bad behaviors here. If lemmy development ends most of us will just move to kbin or piefed. This is a non-issue.
Just like with Elon Musk, if someone wants people to support them monetarily, they shouldn’t work hard to make themselves objectionable to wide swaths of the population they are trying to extract money from.
You can argue that, despite their opinions, the lemmy devs provide something of worth.
So does nestlé, I still boycott them as our values don’t align.
Elon Musk made electric cars popular. Nazi scientists developed rocket technology. That’s all fine and good, but I’m still not going to give them my money.
This is not wrong
Hmm glad I found this post and the comments. I recently came here from Reddit and joined some random communities just to have something in my feed. I was a bit shocked at hammer and sickle posted non-ironically in the meme group. Noting that communists weren’t better than Nazis got me called an ungrateful shit for existing (which I apparently owe to Stalin) and banned. Moved to the second-biggest meme community the search found, where I’m not banned yet but being educated by Westerners that life in communist coutries was cheerful and Holodomor was an oopsie.
I’m glad to hear that this is not all that Lemmy stands for, but a bit disappointed learning that top developers are a part of the problem. I’m conflicted about donating to say the least, and it does not bode well for lemmy adoption in general. I’ll stick around to see if other servers gain momentum, but I’ll need to keep an eye open for other reddit alternatives I guess
Most of Lemmy is fine - just avoid the tankie triad of lemmygrad, lemmy.ml, and hexbear and you should be good to go.
Edit: And maybe also the instances that haven’t defederated hexbear in particular, since when they show up threads tend to go to shit, as you’re seeing here, unfortunately.
I can certainly see that Hexbear and the other two are very vocal and toxic here. Engaging in some discussion or getting my views challenged is fine, I’d rather not close myself in a bubble, but it’s sad that they would be so quick to insult and ban you. It does worry that they have some of the biggest communities. I wish I could say “oh well the protocol is neutral” but I think that with most OSS projects it matters tremendously who is at the helm; also, another poster outlined quite well that these instances seem to be the showcase for the system.
They are only big by number because they are some of the oldest instances. So they have a lot of inactive accounts and communities. The number of actually active users is less than .world or .ee.
They only seem more active because they are terminally online and have communities that are specifically designed to brigade threads when they don’t like what’s posted.
Sadly that is not enough, blocking instances at user level leaves you forced to deal with their users who will spread propaganda in every comment.
Defederate? My instance already defederated those 3 but their posts still appear if someone from a sever that aligns with them (I can’t see any other reason to keep a federation with them) crossposts to their instance, now that post will federate with the rest anyway. Defederation should be total, but they left loopholes by design.
And it still won’t matter because not all countries have a no-bullshit instance/comm, so it’s extremely easy to see someone post propaganda about a country without enough users on the fediverse and nobody will know, but if someone from that country challenges it, the users will pile on them (specially if it’s a populist) and downvote them (I can safely say that the only news I’ve seen about my country are goverment propaganda, but lemmy users get MAD if it’s pointed out).Lemmy as it exists right now must dissapear, it’s designed maliciously to keep the propaganda going instead of fighting it, it’s just the other extreme of Reddit.
I am waiting for PieFed to get more developed to see if it gets better blocking capabilities, because I’m tired of the lemmy loopholes.The roadmap contains a new feature for extended instance block, which also blocks all posts and comments from that instance’s users. If some feature is not implemented in Lemmy thats not out of malice, but because we really dont have time to work in everything that people ask for.
Its supposed to be tankie TROIKA 😤
Drag is an anarchist and banned from lemmy.ml for being left wing, so drag hopes you will listen with an open mind to this:
Karl Marx said that communism is stateless. That means in communism, the government has no authority to coerce people. Authoritarianism isn’t communism. In fact, Joseph Stalin never claimed that the USSR had achieved communism. He said they’d achieved socialism, and he made empty promises that it would be communist at some point in the future.
You know where communism was actually successfully implemented? America and Australia. Karl Marx and his friends were inspired by the Haudenosaunee people of North America. Marx called it “primitive communism”.
Communism and fascism are entirely different, and conflating the two has roots in Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization and Nazi Apologia. The Nazis industrialized murder and attempted to colonize the world, the Soviets uplifted the Proletariat and supported national liberation movements such as in Cuba, China, Algeria, and Palestine. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.
Person1, since you’re new here, this is Cowbee, our resident tankie apologist/propagandist.
The most reasonable-sounding genocide denier and authoritarian regime supporter this side of the gulags. I highly recommend their alt’s comments on Hexbear if you’re interested in their more “mask off” persona. Also, remember the number one rule when interacting with hexbears: never directly engage them.
Edit: Here are some of Cowbee’s Uyghur genocide denial comments, for example, if anyone’s interested. Note the hardline tankie talking points, but couched in the classic Cowbee “reasonable” rhetorical style.
Quite an introduction, and quite a lot of slander. I’m a Communist, Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, etc, regardless of how you want to call me. I’m certainly not a genocide denier, and I’d say all governments are “authoritarian,” what matters is which class is exerting its authority. My goal is in fact to dispel myths surrounding Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Communism, etc.
If they check my Hexbear account, they’ll see more conversation surrounding gaming and casual conversation, haha.
Edit: here’s Hakase attacking feminism and here they are defending the arrests of animal rights protestors. Even more, here’s hakase defending transphobes.
You’re not a communist, you’re a state capitalist.
I’m a Communist, specifically a Marxist-Leninist. I’m not an Anarchist, but I’m not a “State Capitalist” either. I advocate for gradually building towards a fully publicly owned and planned global economy along democratic lines, ie Marx’s conception of Communism.
You want a “socialist” revolution, and would turn your nose up at a communist revolution creating communism immediately. Drag thinks you have to support the idea of a communist revolution in order to be a communist. Unless you already live in communism.
Marxist-Leninist
but I’m not a “State Capitalist”So you’re a revisionist.
Nobody wants to argue with Cowbee
What actions of the developers are you talking about? I’m not trying to start a fight, I’m honestly out of the loop or whatever.
See some stories here: [email protected]
I imagine the biggest point are the censorship, disinformation and tankie allegations. These are all documented in this post. Another point worth bringing up is that they are the admins of lemmy.ml, where most of the allegations happen. Lemmy.ml also has something of a tankie problem and one of the devs has said that the donations will also cover the cost of running the instance. So by donating to the devs you’re also donating to an instance that possibly has no problem with censorship, disinformation and harboring tankies.
I would be willing to turn a blind eye if I could trust the devs to step away from lemmy.ml and focus solely on the development of Lemmy. But I don’t trust the devs enough to actually do that so I personally won’t be supporting Lemmy development until someone else becomes the maintainer of Lemmy.
EDIT: just to cover off the inevitable “what will happen if we stop supporting Lemmy. I don’t want to go back to Reddit” fear. If Lemmy doesn’t work out and it gets abandoned there’s always Mbin. Anyone here from the Reddit exodus knows that it’s annoying to migrate but Mbin can federate with Lemmy which means going from Lemmy to Mbin is going to be less painful than form Reddit to Lemmy.
AND it’s open source software. Nothing is stopping anyone from just forking Lemmy.
lemmy.ml is part of Lemmy development as it is used to test new versions before release, take performance measurements and have first-hand experience with the mod tools. If I stepped away from lemmy.ml it would make Lemmy worse and cause more problems for other instance admins. In any case the costs for lemmy.ml hosting are already covered at a much lower donation level, anything you contribute goes directly to developer salaries.
I’ve given it some more thought. There’s no guarantee that money going to the developers won’t be used to for the instance they are financing. If I give you money and the lemmy.ml funds are empty, are you going to let lemmy.ml die? Considering you said it is used to test new versions of lemmy and measure performance and test how effective the mod tools are I don’t think you would let lemmy.ml die. You’d finance it yourself, most likely from the money that is donated for the development of lemmy. So separating lemmy development and lemmy.ml instance costs wouldn’t really change the situation.
But I also no longer think it’s inherently necessary to step away from lemmy.ml. I get the value a real instance would give to development, so what I think needs to happen is a shift in what lemmy.ml is supposed to be. If the purpose of lemmy.ml is to support the development of lemmy then the primary goal of the instance should be that. Clearly the biggest issue people have is politics and how lemmy.ml is used as a vessel to push a certain kind of political agenda, which means if the primary goal is to support development then the instance right now contradicts its primary goal. It’s dissuading people from donating to the development and it’s making the main developers (you in this case) focus on the drama (for the lack of a better word) instead of spending time developing. I think the solution is pretty simple, lemmy.ml should take a hard anti-politics stance. Do a purge and kick all politics off the instance, including instance users who discuss politics on other instances. Have it be memes, technology, privacy and FOSS and gaming and everything else that doesn’t necessarily lead to politics. Users who want to take part in political discourse can find instances that allow political discourse, and that includes you and Dessalines. If you want to be political create an alt account on a different instance. Communities that want to be political can find other instances to be in political. You don’t need politics to run lemmy.ml. And for the sake of clarity also add to the instance about section that the instance exists to support lemmy development because currently that is not written anywhere.
If you think that’s unfair to the current users of lemmy.ml I honestly don’t see how you could resolve this situation without stepping away from lemmy.ml.
So you expect us to make a lot of major changes to the oldest Lemmy instance in existence and disappoint many users. All for the goal of maybe possibly getting a few more donations, without any guarantee. Its more likely that youre a cheapskate looking for any excuse to avoid donating, and keep using Lemmy without contributing at all. If you dont want to donate at least be honest, I would respect that.
I’m simply explaining the grievances people have that is stopping them from donating and what I personally would do in your situation to alleviate those grievances. That grievance is the nature of lemmy.ml which you’ve either voluntarily or involuntarily let slip into promoting a very specific political agenda that most lemmy users don’t agree with. If you’re genuine in your desire to have lemmy.ml as something that helps development then it should be apparent to you how the current state of lemmy.ml contradicts that desire. If you can’t acknowledge that I can only assume you’re using the development of lemmy as an excuse to keep lemmy.ml as it is.
Which segues to the end of my previous comment. If you think that’s unfair to the users of the instance then the only thing that you can do is step away. You can always start a new instance or you can work something out with the existing instance owners to get the data and feedback you need to develop Lemmy. And to be clear those instances can’t be Lemmygrad or Hexbear because those two instances are also not acceptable for most Lemmy users and wouldn’t solve the grievances people have.
At the end of the day it is not my concern if you get funded or not. I have no issue funding the development despite your obviously transphobic stance and Dessalines stance on Uighurs because I am capable of separating your work from who you are. I don’t have to like you to support your work so I’m willing to compromise here. But me tolerating both of you doesn’t mean I’m going to compromise supporting a platform that is actively promoting an agenda I cannot accept. I’ve already compromised on tolerating you, how about you compromise a bit to meet half way? If you’re unwilling to compromise this is my final alternative to supporting lemmy. Remove yourselves from the project, let someone more reasonable than you to take over and I’ll donate to them.
You have to understand that at this point Lemmy is bigger than you and its popularity is growing in spite of you and lemmy.ml. The fact that Lemmy is growing but your donations are shrinking should make that point evident. It’s up to you if you’re going to adjust to the new reality or stick your old ways and run into monetary issues.
lemmy.ml is part of Lemmy development as it is used to test new versions before release, take performance measurements and have first-hand experience with the mod tools.
Then you really shouldn’t be surprised that people don’t want to donate when part of that support goes toward an instance that openly and aggressively supports authoritarian regimes, human rights violations, and genocide denial, and brutally censors any dissenting viewpoints.
If I stepped away from lemmy.ml it would make Lemmy worse and cause more problems for other instance admins.
The other option, of course, would be to run lemmy.ml in a way that doesn’t actively piss off the majority of Lemmy users, but that doesn’t seem to be a path you’re willing to consider.
Honestly I’m genuinely torn about the situation. I’ve found such a great place here (outside of the tankie triad, of course), that as much as I disagree with your politics I’d probably donate anyway because of how great Lemmy is as a platform, if only you developed behind the scenes and weren’t personally responsible for one of the worst places on said platform. As it is, as long as both a) lemmy.ml continues to be run the way it is and b) you continue to have an active part in that instance’s abhorrent behavior, I can’t in good conscience give you any financial support.
Would you donate to Lemmy if lemmy.ml hosting was funded separately?
At this point, I’m not sure I would trust the truthfulness of that claim. The hard-core refusal to do so up until this point has been both surprising and unsettling, to say the least.
I would consider it, but being completely honest, this whole event has really soured me on it. I probably just start looking outside of lemmy sometime in the coming weeks 🤷♂️
There was no hardcore refusal because this matter wasnt even mentioned as a blocker for donations until a few days ago. In fact lemmy.ml hosting is only funded via Opencollective, so if you donate through any other platform the money goes entirely to developer salaries.
Probably not - for me it’s more that the majority of my negative experiences on Lemmy have come on lemmy.ml, so the sticking point really is your involvement with it.
For a lot of other people in these threads though, it does seem like funding the hosting is the biggest deal. If the server costs for lemmy.ml are as low as you say, splitting off the hosting costs separately in some way (like taking donations directly from lemmy.ml that go into their own account separate from general Lemmy donations, for example) probably would see at least some sort of increase in donations to the overall Lemmy project. Especially if you made an announcement that this is what you were doing and maintained an official “separation of finances” position going forward.
If it wouldn’t be too much extra work, it’s probably worth a shot.
In other words your experience on Lemmy has been mostly positive? Then why dont you want to support the development of this free software? Keep in mind that lemmy.ml is exclusively financed via Opencollective, all other donation platforms go directly to developer salaries.
They should try just using it for development instead of forcing out tankie propaganda, then.
They’re communists 😱
Tankies, specifically
Authoritarian commies who have very different-from-reality opinions and word definitions
Oh, and transphobia
It’s so funny to me when I express an even remotely moderate opinion and get called a right-winger. Lol, is lemmy really where right-wingers would go for online discourse?
tankie is just the new scary sounding word for communist derived from when the soviet union helped defeat a CIA backed color-revolution in Hungary
“Tankies” don’t really enjoy communists. It’s not honest dialogue to mix them up with each other
Why would the CIA back a revolution demanding minimum wage and the right to unionise?
To destabilise the soviet union of course. They can still take away those rights later, like they did after the collapse of the soviet union.
https://hexbear.net/post/4475702
the original source from the comments:
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10110-10525.pdfIf the state had agreed to the students’ demands for minimum wage and the right to strike, there wouldn’t have been any instability. Suppressing revolutions with tanks doesn’t make society more stable. Sounds like the USSR sucked just as bad as the USA if they fell for that easy bait.
lol
looks at moderation history
zionisthow does this fascism keep getting into my anticommunism?
Ad hominem and appeal to authority at the same time. Impressive.
They’re
communiststransphobic, class reductionists, support Russian invasion of Ukraine, support Uyghur genocide, support N. Korean dictators, worked hard to ensure Republicans won US elections, run an instance where they act like the authoritarian dictators they love and ban everyone who disagrees with them even slightly for being “liberals” 😱FTFY
You can support lemm.ee, then, instead?
I might as well since I probably gave Sunaurus a big headache with this thread.
This is bs, because you - and perhaps almost everyone else here - are supporting monetarily much worse people than the Lemmy developers.
Those places suck and doesnt even have quality apps…
I dont think its a non-issue.
If those issues keep you off them, I’m good with that.
I had them blocked for misogyny, no wonder lol
Yeah? I dont agree its transphobic to want women to still be competetive in the sports they are competing in.
I dont think we should have men identifying as women, coming in and beating women in women sports.
Thats not transphobic, and even if it was, its my opinion still, whatever you label it as.
The Olympics have allowed trans women to compete against cis women since the 90s, and yet there’s never been a trans medalist. If there was a genuine advantage to being trans in sport, at least one country in the past three decades would have loaded their team with trans women and cleaned house. However, taking enough hormones to make a masculine body into a feminine one after it’s already grown means you’ve got way less testosterone than a cis woman, so that counters out any initial advantage. Claiming otherwise is misinformation. Spreading misinformation to the detriment of trans people is transphobic.
showing an unbelievable lack of understanding and your whole ass on the internet huh? you’re entitled to your opinion, like everyone else. but it sure is a stupid one.
Well I dont pick those opinions to please you, so… :)
The original post on lemmy.ml by the creator of Lemmy had a lot more details, so maybe just link to that one?
https://lemmy.ml/post/29579005
Tldr: They are down to about 1000 dollars per developer and will have to take jobs and stop Lemmy development if they dont get 2500 dollars per developer.
They’ll get more money if they shut down lemmy.ml
Tbh, of all the tankie triad, .ml is the chillest, and my own experience is that, unlike the Nazis, they generally don’t cause issues off server. Now, if you wander into Hexbear and spout some mainstream view, well, good luck, partner, but it’s their server. Besides, I sometimes ask myself what the CIA would do and try to do the opposite for the sake of all mankind. It doesn’t really bother me that they run .ml.
Do not discard imperfect allies.
I do not agree with their political view etc. but I can see that the development of Lemmy is a net positive.
Shutting down .ml won’t save them much money, it doesn’t cost much to run a instance, developing software instead of having a tech job on the other hand…
People will be more willing to give them money if they shut down lemmy.ml
I’m sure people would also be more willing to give money of they were Vegan.
By being overly critical of our allies we damage our movement.
Dessalines is vegan, for what it’s worth. Gave me a few good recipes for seitan!
Drag hopes their financial system becomes desperate enough, and enough people say it’s about lemmy.ml, that they realise they have little choice but to take lemmy.ml offline. If that happened, they would still be able to develop for Lemmy full time, and the tankie nonsense would be gone. Everyone wins.
If they would rather get jobs and stop working on Lemmy than take lemmy.ml offline, then drag’s none too pleased with their priorities and is comfortable enough with seeing them go. Someone will fork the software and keep working on it.
Drag hopes their financial system becomes desperate enough, and enough people say it’s about lemmy.ml, that they realise they have little choice but to take lemmy.ml offline.
The goal is becoming clear. Western-supremacist redditors will not tolerate any communist-friendly spaces on the internet that oppose US foreign policy goals. They can shut our communities down and kick them off reddit, but doing the same on the fediverse is proving difficult. Censorship and anti-communist witch-hunting is their life goal.
For the record, I would never wish starvation on anyone, regardless of ideology. No one should have to be in a “desperate financial situation”, regardless of who they are and what they believe.
You’re not being attacked. People are just refusing to give you free money. Lemmy.dbzer0.com doesn’t have the same problems, and they’re communist.
You can either dig your heels in, cry oppression, and stop working on Lemmy, or you can listen to other people and work to be someone they think deserves their money. “Identifying the goal” doesn’t change the outcome. And it’s wrong, too. Lots of communists on Lemmy who don’t like your server.
To paraphrase Gandhi: “I like your communism, but I do not like your communists.” People just don’t think you’re a good communist. Insulting them isn’t going to get you money.
I came here because reddit is turning into a corporate shithole. Users getting banned because of Luigi apologia and so on and so on. Was really relieved that we did in fact have a great, open source alternative to reddit.
My problem is the lead developers of this platform. They do not see the issues with their political bias being woven into their platform (and their transphobia), it will face the exact same shit thats happening to reddit today.
I can’t pay money to people who deny the pain of trans people. I just can’t. And if the lead developers of Lemmy run out of funds, well then I guess they’ll have to just take a good look in the mirror if they don’t see the reason why Lemmy failed. For now I’m gonna use lemmy if I can, but you can’t expect people from reddit to come here and support you guys when their is really hateful shit being spewed by those people (tankies).
They do not see the issues with their political bias being woven into their platform
What the fuck are you talking about? Their ideology is not part of the project in the slightest. Which is why every other instance works perfectly even if they don’t agree politically with the dev team
For now I’m gonna use lemmy if I can, but you can’t expect people from reddit to come here and support you guys
That’s because you want to have your cake and eat it too.
Go back to Reddit with such shitty takes where you move away from massive corporations only to leech off small projects supported by small donors and real people.
You’re literally just another one of those people complaining about the lack of alternatives in tech while also being unwilling to support the products you’re currently using and talking shit about…
Cool off.
Why? So more users like you can come to this platform and use it while shitting all over it by contributing nothing to it?
As I already said, go back to Reddit
thanks for the post sir, happy to throw a few money units in
