This is in regard to Lemmy.world blocking piracy communities from other instances. This post is not about whether you agree with the decision. It’s about how the admins informed their users.

A week ago Lemmy.world announced their Discord server. This wasn’t very well received (about 25% downvotes, which is rather bad compared to other announcements). The comments on that post were turned off, presumably to avoid backlash.

Before that, announcements about the instance used to be posted to !lemmyworld@lemmy.world. This time, the information was posted on the Discord server instead.

I don’t agree with this. Having to use a proprietary platform to participate in an open-source one goes against the very purpose for me, especially when the new solution isn’t really an improvement (as before the information about the platform was closer to it).

Edit: Corrected the announcements community name.

Update: Lemmy.world finally released an announcement and promised they would inform about similar actions and gather feedback in advance in future.

    • AsunasPersonalAsst@lemmy.world
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      Got banned recently from their Discord server by [I’m assuming] me calling out their announcement/decision a clownery (which it actually is, because why make a announcement community when you’re not informing your userbase), ngl it’s mildly infuritating…

      What even is not a good look is I didn’t really receive a notice that I got banned there…

      Edit: phrasing

      • KrisND@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m assuming the reason would’ve been trolling. Considering the bottom of this is all you did and didn’t put a statement like “I don’t agree with this channel, I think it’s uncalled for” etc etc. although even that I would put into !support@lemmy.world

        Just tagged a channel and said clownery with no activity in the discord really. Just wanted to add the additional context here and figured a SS would help too.

          • KrisND@lemmy.world
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            What makes you think it’s “just to read announcement”. The initial post didn’t even mention announcements, nor was it the purpose of the discord. Yet that’s all you can seem to hold on to. It’s already been stated there was miscommunication on one announcement and that was that.


            Do you see the issue now or do you need help?

            This doesn’t even make sense because it appears you didn’t even read the original discord post or even have an understanding about it.

            A) It’s not a requirement to join discord, and never was made to be.

            B) Discord is of itself a community communication platform for IM.

            C) Millions of people actively use discord, it’s a popular platform and easier then others like Matrix. If it was something I didn’t already use, I would’ve never joined.


            Your message is filled with incorrect assumptions and it appears your unwilling to go find the answers that are even on the same page as these comments. It’s very surprising with the internet nowadays and people can’t even seem to find information that is right in front of them, yet they act like they already have the facts.

        • AsunasPersonalAsst@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          trolling

          no activity in the discord really

          Why would I be active in the DC when its supposedly purpose was announcements about the site and whenever this site is down? Why would you assume/expect people join in a DC server to interact?

          • KrisND@lemmy.world
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            Why would I be active in the DC when its supposedly purpose was announcements about the site and whenever this site is down?

            Could you please clarify your source, the discord post as OP mentioned doesn’t read that. Lemmy.world announced their Discord server. And if you looked around the main purpose isn’t focused around announcements. It seems there was miscommunication and it wasn’t posted to lemmy, mistakes happen.

            “Why would you assume/expect people join in a DC server to interact?”

            That is sort of the point of Discord as a instant message community platform.

            I joined the discord because:

            • The internal lemmy direct messages sucks.
            • I already use discord anyways.
            • It’s a great way to not spam unrelated comments. etc

            Why did you join?

    • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
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      There is a lot of FOSS stuff communicating over twitter… Even The Linux Foundation has a twitter account.

      But lemmy.world should primarily communicate via lemmy imo…

      • SomeRandomWords@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        That’s where I’m at. Discord isn’t the issue for me, it’s them not using their own platform to communicate major announcements. At that point it’s like you’ve given up on your own platform.

      • Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.world
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        Even The Linux Foundation has a twitter

        Because Linus Torvalds doesn’t care about the Free Software movement and user freedom. It’s why his kernel is still on GPL2.

      • BitOneZero @ .world@lemmy.world
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        But lemmy.world should primarily communicate via lemmy imo…

        I find the same attitude holds for developers who like to hang out in real-time Matrix chat and don’t seem to use Lemmy itself very much and things like code blocks ruining greater-than and less-than slip right into release without much concern.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      Making announcements to somewhere you have to log in to see is the problem. You can’t see Discord chats unless You’re logged in.

    • 1984@lemmy.today
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      Coins incoming! :)

      Just kidding. So much drama, needs some comic relief and this is all I had.

  • sunaurus@lemm.ee
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    I think Discord is great, as long as you account for its shortcomings:

    • It should be treated as ephemeral - up to the point of “the service could completely shut down tomorrow”
    • It should not be treated as fully private or secure

    I love how snappy it is (I never have to wait minutes for messages to load, as I do in Matrix), and also how there are a ton of Lemmy users who have Discord open in the background anyway. While I wouldn’t ever propose moving something like the main Lemmy communication channels to Discord, I do think it’s much easier to have IMs with regular Lemmy users on Discord than it is to do so on Matrix (as in my experience, most regular users do not have a Matrix client installed).

    By the way, lemm.ee also has a Discord server. It’s only treated as a secondary channel, all announcements are posted in our meta community on Lemmy itself, and just linked to from Discord, but it’s still nice to have IMO.

    • gabe [he/him]@literature.cafe
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      The issue people are having is the announcement was made exclusively in lemmy.worlds discord server. Beehaw has a discord server as well, but they relay announcements to there, not from there usually

    • mechatux@lemm.ee
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      I enjoy using your instance, thank you. The problem at hand is not about the usability (UI/UX, performance, etc.) of Discord but rather it’s private, closed source for-profit existence being used as a “support” channel for a free and open (source, platform, communication) environment. I personally see it as a compromise of morals/ethics if you’re really into the open nature of code and communication, and am sad to now have learned you’ve landed on closed-off Discord instead of an open alternative which might have some rough edges.

      • sunaurus@lemm.ee
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        The problem at hand is not about the usability (UI/UX, performance, etc.) of Discord but rather it’s private, closed source for-profit existence being used as a “support” channel for a free and open (source, platform, communication) environment.

        I agree with you in principle, but on a pragmatic level, it’s very hard to disconnect UI/UX/performance from everything else. I think it’s OK to acknowledge that Discord has a weakness when it comes to not being OSS, but a strength when it comes to UX, and I also think it’s OK to take advantage of that strength for users that want to do so.

        Just to be fully clear, I am never planning to make Discord the main communication channel for lemm.ee announcements, nor to make users feel like it’s in any way necessary for them to use Discord just for lemm.ee communications. I am also active on Matrix constantly, and read most of what happens in the Lemmy Matrix channels. Any user that wishes to reach me over Matrix can do so.

        • edric@lemm.ee
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          Just to be fully clear, I am never planning to make Discord the main communication channel for lemm.ee announcements, nor to make users feel like it’s in any way necessary for them to use Discord just for lemm.ee communications.

          Thank you! Not being a fan of discord aside, I believe announcements of a platform shoud be done on the platform itself, with the only exception being uptime/downtime status pages (obviously).

    • Anafroj@sh.itjust.works
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      as in my experience, most regular users do not have a Matrix client installed

      I understand your point, but by that logic, we should use Reddit rather than Lemmy, as most users are there. It’s not only about ease of use, it’s about being sure users won’t be abused. Discord is still in its acquisition phase, but you can be sure enshitification will come next.

      • mog77a@lemm.ee
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        I like discord as a communication platform (as long as you keep the spying in mind) as the devs truly believe in their product and as such have created something truly amazing. It will be a sad day when the enshitification phase begins. It somehow hasn’t yet which is very shocking in all honesty. Guess that nitro revenue still more than makes up for the dev and hosting costs.

    • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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      And for those that don’t know (most of you probably do), this (sunarus) is the main/head/founding admin of lemm.ee (and, last I checked, a substantial contributor to the lemmy source code too).

      • sunaurus@lemm.ee
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        (and, last I checked, a substantial contributor to the lemmy source code too).

        I think not a substantial contributor yet, but I hope to become one eventually 😃

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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    This whole situation is rubbing me the wrong way. I can understand the motives behind defederating even if I don’t agree but it’s been a day and the only announcement is still on Discord. Not ideal.

  • AndreyAsimow@lemmy.world
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    It would definitely make more sense to post the announcements on Lemmy rather than another discord server.

    IMHO, Rather than dividing the stream of new information it would be better to focus on one platform.

    Personally I dislike discord as the conversations there are too fast for me.

    • edric@lemm.ee
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      Personally I dislike discord as the conversations there are too fast for me.

      Same. I never really liked how it’s used for discussion purposes because the conversation format doesn’t work there, especially if tons of people are chatting at the same time.

  • rageagainstmachines@lemmy.world
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    I couldn’t agree more. We shouldn’t need to be somewhere else to receive announcements (especially such important ones).

    Not to mention Discord’s horrible record of privacy and security. I don’t have an account and will never make one, and I’m sure many others in the fediverse will agree.

    I actually just tested out the account making process, and I got asked for my phone number. No. Way.

    We’re here because we care about a decentralized, open network. Aside from its confusing and busy UX, it’s not even indexable. Discord is literally a black hole for information and terrible for everyone except for Discord itself, who is doing who knows what with all of our data.

    Discord is everything the fediverse stands against.

  • rapscallion@lemmy.world
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    Even assuming my ancient Discord login still works (didn’t they make everyone change their names or something? idk if that affects accounts) it doesn’t look like you can use it on a phone without downloading the app, and I’m not doing that just to check for Lemmy announcements. Discuss controversial decisions there if you have to, but announce them here first.

  • Dandroid@dandroid.app
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    This is disappointing because thus far, I have been really happy with the communication and transparency of lemmy.world. But with this change, I will unfortunately not see announcements anymore.

  • rDrDr@lemmy.world
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    There’s admin drama now. Oh boy Lemmy really is busy like reddit.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
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    Discord is pretty much against everything the open web is about. Closed source and proprietary protocols… Probably tons of data mining of users as well.

    • mog77a@lemm.ee
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      Probably? Nah, they legit advertise what their users do. Seemingly increasingly so.

      Discord has “drops” (in beta for over a year now to be fair as it wasn’t super popular), aka the status snippet that shows when and what app you’re using gets shared with developers. Basically, what you do on your system gets logged. You can opt out of that, of course, but still they do collect it. Pretty sure they also stored calls and screen recordings at some point (for convenience reasons of course), but there are now too many users for that. At least, I think they no longer do that. But every single thing you type into discord is logged and can be traced back to you with perfect accuracy.

  • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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    Discord is cancer, and FOSS communities should avoid it like the plague. It’s everything that is against foss philosophy.

  • ineedaunion @lemm.ee
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    Wonder who bought them out. Behind the scene money is always an issue with sell outs.

  • Malcriada Lala@lemmy.world
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    This makes no sense to me. Did they provide a reason for choosing Discord of all things? What was wrong with making announcements on Lemmy? Why wouldn’t they choose to make announcements in another federated format in addition and not instead of lemmy? Like, I’m not super tech savvy but I’m sure they could set up an RSS-like feed to send out alerts? IDK

    • SgtAStrawberry@lemmy.world
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      With my very limited understanding of it, I believe Discord was something mostly for “as we are down so much, you can get updates here if we are down”.

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          I guess cause it is entirely separate from Lemmy, so can act as a different option.

          Also it’s real time posting ( like a chat, not a post) and many people already have it.

          As a secondary, it’s not a bad choice.

          What would you recommend?

          Another Lemmy instance would also get ddosed

      • Deiv@lemmy.ca
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        At this point they should just make a new instance for their announcements lol

        • SgtAStrawberry@lemmy.world
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          Maybe they wanted something off Lemmy so that the attackers can’t target both the main and the backup, with the same system.

          • ALostInquirer@lemm.ee
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            Isn’t this where Mastodon.world kind of comes into play? Off Lemmy but still a federated service, can even pop whatever LemmyWorld status account there in to one’s RSS readers or whatever.

  • tabular@lemmy.world
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    They could have gotten feedback if the comments were not turned off. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt there’s a good reason to not have comments on for that post but that and using Discord is two orange flags.