@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Dave

@Dave@lemmy.nz

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Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Not too cold here either!

My morning has been relatively uneventful. So uneventful I can't even point to an event to talk about!

I'm eagerly awaiting the Lemmy 0.18 release, because there's so much broken stuff that I'm hopeful it will fix!

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

It’s like the “road to zero” that we’ve copied from other countries. Except in other countries they look at what makes a road dangerous, an apply fixes based on that - installing barriers, straightening corners etc. In NZ that’s too hard, so just blanket lower the speed limit as a catch all fix.

This is a bad analogy.

We are spending significant amounts on building straighter, better roads. And installing barriers along them.

Sweden, where the road to zero concept was started (as Vision Zero) before spreading to other countries, puts significant focus on reducing speeds.

This is because no matter the cause of an accident, whether someone walks away from it is significantly dependent on what speed the vehicles were going.

It's also worth noting the Govt has basically told Waka Kotahi to stop reducing speed limits outside of the highest risk roads (though they mostly only control state highways, local councils control the rest). Their focus is going to be on making sure cars are going the speed limit (by increasing the number of cameras, and over time moving to average-speed cameras; where if you get between two points faster than is possible at the speed limit, you can be ticketed - even if you weren't speeding as you went past the camera).

Despite cars getting safer and safer, our rate of serious injury and death is getting worse. No matter the reason, if we can get people (actually) driving slower then this should start to improve.

Dave, (edited )
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

There's only a small size limit (Here it's set to 5MB). I know the error message doesn't tell you that's the issue, but I don't think your error message is what I've seem. Maybe you can't upload videos? Or maybe it failed because it's too big, and the error is because something else failed because the file didn't upload.

In any case, it's encouraged to use a video website rather than uploading it as it could get heavy for the server to store and send to users (if for example someone on lemmy.world views a post on lemmy.nz, the post text is mirrored on lemmy.world but the media comes directly from lemmy.nz).

You might consider YouTube or similar, though I think more traditionally for Fediverse sites you'd use Peertube. Perhaps you could consider https://peertube.nz

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Looking at this issue, at a glance it looks like videos may not yet be supported regardless of size.

But yes, having embedded videos would be great. I think this is a polish thing that will be added over time as more critical things get resolved. If Lemmy continues to grow, that will also attract more help from developers as well so development may move faster.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

This is really cool! Also really nice of you to add the pictures so we don't have to go looking ourselves!

To be honest I thought the title was referring to the fossils, like they were fossils of giants footprints. When it actually refers to a quote from someone saying all the rocks in the river were overturned by the cyclone: "It's like a giant has walked down the stream-bed, kicking at rocks and boulders as if they were pebbles and turning everything over as he goes."

Probably deliberately picked to get you to click. It worked on me.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Lemmy is not ready for primetime yet. There is no way that 400 million reddit users can move here, when the biggest servers struggle with tens of thousands, and the total users active on Lemmy in the last month is around 30,000 (up from 1,000 a couple of weeks ago).

Not to mention that Lemmy is really not general-population-ready. Explaining it is a bit of a mouthful, but manageable. What's not manageable for most users is things like:

  • Most people have no idea how to start. The join-lemmy site just points you at a massive list of instances and hopes you know what you're doing
  • if you're reading a post on another instance and someone links to a community, the link won't work and you'll have to copy/paste the URL into your own instance.
  • Hot/Active don't work because of a bug in refreshing them
  • The post you're reading can suddenly change, especially if you have two tabs open with different posts
  • If you want to subscribe to a community but no one on your instance has searched for it before, the search will show "No results" - but then suddenly have results if you wait 10 seconds (or sometimes never show it until you refresh)
  • Posts just appear at the top of the list, and worse, pop up as a notification. Great when there were only 1000 users but now the All page just gets notification after notification and the feed keeps moving
  • The right combination of events means that a community can just disappear
  • The search form doesn't let you change between Subscribed/Local/All unless you search for something first
  • Moderation is still a problem. One of the big instances is wholesale blocking dozens of instances, including some big ones, because they can't handle the moderation. When it comes to moderation, I suspect most of the big instances are just...not.

This is just off the top of my head. Lemmy is great because we are building a new community, but the polish will come with time. We need to slowly and organically grow the community (lemmy.nz as well as the "Lemmyverse"), so issues can be worked out. Luckily places like this tend to attract a more technical audience as they are more willing to put up with bugs, and because Lemmy is open source many of these people can help write code for bug fixes and new features. The number of people helping has gone up significantly in just the last two weeks.

So what I'm getting at is if people are unhappy with the actions of the reddit board, they are (probably) welcome here. But we do not need a significant number of new users overnight - that's only going to end in disappointment for everyone involved.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

It's possibly worse for me, because for every issue I have to try to work out if it's a Lemmy thing or something wrong with the way I've set it up (there have been many of those issues, but as far as I know all the current bugs are Lemmy issues).

I’ve already been appointed moderator for the stopdrinking community.

Definitely keep in mind the bug about instances disappearing when an user from an instance is appointed mod of a community on a different instance and then they try to edit the community! (I think this only applies to Lemmy version 0.17.4 but this is the latest and most instances are on this now because of a security issue in the previous version).

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I really appreciate all your hard work here! You’ve been replying to support issues very quickly and adequately.

Thanks! I'm just doing my best :)

I think it’s not even possible, the other moderator wasn’t able to edit the sidebar info, only the creator could do it, but wasn’t responding anymore.

Hmm I've created the communities, and have assigned mods and they are able to edit the sidebar. I haven't done anything special. Maybe because they are the first mod they get the access?

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

It's important to overwrite them, otherwise they are just flagged as deleted but easy for admins to undelete.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Most likely it's just an issue with the software or API. Perhaps it hits a rate limit and ignores some requests.

I doubt admins are restoring individual posts that they like. It doesn't seem to make sense.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

This article from last year says "Israel has intensified strikes on Syria’s airports on the grounds that it wants to disrupt Tehran’s increasing use of aerial supply routes to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah, regional diplomatic and intelligence sources told Reuters."

I think the RNZ article was this one from January? In searching, it seems Israel is regularly attacking this airport, and it sounds like they are doing it to try to disrupt the Iranian supply lines bringing military supplies to Syria. In addition to my first link from September and the RNZ one from January, there's also this one from last June.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Again. Why is it OK to bomb an international airport because some cargo from Iran is flying through it.

I am not sure that impression is given. The first half of the article comes across as facts, and doesn't to me paint either side as the bad guys, other than identifying Israel as the aggressor.

Also why is Israel’s word that these are arms going to Syria and Lebanon taken at face value?

This seems to have come from intelligence sources, rather than Israel.

Why doesn’t Iran just fly arms to Lebanon if it wants them in Lebanon?

They probably are, but you would need to have lots of different supply routes otherwise you'd risk losing your whole supply in one attack.

“Regional diplomatic and intelligence sources”? Really? That’s all it takes it report something as fact?

Journalists have sources, and it's up to their organisation to verify. It is completely unreasonable to ask journalists to publish their sources given it could put lives at risk, or simply prevent information being available in future. Large media organisations will have processes for verifying information.

I do feel like some parts later in the article imply fact when they comment on intent, such as:

Last year, Israel intensified strikes on Damascus International and other civilian airports to disrupt Tehran's increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.

I feel like the intent cannot be reported as fact, and in previous articles they cite sources saying this is the intent (so you know it's the opinions of people with inside knowledge), but here they just list it as if it's fact.

But in general, I don't feel the article is biased. It reports facts, but it does not go into enough detail to help the reader decide if they should support or condemn Israel's actions. To me, it comes across as reporting the facts of an event but falls short of providing enough context for the reader to pick a side.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I'm going to have to disagree with you again.

The point is that the edits actually removed bias but removing of bias towards Israel is seen as being biased against the west.

I disagree. "Israel says" = Israel said something. "Israel claims" = Israel said something, which is probably not true. It's introducing bias.

If the article wanted to report facts it would say things like “Israel claims two soldiers were killed” instead of stating as fact that two soldiers were killed.

The Syrian army who's soldiers were killed said that, not Israel. "Missiles also hit targets in the south of Damascus, killing two members of the Syrian armed forces and causing some damage, the army said."

You can’t rely on the reader having read all previous articles in fact you can rely on them not doing that. You have to be unbiased and accurate in your reporting. In this case Reuters were reporting the story with a very heavy Israeli bias.

Complex political situations cannot be explained in an article with a length that you can expect the average reader to read. Also when I read the article, it does not give me the impression of Israel being the good guys - I do not get a hint of who is right or wrong. Only that one country is attacking another, that it's part of a longer conflict. Like I mentioned, I do feel some later parts of the article aren't as factual as I'd like, but overall it wouldn't rank highly on a list of biased articles.

I'd almost argue it gives the sense of Israel participating in someone else's war - one that is not their own (again, no indication of if this is good or bad).

Aside from which this article is about the headlines not the story itself. The headline was definitely biased and the edit made it less biased.

I have to wholeheartedly disagree with this. The original headline:

The Syrian army said an Israeli missile strike had briefly put the Damascus International Airport out of service, the latest in a string of strikes targeting Iran-linked assets.

It says "Israel has attacked an airport as part of a wider attack against the Syrian army"

This was changed to:

Deadly missile strikes have briefly put the Damascus International Airport out of service, the latest in a string of attacks by Israel.

It says "Missile attacks on an airport have killed people, and you should blame Israel"

The first headline indicates intent on behalf of Israel, but at least they have sources to back this up. The second headline just implies Israel is the bad guy before you get the the article.

We can argue over whether Israel is the bad guy (actually we probably wouldn't argue), but I just cannot see how the second heading is less biased.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I'm keen to hear more about the "strange ways it's been used in the US"!

Also, I'm wondering if the US has seen changes in how gangs structure themselves or loopholes to avoid this issue? What about abuse by the police (e.g. what's the level of proof needed to show you're the gang leader)?

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Interesting, thanks for the reply!

If an organisation is in violation of the Act, any member can be charged with any of those offences committed by any other member. The idea is to use that pressure to get them to turn on the leaders. It also means they can go after anyone they think is really in charged. But it’s up to prosecutors to make sure only those most responsible are charged.

It also sounds like the leaders can set things up from the beginning to falsely point at a fall guy?

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I'm thinking more like having a 2IC acting as the boss, giving orders, all the henchmen think they are the leader when actually he's got the real leader whispering orders to him in secret.

Maybe I've been watching too much TV!

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

In theory it wouldn't matter. There are only so many people you can have able to act as the leader. If you took out the 2IC and another took their place so you got them as well, etc. Then you'd likely disrupt the organisation even if you didn't get the true leader - and one of the 2ICs might sell out the boss for a deal so you'd probably find out about them eventually.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

If it's the title and a link to the reddit post then it's just the title. Given titles are not all that long, it's very unlikely to meet the threshold required for copyright.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

A separate community may still pollute the "Local" feed. But there's no reason it couldn't be it's own instance. You could take the top posts from various subs on reddit and post them in a matching community on the instance.

In fact, this bot exists, there's no reason for this to be NZ specific, are we sure such an instance doesn't already exist?

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Yeah, I'd think you could get pretty good coverage though. Reddit has millions of subreddits, so I think you'd add the ones you want manually. But if you're just looking for top posts, you probably don't need to check too frequently. Every 30 mins or hour seems like plenty often enough.

I'm not familiar with reddit's API, but I would expect requesting one page of the top posts for a subreddit to be one API call. You could do 3,000 subreddits refreshing once every 30 minutes.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Probably not as powerful as you'd think. When you check the top page of posts, you'd have most of them duplicated from last time you checked. And you could set an even tighter threshold, so say only the top 5 posts.

You'd start with a smaller number of subreddits (3,000 is a lot to add manually!), and even if you're adding 1,000 posts a day, the big instances are doing that too so it's probably not an issue.

You could totally try setting it up in a test instance and see how you go!

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

Haha sorry I know you said you were relieved people were opposed! There is probably a lot of learning involved but if you need help there will be places you can ask, like I've mentioned there are a bunch of technical people on the lemmy.nz matrix chat so you can ask there and get pointed to other places if needed.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

The article talks about all the experts needed to get the sturdy bridge down and how difficult it was, but the video just kind of looks like the excavator pulls an emergency release pin and the bridge collapses 😆

It seems a bit shit that the bridge was damaged in March last year and was closed to heavy vehicles because of the risk, then it wasn't until another storm nearly collapsed it that they considered replacing it. I feel like the new bridge construction should have been underway by now. I guess councils only have so much money to go around.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

It's there for me. But the communities are listed with their display names. So if I search just Communities for "piracy", I see it there. But it's not listed as " piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com, but as "Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com"

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