Can you code? We need your help to improve lemmy

About two days ago we found a bug with the registration system on lemmy. Because of this we have updated our registration process a few times, and cannot deny any applications as the person registering does not receive any message and cannot re-apply.

We currently have several hundred people that we are waiting to deny, and some unknown amount of people that we denied prior to finding this issue which we would really like to contact and give them a chance to register as they didn't write enough in their registration for us to really evaluate if they were a good fit for this instance.

If you're a developer please take a look at this github issue and please work your magic to help fix this problem.

As an aside, we also have a list we've been working on for enhancements that would make moderating and administering this instance a lot easier, and enhancements we think users would enjoy in terms of UI and UX. We'd love to share these as well as facilitate a discussion to surface more ideas (and we plan to in the future), but right now we need to focus on the most pressing issue to us running this website, whether people can create an account here and participate.

apis,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Gaywallet,
    @Gaywallet@beehaw.org avatar

    Yup, if you're denied or in limbo you won't be able to log in

    SubArcticTundra,

    Off topic but I'm really happy that the developers chose Rust to code Lemmy in. Low maintenance + high performance is the ideal combo for open source server software.

    within_epsilon,

    I probably should start learning TypeScript. Foundry VTT and VSCode also use TypeScript. I haven't had motivation professionally. I might need to take it up as a hobby.

    I professionally develop in C, C++, C# and Python.

    SubArcticTundra,

    If you code in C# then you'll find it dead easy. Microsoft essentially made it a web version of C# so that their developers could easily switch to web.

    beeboopbeep,

    Ex AWS enterprise architect, for the commercial competitor to ActivityPUB, bunch of massive user base infrastructure if needed.

    Kris,

    I would love to help. Senior software engineer with a lot to learn 😂

    electrona,

    I am a software developer. I will look at it this weekend at some point. I'll try to help if I can.

    Impulse0424,

    I can't code, but I'd be happy to send donations to those who can to work on Lemmy. I'm not a rich man but I'll happily help how I can.

    Pexily,

    I’ll take a look at it and submit a post request with fixes within the next week

    Pexily,

    Pull request*

    Hellebert,

    I don't really know Rust at all but it might be a good opportunity to learn. I come from a C# and Python background so I might see if there's anything I can tackle.

    SpaceCowboy639,

    I'm a beginner with Rust, but a full-time web engineer with React/TS/PHP/SQL/etc experience. I'm a bit swamped at the moment, but I'm down to contribute eventually :)

    cityboundforest,
    @cityboundforest@beehaw.org avatar

    Hiya! Lemmy was actually one of the reasons I started learning Rust, but I do also know JavaScript, Python, a bit of Julia, C, C++, MASM, NASM, MIPS, a bit of TypeScript, and Java. I've worked on both frontend and backend although I think my expertise and comfort lies with backend primarily. I'm not sure if I'd be able to help with y'all's issue as I'm not familiar with the Lemmy codebase, but I'd be willing to try and help debug the issue and hopefully get it under control.

    ghostalmedia,

    Bit of a tangent here, but if you’re ever looking for experience designers to help out here and there, or to just give something a second set of eyes, I might be able to lend a hand or connect y’all with some bright and chill people.

    You probably don’t want me making any PRs, but I know my way around Figma and a user test plan.

    Lionir,

    I'd love to see you redesign some parts of the Lemmy UI!

    In my option, a lot of designing work is still to be done so I'd love to see mockups you can make and your thoughts on design work!

    ghostalmedia,

    Nice! I’m pretty new, so let me get a little bit more familiar with the platform, and I’ll craft up some stuff!

    Themightypooper,

    Is there a way to follow you here? I'd like to see that. I'm working on being a designer and I'd like to see what others are coming up with.

    HrBingR,

    If we could end up with a theme that looks a lot more like https://kbin.social, I'd be so happy. My biggest gripe with Lemmy is all of the white space, and none of the current themes improve that at all. All of the theme options offered by kbin look amazing by comparison, and to my understanding Lemmy theming is done via CSS based on Bootstrap v4, so new theme creation should be straightforward enough.

    It's to the point where, when visiting Lemmy instances, I use a custom CSS extension to modify a few properties to make it a bit more palatable to me.

    If you guys ever need help creating custom themes to offer to users I'd be happy to contribute.

    crank,

    Can you post your user style??

    But I would very much support having a more compact theme available without a browser extension. I think some tightening up up would make this place look more welcoming. It feels sort of "empty" due to all the white space.

    HrBingR,

    Hey there, sure, currently I'm using this. The border between comments on a comment thread doesn't look the best, but it makes it easier for me to track comment levels so I like it, though there are certain properties I'd like to change but can't.

    Either way, I'm using an extension called Amino to apply my CSS changes on a domain-level.

    This fixes a lot of the whitespace and borders to make differentiating between posts and comments a little easier, while minimizing white space. I think it looks nice.

    EDIT: I've made a few more changes in terms of color.

    .container-lg {
    max-width: 1600px;
}
.col-md-8 {
    max-width: 80%;
    flex: 0 0 80%;
}
.col-md-4 {
    max-width: 20%;
    flex: 0 0 20%;
}
.col-sm-2 {
    max-width: 10%;
    flex: 0 0 10%;
}
.col-sm-9 {
    margin-left: 5px;
    max-width: 80%;
    flex: 0 0 80%;
}
.post-listing {
    border: 1px solid rgba(34,34,34,.125);
    border-bottom: 0px;
    border-color: #c80000;
    padding-top: 10px;
    background-color: #fff;
}
hr {
    display: none;
}
.border-top {
    border-top: 1px solid rgba(34,34,34,.125)!important;
}
.border-light {
    border-color: #e4e4e5!important;
}
body {
    background-color: #ecf0f1;
}
.navbar {
    background-color: #fff;
}
.card {
    background-color: #fff;
}
.comments {
    padding-left: 5px;
    background-color: #fff;
}
    crank,

    thank you I like it! I hate when websites force me to have so much blank space. Like I remember what an improvement it was in 2002 when everyone got into sans serif fonts and padding to their table based layouts and using % widths, but the craft has moved on from those days... For this kind of website I am thinking more of a newspaper and less of a coffee table book.

    looks like Amino is only available for chrome and edge. For other ff users I will say I use an addon called Stylus but it might not be the best one; kind of resource hungry on big pages.

    HrBingR,

    Hey so just a heads up, I made a few more changes that I quite like (again, for the red theme, tweak appropriately for the default green theme), so thought I'd just update you.

    This changes the main feed quite a bit, adding a bit more of a card-like design to posts, though I have done my best to make sure there isn't too much white-space from this change, I just feel it looks a bit more modern, but again, feel free not to use it :)

    It also, and this is my favorite change, changes the title color of any post you've visited, something that I feel is basic but for some reason Lemmy didn't have before. So now any posts you've visited before will be a light-gray color instead. Hope you find some value here.

    .container-lg {
    max-width: 1600px;
}
.col-md-8 {
    max-width: 80%;
    flex: 0 0 80%;
}
.col-md-4 {
    max-width: 20%;
    flex: 0 0 20%;
}
.col-sm-2 {
    max-width: 10%;
    flex: 0 0 10%;
}
.col-sm-9 {
    margin-left: 5px;
    max-width: 80%;
    flex: 0 0 80%;
}
.post-listing {
    border: 1px solid rgba(34,34,34,.125);
    /*border-bottom: 0px;*/
    border-color: #c80000;
    border-radius: 5px;
    margin-bottom: 8px;
    padding-top: 10px;
    background-color: #fff;
    transition: all .2s;
    box-shadow: 2px 2px 1px #c80000;
}

hr {
    display: none;
}
.border-top {
    border-top: 1px solid rgba(34,34,34,.125)!important;
}
.border-light {
    border-color: #e4e4e5!important;
}
body {
    background-color: #ecf0f1;
}
.navbar {
    background-color: #fff;
}
.card {
    background-color: #fff;
    box-shadow: 2px 2px 1px #c80000;
}
.col-12 .card {
    box-shadow: none;
}
.comments {
    padding-left: 10px;
    background-color: #fff;
}
a:visited .d-inline-block {
    color:#d6d7d9!important;
}
.my-2 {
    margin-bottom: 0px!important;
}
    crank,

    Thank you for sharing! I will try it when i am on desktop.

    I actually used your code as base to start to fix some things that bug me the most.. all spacing/positioning the colors are a total mess. So i am interested to see what yours is like. I can tell from looking that yours is more efficient because i do not know what im doing so it is trial and error.

    Do you think there is a better place than wherever we are to post? A repo or other code sharing? I think the stylus extension connects to some sort of website but i never investigated it.

    HrBingR,

    Hey so I setup a repo; swap to the default green litely theme, and then test a few of these out, I think they turned out quite well!

    https://github.com/HrBingR/Lemmy_CSS/

    Please feel free to submit pull requests if you have other colors or ideas you think would look nice. The more the merrier!

    crank,

    I have had hardly any time at the desktop this week! I tried your code and I like it because it generally looks good. I like mine because it uses the full use of space and has strong delineations. I'd like to combine them when I can. Dial down the hideous by about 50%.

    Here is my code https://gist.github.com/btyaa/36a1743e7a0ae95b5aa8178722650b9e

    I hope I am not disparaging you by giving you credit. I can remove it if you want. I do not feel this deserves to be in a repo at the moment. It is hideous at the front and the back.

    The Stylus extension exported it with this @-moz-document and tbh I do not exactly know what that is; it isn't how it shows up when I edit it. I didnt look into it.

    Also I apologize for my various bad css habits such as preceding lines with x or other letters to comment them out instead of using comments. And I use border, outlines, backgrounds to help me locate things. Forgive me I learned CSS before web developer tools, before firebug, and only had intermittent practice since that time. I always fallback to my old ways. Only roughly grok CSS3. Usually I hide these but sometimes i miss. If I would properly share, I'd run a script to remove all the junk.

    But if it works easily in your userstyle extension you should try it out. It might hurt your eyes. I make effort to describe what I am doing in comments, because otherwise I get even more lost, but the way it exported isn't great.

    Oh also it hides some stuff I am not interested in. So, uh, careful.

    dlegan,

    I'm a react dev. I'm happy to contribute in my spare time, probably weekends and smaller issues. I noticed the client is built in inferno, which from a quick look appears to be fairly similar to react, so I'm sure I can be useful. I'll have a look tomorrow, can see a large list of issues so I'm sure I will find something to do.

    SorteKanin,
    @SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

    as they didn’t write enough in their registration for us to really evaluate if they were a good fit for this instance.

    I'm just curious, what do you consider to be "writing enough"? How strict are you with your applications? I'm trying to learn from beehaw for my own instance.

    Gaywallet,
    @Gaywallet@beehaw.org avatar

    We want them to fit in with our philosophy, so we're looking that they paid attention to our rule, our ethos, and our ambiance. To be clear, we're not making judgements, but if you leave it blank or only talk about federation, we can't be certain that you will vibe with how we moderate and what we're trying to do here.

    SorteKanin,
    @SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

    Cool. Roughly how many % of applications do you deny? I'm starting to wonder if I should be stricter with my applications for the sake of "user quality".

    I've found many applications simply fail to answer the questions. I guess this should at least be a minimum requirement.

    Gaywallet,
    @Gaywallet@beehaw.org avatar

    I think we're approving around half, but I'm not sure if that's kept up today. To share my thoughts on the matter I'm extremely concerned about the possibility of this place moving the direction of echo chambers for a variety of reasons. I'll probably make another philosophy post in the next week or so, but I've been very overextended between this, work, current healthcare issues (I've had 2 surgeries in the last two weeks 😩), stuff for pride month (I'm a leader at my work's pride ERG, moderated a speaker today, speaking for a group next week, gotta help with SF pride, etc), and in general being busy in my social life as well so I haven't really had a ton of time to contribute all my thoughts or put them on paper as I'd like to.

    SorteKanin,
    @SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

    Understandable, thanks!

    alyaza,
    @alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

    anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2, yeah

    Zoop,

    Oh my goodness! Please, please, please look after yourself and your health and wellbeing first and foremost!

    It sounds like we're a lot alike, and I burned myself out overextending myself, like you're doing, trying to help others so much for so long...my health issues got worse and now I can't help anyone because I can barely even take care of myself! and it's an awful feeling when previously helping others was my whole thing and reason for living.

    This may be unsolicited and TMI, but just wanted to caution you about what could happen. Look after yourself, please! You deserve it! Remember that you can't help and look after others if you don't help and look after yourself. Thank you for everything you've done and are doing already. Hang in there. <3

    Gaywallet,
    @Gaywallet@beehaw.org avatar

    I greatly appreciate the feedback and I have taken a few steps back this week to ensure I'm not overextending myself. Thank you for looking out for me 🥰💜

    jdp23,
    @jdp23@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    That's great to hear -- and well said @Zoop. Burnout's a huge risk in situations like this, so very glad you're taking care of yourself.

    vibrate,

    I wonder if the RES devs might consider working on BES (or LES)?

    Zoop,

    If I remember correctly, RES has basically been limping along in maintenance mode for quite a while now and there's only one or two people left working on it - and only from time to time.

    dessalines,

    We can definitely use all the help we can get. Luckily since lemmy and its UI is open source, we can embed all this highly popular functionality directly into lemmy-ui.

    sailsperson,

    I'd love it. I don't hate the UI as it currently is, but I'd definitely appreciate some features, like the hotkeys RES has, or a tighter UI in general, with less padding and space between elements.

    To be fair, tweaking the UI is surely in my power and skillset, but UI is surely my least favorite part of development as a whole.

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