Is it just Kbin, or does every fediverse service have the issue of being totally swarmed with bots advertising illegal pharmaceuticals? Is this just the result of limited moderation?
Preventing this issue doesn't seem like a userscript issue (though that's definitely a good start).I think the auto report function is severely needed; it's happening everywhere. If the script can automatically block any user whose post it suppresses, it would be awesome.
But I think the issue is that we need to get support top-down on this.
There seems to be a few waves of users created just to post spam specifically in kbin. It's quite strange as the posts are so obvious and they keep getting downvoted. I'm also blocking the users but I can't see a way to report them. Is there a better way to handle this situation?
The only way to resolve this situation is to get Ernest to delegate some of the instance moderation and amount. Every other path forward leads to failure.
Maybe on your instance - it's your loss. But admins have a choice - defed from them and lose access to all those users and having actual content worth looking at, or federate with them and actually grow your network into something that has enough going on to make people interested. As it is, I use Threads right now. I strongly prefer it to Mastodon. Kbin comes close, but has less content to idly scroll through. If no Fediverse site I use supports Threads, I'll keep on using it.
In a surprising turn of events, dedicated modders are taking matters into their own hands to salvage The Day Before. The game that garnered controversy and disappointment upon its recent release.
I'm going to present the opposite opinion to yours here. Kbin represents the best way forward for social media, to me. If we can get a working PeerTube integration after Threads federates, I'm all set. It's what Google Plus was supposed to be, it's why I first (as a user) used TweetDeck back in the day. It puts everything in one place again. I was a LiveJournal user back in the day, which was another place like this - communication & community, but individual places for your thoughts. I tried Tumblr for a while and it was close to an LJ replacement.
Everything since then has fractured and fragmented so we have very aggressive echo chambers, but no private places. This might be able to give that back to the users.
I accept that it can feel like drinking from the firehose at the start. It was to me at first too, but I was aware of Lemmy early on, and I was on two Mastodon instances that didn't cofederate. I knew what I was going in for. I stepped back from Kbin when a known tech issue degraded my experience, and it's been fixed. I think the thing is that Kbin allows you to curate your own experience, rather than be tied into doing one thing or another all the time.
I think when Kbin is ready for prime time and when the major issues are fixed, there might be a need to look at the first-timer experience, maybe even a tutorial. Because it's not a beginner focused interface. It's meant for us who want it all back in one place, and accepted the burden of experience that means.
The best possibility is something like I've done. I split my social media time between here, Reddit, Facebook, Threads, and a Mastodon instance that doesn't federate (in addition to being a viewer on YouTube & PeerTube). You can't hold all the people all the time. It's just not feasible. So yes, people going back to Reddit is expected. But it's when they come back and find something they want that's important.
Flipboard has recently begun federation, starting with 25 accounts. These accounts can be viewed from Kbin with their posts showing up as microblog posts....
Sci-fi as a genre is very difficult to perfect, but some terrific movies have come close, only to be held back by one or two flaws. Sci-fi deals with big ideas on an epic scale, and it's not easy to come up with a concept that connects with an audience. Even if a sci-fi movie does find an intriguing premise, translating this...
Well, if he doesn't care, then I just might bother the time and effort to pirate it. But then again, a dismissive creator who's working with Markiplier isn't someone I'm really keen on supporting in the first place. I wish him luck, and that he is approximately as successful as I am in financial terms.
I'm not at my computer, so please excuse any mobile issues. I'm in favor of the move, because it will help to simultaneously connect and decentralize communications across the platforms. Say what you will about Facebook (you're probably right), but if they're that bad, then it seems logical to me to connect to their federated service even more aggressively.
The more we push our content (and by extension the Fediverse content that kbin aggregates), the less impact their algorithm can have. The more we go out of the way to expose their content, the harder we make it them to curate/censor/suppress any voices. And if, when comparing two Fediverse instances or softwares, we find that what's been pushed to them is different, we the users can call it out to news organizations (or make it public ourselves).
And yes, I know I'm making the arguments for supporting private companies in adopting open-source. It's about being able to audit what companies we don't trust are doing.
In addition to that, I'm currently a Threads user. Anecdotally, there's a lot of wholesome content on there that I appreciate, and what limited advertising is there is nowhere near as obtrusive as Reddit or the main Facebook platform.
Threads seems to be beginning to test ActivityPub federation, and since Kbin can be used for microblogging, this affects kbin.social. What are your thoughts on federating or defederating with them?
Because Threads presents an opportunity to grow the community on ActivityPub services, and because the Fediverse presents the opportunity to extend the community I'm involved in that's on Threads right now. My hope is that if that group respects what the Fediverse offers, they will also start sharing the podcast on PeerTube
I find it interesting that they didn't suggest the possibility that came to my mind first: cannibalization. If it was small to start with, but in clearing the neighborhood, also was volcanic enough to absorb smaller planetoids, it might have absorbed them and grown.
You know, it would be more environmentally friendly just to plant one tree and decorate it while it's alive, instead of chopping down a living tree and transporting it.
I've been ill the past few weeks & stressed as a result, & it's properly screwed with my ability to daydream & write to the extent that yesterday I had been fully convinced I had lost writing as an interest (the hyperfixations giveth & the hyperfixations taketh away 😭). It really made me sad, especially as I was nearing the end of a long-fic before I became ill & I really want to finish it.
Today I realised I had started randomly composing a nice little scene in my head. Not for the next chapter but for a few chapters down the line. Never been so happy for a random daydream to suddenly appear. 😍
kbin finally has notifications not throwing an error every time I try to check them, so that much is nice now. I've actually had no problems with the Reddit software on my phone, and I've unsubbed from most of the communities I was part of there which moved across to lemmy. That choice has really trimmed my experience down to a more focused one nicely. I've also gotten done turning federation back off as I want it to be, and my user block list here is getting pretty long, blocking out the spammers that come across my feed.
Of course, because kbin is still one of the smallest sites related to the ActivityPub protocol, there's limited content here compared to Reddit, Then again, there's also less content on all of PeerTube (let alone a single site) than there is on YouTube, and I'd take a shot at saying that even Threads has the largest Mastodon community beat by a country mile, let alone what Twitter still has.
So basically, I guess I'd say I'm not a refugee, I'm just doing as I did with Facebook when it first launched after MySpace and Friendster - keeping my options open and looking around.
OC KES 4.1.0: Improving the signal to noise ratio by blocking unsolicited ads
The blurb below is excerpted verbatim from the release notes. For the full release notes, see here....
So much spam
There seems to be a few waves of users created just to post spam specifically in kbin. It's quite strange as the posts are so obvious and they keep getting downvoted. I'm also blocking the users but I can't see a way to report them. Is there a better way to handle this situation?
How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse (plasticbag.org)
The Day Before Could Be Revived (www.gamingarcade.co.uk)
In a surprising turn of events, dedicated modders are taking matters into their own hands to salvage The Day Before. The game that garnered controversy and disappointment upon its recent release.
Why is kbin so full of empty stuff?
I'm not asking to be snarky or anything... I'm subbed to plenty of magazines that I enjoy reading....
How do we feel about Flipboard federating?
Flipboard has recently begun federation, starting with 25 accounts. These accounts can be viewed from Kbin with their posts showing up as microblog posts....
"10 Terrific Sci-Fi Movies That Were (Supposed to be) Nearly Perfect (but weren't for reasons we aren't discussing)" ... (www.msn.com)
Sci-fi as a genre is very difficult to perfect, but some terrific movies have come close, only to be held back by one or two flaws. Sci-fi deals with big ideas on an epic scale, and it's not easy to come up with a concept that connects with an audience. Even if a sci-fi movie does find an intriguing premise, translating this...
Dev Behind Highly Regarded PC Game Explains Why He Raised The Price: "Go Pirate It, I Don't Care" (www.gamespot.com)
David Szymanski is hoping publicity from the upcoming film makes up for lower sales volumes right now.
For the "Why are you so hostile to Threads federating?" people..
Check this out. Remember that Facebook isn't just the place where moms and aunts swap recipes:...
How do we feel about federating with Threads?
Threads seems to be beginning to test ActivityPub federation, and since Kbin can be used for microblogging, this affects kbin.social. What are your thoughts on federating or defederating with them?
Neptune-sized exoplanet is too big for its host star (arstechnica.com)
Stars this small shouldn't make planets this big.
OC Every year, one of the highlights for our crew is helping set up the giant Christmas Tree at City Hall.
This year, the tree comes down from Glen Arm, Maryland....
OC What are you playing right now?
Hey everyone! As this is "True Gaming," we would of course love to see a few sentences elaborating on your thoughts of what you are playing....
GitHub - erkyrath/infocom-zcode-terps: Historical source code for Infocom's Z-machine interpreters (github.com)
Historical source code for Infocom's Z-machine interpreters - GitHub - erkyrath/infocom-zcode-terps: Historical source code for Infocom's Z-machine interpreters
So... it's been a while now since the great exodus. How are you all doing my fellow refugees?
I made my home here permanently now. It seems like such a friendlier place but how are you all doing?
YouTube warns it might make your viewing experience worse if you don't turn off your ad-blocker (www.businessinsider.com)
YouTube has been cracking down on people using ad blockers. Now, a spokesperson says that using ad blockers could lead to "suboptimal viewing."