Pamasich avatar

Pamasich

@Pamasich@kbin.social

Software Developer, Switzerland
Languages: German, Allemanic (Swiss German), English
Hobbies: Gaming, Anime

I almost only watch seasonal anime.
As for games, I currently mostly play Star Rail, Noita, and Shotgun King.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

I understand why they disabled public downvotes (since they're accepting incoming ones now, they don't want to expose everyone's downvotes from other instances), and I remember they gave some reasoning on Github for why it makes sense to not hide upvotes too, but do we really need incoming downvotes? I think that feature should be a toggle where you either have downvotes hidden but federated, or visible but not federated. And then the instance owner can decide what they prefer.

That's really my main issue with mbin. While I've gotten too used to the All Content view and collections, both of those are on their roadmap, so they'll be coming eventually.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

And I can see this comment from kbin, so seems to work this direction too.

Pamasich, (edited )
Pamasich avatar

though kbin still doesn't render the code block correctly it seems

Yeah, I hope ernest (or someone else) fixes it soon. Mbin has fixed it, so it should be possible to check there how it was done.

I did make a frontend fix for it which is included in KES and available standalone on Greasyfork. But it would be much preferable if this was fixed in kbin itself.

I think the big problem is that the issue on codeberg is closed. Ernest never got involved, but other maintainers closed it as a "lemmy issue" which it isn't. Lemmy is federating completely legal HTML with escaping applied to spec and kbin should be able to understand it. Mbin can understand it.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

It it like he can see us but we can’t see him?

Opposite way around. We can see him but he can't see us.

The reason you can't see him is because you're on Lemmy which will only display microblog posts if they're (1) a reply to a Lemmy post, (2) made from kbin/mbin, or (3) replied to by someone from kbin/mbin (not entirely sure about this one).

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

I don't know what this xz thing is about, first time hearing it. But people saying he should get more help are trying to help him, not having malicious plans like installing backdoors or whatever.

I do think people should ask less for more maintainers — the project is already opensource, so it's up to maintainers to join, not him to seek them out. But he should still get some help with managing the instance. Pauses in development are fine imo, but the instance shouldn't be swarmed with spam and account deletion requests lost in limbo just because ernest got sick or something, which can happen with the best work life balances.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

To newly federate a magazine with Lemmy, search for it using the syntax !Polytopia@kbin.social in Lemmy's built-in search. This worked for me instantly when I just tested it on lemm.ee, after confirming that it 404s before doing it.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

On Lemmy, users can send each others direct messages. It seems like Kbin/Mbin has no way of displaying those direct messages. Is that correct or is there a way to show direct messages?

Direct messages exist on kbin/mbin, but users are currently unable to send or receive them from other instances than their own. Sending is implemented but intentionally disabled by ernest, for unknown reason, but it might have to do with receiving not working.

Mbin has an open issue on this and yesterday someone said it's planned but low priority. It also links to the related kbin issue.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

Progressive web app. Modern browsers let you install a website to your phone or desktop as a pseudo-app. It'll still run in the browser, but most of the browser stuff, like tabs and bookmarks, are hidden to give you a focused and clean experience. Developers only have to ensure their website supports mobile phones and don't need to develop an entire app project to accomodate phone users.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

Test from kbin

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

I was considering moving to mbin, but their decision to make downvoting private makes that a very unpleasant idea for me. Public voting was one of the initial selling points for kbin for me. If I move, then it's probably to another kbin instance like kbin.earth for now.

I appreciate that earnest made a post yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, saying that he is not dead and hasn't given up on kbin. It's not on this magazine, so I'm not sure where it was since this seems to be the most appropriate one, but in any case.

Are you not talking about this thread?

and invite other moderators

Definitely. I've applied to a handful of magazines weeks ago and have read about others having done so too. I really think magazine ownership requests should be accepted automatically on kbin.social. There's already requirements in place to whether you can make one, that should be good enough for abuse safety measures.

Instance moderators would be better, but I don't know if there's people lining up for that role whom he also can trust with it.

and contributors.

The issue here is that all contributors have moved on to mbin. You don't just look for contributors, the contributors choose to contribute. So unless he's willing to pay them, I don't think this is a problem he can solve, and I doubt he makes enough money to hire people.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

Having thought about this for a bit, I think it might actually be better for ernest if this instance died a bit. Not entirely, but it could use some redistribution of users to other instances.

Like, it wasn't meant to be this big main instance of kbin. That's just what it became. And it's got to have an effect on his stress levels and development time.

I feel like the instance is like a ballon that continually gets pumped with fresh air. Ernest constantly has to make sure the balloon doesn't pop. Maybe it would be better for it to pop so he can focus on other things?

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

I expect these are configurable settings that will vary from instance to instance

Sadly, they entirely removed it. From what I can tell from their discussion on Github, it's preparation for federating downvotes.

"don't let them have both (receive remote dislike and see list of dislikers) cake and eat it too"

It actually seems like the sentiment trends towards removing the activity page entirely.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

From what I can tell, it's mostly brought up in the discussion of a pull request for supporting federated dislikes.

That's where I originally saw it. I'm sure there's probably some more discussion on matrix though, that seems to be their main discussion platform.

Some additional links without discussions:

Edit: Also, to clarify, it's only seeing who downvoted that's made private, the actual amount of downvotes is kept public. It's not a Youtube situation.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

Finally the turbo mode support I've been waiting for!

This userscript is really great, thanks for continuing to work on it.

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to tech
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

In an age of LLMs, is it time to reconsider human-edited web directories?

Back in the early-to-mid '90s, one of the main ways of finding anything on the web was to browse through a web directory.

These directories generally had a list of categories on their front page. News/Sport/Entertainment/Arts/Technology/Fashion/etc.

Each of those categories had subcategories, and sub-subcategories that you clicked through until you got to a list of websites. These lists were maintained by actual humans.

Typically, these directories also had a limited web search that would crawl through the pages of websites listed in the directory.

Lycos, Excite, and of course Yahoo all offered web directories of this sort.

(EDIT: I initially also mentioned AltaVista. It did offer a web directory by the late '90s, but this was something it tacked on much later.)

By the late '90s, the standard narrative goes, the web got too big to index websites manually.

Google promised the world its algorithms would weed out the spam automatically.

And for a time, it worked.

But then SEO and SEM became a multi-billion-dollar industry. The spambots proliferated. Google itself began promoting its own content and advertisers above search results.

And now with LLMs, the industrial-scale spamming of the web is likely to grow exponentially.

My question is, if a lot of the web is turning to crap, do we even want to search the entire web anymore?

Do we really want to search every single website on the web?

Or just those that aren't filled with LLM-generated SEO spam?

Or just those that don't feature 200 tracking scripts, and passive-aggressive privacy warnings, and paywalls, and popovers, and newsletters, and increasingly obnoxious banner ads, and dark patterns to prevent you cancelling your "free trial" subscription?

At some point, does it become more desirable to go back to search engines that only crawl pages on human-curated lists of trustworthy, quality websites?

And is it time to begin considering what a modern version of those early web directories might look like?

@degoogle

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

@ajsadauskas I think Github's awesome lists are kind of like this. They're human-maintained catalogues of worthwhile websites on a specific topic.

RE: Is Ernest still here?

I check in here quite often, but for now, I'm just focusing on clearing spam and keeping the instance alive. In January, I was working on the AP module, and there has been significant progress in the work, which hasn't been publicly published yet. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the year, I developed a skin condition that...

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

On the other hand, if people really wanted to contribute, there's plenty of open issues on Codeberg that are unadressed. I agree that it would be better to announce plans in advance rather than surprise drop them, but I doubt there would be more contributions from the community.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

I'm just focusing on clearing spam

This is good to hear, but there's still soooo much spam on the instance, it's clearly too much for you. Can you please accept some of the magazine ownership requests (and moderator requests on your magazines) so we can actually help you with this? I know I've applied to a few, which are still pending, so there's definitely people waiting in line.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

I know. I'm just saying that the idea people would magically help out on kbin if he was more open about his plans doesn't work out, because the people willing to do so would either already be contributing to cleaning up the backlog or have moved on to mbin.

Btw, do mbin devs look at kbin issues too or do common problems have to be posted to both repositories to be seen?

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

Twitter has taught me that nowadays people are too adaptable, 90% of people will stick with Reddit no matter what they do.

Pamasich,
Pamasich avatar

The project definitely accepts contributions, the mbin devs have contributed to kbin before and a few weeks ago a minor code change was committed and merged by someone other than ernest.

As I understand it, the issue is that people with merge permissions other than ernest are only allowed to merge their own pull requests, not those of third parties, which require a review from ernest.
(At least that's what I've seen explained before, though I haven't seen any proof of it so I don't fully know if it's real.)

This means a majority of contributors can't get their pull requests merged when ernest is gone. Which is why they went and made mbin when he was gone for months last time.

SLaSZT, to kbinMeta
SLaSZT avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Pamasich,
    Pamasich avatar

    @SLaSZT
    I'm a bit late, but since no one seems to have given you an answer yet: Account deletion is currently manual and the instance's owner has been inactive since the year started. He came here every few weeks to remind us he's not dead yet, but otherwise it's been silence. Since account deletion is manual, that means there simply is no one there who could fulfill your deletion request currently.

    I want to stop having my votes public and just make a new account on another site

    Make sure not to switch to another fediverse site like a Lemmy instance. Lemmy hides the votes to its users, pretending they're private, but still happily gives them out to other sites like kbin to display or harvest.

    To those genuinely interested in moderating

    @Ernest has pushed an update which allows users to request ownership/moderation of abandoned magazines. Ghost/abandoned magazines were fairly prevalent after the initial wave of hype due to users either squatting magazine names or becoming inactive for other reasons. Now is your chance to get involved, if you were waiting to do...

    Pamasich,
    Pamasich avatar

    I assume ownership requests need to be manually approved by ernest, right? I've tried applying to some (not ernest-managed ones) weeks ago because of spam on them and nothing happened yet.

    Pamasich,
    Pamasich avatar

    Make sure to actually mention him if you want this to be seen. @ernest

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