It used to be interesting before with engaging posts and looked like a burgeoning community. Now it’s just stagnant, full of politics and tankieism has become more commonplace.

Idk though, maybe it’s just me

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    So. Any prospect of the future? How do you feel with what you’re trying? I mean you launched an entire instance a while back… Do you have insight on what works and which strategies don’t work? And how willing or receptive are the people you talk to?

    • Grail@multiverse.soulism.netEnglish
      33·
      6 days ago

      Not gonna lie, a bit disheartened since dbzer0 defederated us. They didn’t want the atmosphere to change. But I still believe in the Fediverse and in Piefed. I’ve met some pretty cool people in the Piefed space, like Rimu, and I believe in that guy. He’s got the vision, the skill, and the dedication to build some great communities. I want to support him by being part of the Piefed community. And anecdotally, I see a lot more kind and accepting piefed.social users than on most Lemmy instances.

      I hadn’t noticed this until I was reflecting just now, but I banned a lot of people on remote instances for using slurs when MULTIVERSE was new, and lately, I haven’t seen many slurs. I think it done worked, I made a safer space for the people who use this instance. I was chatting with Rayne Blight yesterday, doing an interview about antirealist history, and they put an idea in My head I want to pursue: a soulist breadtube channel. So I’ve been speaking with an amateur film producer I know about doing some collaboration. And maybe Piefed needs some youtube ambassadors too. But I know if this youtube thing gets going, we’re gonna point people to MULTIVERSE, and there’s going to be an influx of weirdos posting into Lemmy’s communities from over here.

      But yeah, it’s a lot easier persuading people of antirealism face to face than on a social media like Piefed or Lemmy. People come to quicker snap judgements on here, so you need to react faster by giving up quickly on people you can’t reach. And you need to be patient and just keep putting stuff out there, because people are gonna come to appreciate it slowly with exposure. So it’s speed and patience. Some strong neutral jing stuff, which I kinda suck at and have been practicing.

      But in terms of the whole of the fediverse, it’s bad apples. And you know what they say, a bad apple can turn a whole barrel rotten. So our leaders, and I guess that includes Me now, or admins, need to be willing to say no to these bad apples like Hexbear, .ml, lemmygrad. And I dunno, maybe dbzer0, maybe not. Can’t say I’m proud of them for the recent pro-death-penalty drama. But that ship has sailed, I didn’t need to make that choice in the end.

      And one thing everyone can do, is just post more fun stuff. Just post more about video games and cool sticks and the stuff that makes you smile. Anyone can make this big community a little bit better by doing that.

      • MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        Will do. Got a bunch of stuff I think is cool that I can post.

        By the way, do you have any advice for someone interested in starting their own instance?

        • Grail@multiverse.soulism.netEnglish
          21·
          5 days ago

          Sure do.

          1. Use a VPS. Running your own server on premises gets complicated fast, especially if you rent. Pay someone else to keep your server healthy. Hetzner has fair prices and good customer service.
          2. Think about resource use. Lemmy sucks up a lot of RAM. Piefed runs lighter. Keep an eye on your disk space, anticipate problems.
          3. Get on Matrix. Lemmy and Piefed both have Matrix spaces for admins to help each other on the technical and political side. Be nice, make friends.
          4. Be predictable. Decide your rules before you need them. Keep it simple enough for users to understand. Give good removal and ban reasons.
          5. Cater to newbies. Don’t use the word “instance” or “server”, use the word website. Explain federation on the sidebar or in the signup process, but use general terms. Like “We’re connected to a network of other websites, and you can see and interact with their posts from our site.”
          • MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            5 days ago

            Thanks!

            1. Was already planning to do that, since on-prem isn’t an option for me at the moment. Also heard of Hetzner and on top of what you said, I like that they are EU-based.
            2. Got it. (Plus, check my instance - I’m already feeding myself pie :P)
            3. I’m already on Stoat, but I guess one more Discord alt won’t hurt (plus, better security in case my Stoat gets hacked)
            4. Makes sense.
            5. That’s the plan, yes.
            6. Did you accidentally press Enter too soon?

            I’m also considering offering a premium contributor tier to reward people who help keep the lights on and Hetzner bills paid, with extra features like scheduled posts (does PieFed have that? The scheduled posts, I mean, not the premium tier)

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        11·
        5 days ago

        Thanks for sharing your perspective and writing all of this down.

        To be honest, don’t worry too much about the dbzer0 users. They’ve defederated from you, I’ve defederated from them. There’s all this other thing going on with them. I share your perspective, I also get to read less slurs and toxicity since I started pulling some ripcords… I don’t like it either. But maybe that’s how it is.

        Best of luck anyway. I think the YouTube thing is a good idea. I mean you can probably make quite some impact, considering the current scale you’re operating at. But I also think the entire Threadiverse isn’t huge compared to YouTube people. Larger “influencers” sometimes fill Dicord communities larger than all of us combined. And smaller “influencers” sometimes have a very loyal and committed fanbase/community. All of that is useful and/or positive traits. I see how the hard part is finding someone with overlap and who wants to cooperate. And you’re going to have to welcome them and provide them with whatever their wants and need are… All of this is quite some effort. But certainly worth it in my eyes.

        And I don’t think there’s an issue with weirdos in itself, just be a tolerant and positive kind of weirdo and it’ll be alright.