When this instance first started, I don't think it was fully anticipated how large it would get. The place where this instance was when I first stepped up as admin was wholly unsustainable long term. There was little direction as to what the instance's intentions as a website were, and the specific intentions it seemed to lean towards (being a sort of reddit 2.0) is not something we have the ability to handle. Neither monetarily nor legally.
The expectations that this instance specifically would be replacing reddit nsfw content entirely is not realistic, and the expectations that have been had for what all of lemmy is capable of has been much higher than what the backend side of things is at right now. Rome was not built in a day, and the same is true for communities of this nature. We are utilizing a platform based on a philosophy that hasn't been widely used outside of email since the early Internet, while now having to work the laws and limitations that the current Internet now presents as well. It's an experiment, and just like all other communities we have made mistakes and are trying our best while figuring this out together. This is not a business, we are not shareholders, we are simply passionate volunteers.
Right now, our team has been paying attention to concerns and feedback that have been raised. We are currently actively engaged in a discussion of what the next steps are from here. My hasty implementation of the current restrictive content policy was not something to do long term but an attempt to reign in a community with what felt to have little restrictions and many issues popping up. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes of managing a community like this. The current policy as it stands right now, has been a band aid while we discuss further how to move forward. And we have been.
And thankfully we have a much bigger back-end team than before. What has helped the most to provide insight is that we have a back-end team member who has active experience in hosting adult websites within the legal span of the law. We also have backend team members who are helping to build mod tools not just for lemmyNSFW but with active collaboration with others across instances as well.
As we have discussed rule changes and throwing things at the wall, our biggest aspect has been determining if we are on the same page as a team. Unfortunately, a now previous back-end team member decided that he was not. And that's ok. However last night, instead of moving forward and deciding that our ethos as a team moving forward isn't for them there was a post that was made that compiled our original rough draft for new content guidelines and attempted to pass them off as that is going to be our full go to as a community. It isn't. We are discussing things and hashing things out as a team still but have made significant progress moving beyond what was discussed. When changes occur, we will make a post clarifying such changes. We ask for patience, please.
I feel like there's an air of suspicion that the admins (I guess myself included, except I really don't want to consider myself an admin outside of infra and code) are not being truthful. I think padded was frustrated, and that happens when you debate about something you're passionate about. I don't blame him, we all make mistakes and overreact, myself and the other admins included.
But here's what happened. I'm eastern US timezone, so all this was between at 7pm-1am for me after an already long day, but never the less, we engaged in debate over the rules for over 5 hours straight. For context, Yay sent a screenshot that he woke up to over 1500 messages from us. I went to sleep at 1 and conversations continued.
It started with Mike proposing (what some of us felt were) draconian rules. I typically stay out of the "general admin" room, but gavi asked me to come give feedback. so I did and we all started discussing them. After about 2.5 hours of debate (probably like 930pm), Mike asked for people to use an emoji to show how they feel about them, the result was 2 thumbs up (gavi, mike) and 2 thumbs down (me, padded) - OUT OF 14 PEOPLE. It was not "a vote" - it was purely to gauge sentiment. And all it did was draw more discussion, almost no one even put a reaction except mike, gavi, me, and padded.
Padded got heated during the discussion and said he felt like he was repeating himself, even though I was agreeing with him and that's kinda just how hard debates go. Eventually, I made it clear that I would not sysadmin a database of people's IDs who want to post on this instance. Others chimed-in in agreement. The idea was dead before it started. it was also pointed out repeatedly that the tools would never exist to enforce "source only" and padded made good points that "sourced" content can be faked with a PH logo pasted over it.
His last message was this:
Then almost immediately after that I said this:
In my opinion, padded seemed unhappy with everything, it felt like his stance was that if we didn't allow it all then we shouldn't allow anything and we have no right being the "lemmynsfw" instance. So then padded posted summaries of the draft that no one agreed to, and then got banned with a shitty message in the modlog and the post purged as a reactionary response. Mike got reprimanded for the ban message, we regretted purging it, but what's done is done. TBH based on the way purging works I imagine it's still available on other instances if you really care. But we can't "unpurge" messages, we SHOULDN'T change modlog messages.
But after he left, the conversation turned to how do we handle, and what are our legal responsibilities relating to, CSAM , how do we geoblock virginia/utah/etc, whether loli hentai can get any of us in trouble, how do we even define "loli", how do we handle "extreme" content on the feed, and how do we determine if CNC is actually CNC and not NC.
And that's basically still where we are still now, but we've made progress and I think we're all getting on the same page. The past few nights I've been digging into lemmy code, including the pict-rs library, to figure out exactly how purging content works, how the federation aspect works, and what changes we need to make our instance safe from legal repercussions, and protect other instances from hosting content they may not be comfortable with.
Regarding purges, the only remaining piece after a purge is in the "admin_purge_log" table which lists the post id, the creator_id, the admin_id, the given reason, and the timestamp. This data is viewable from the "admin view" of the instance, but not to regular users. I don't believe purges are federated.
Our instance has purged 8 posts, 3 of which were test posts, 1 was padded's, and 4 others were before I was involved so I don't actually know. I assume it's involved with the de-federation ordeal.
That's the long and short of it. Please remember, Reddit had billions of dollars to pay lawyers to deflect any liability. We don't. I believe our current donation total is like $200 last we talked, probably more now, and the server costs were like $80 for june and expected to be much higher for July. We're discussing going out of pocket to get a lawyer. I think a more detailed account of finances will be shared soon.
The finalized content policy will be shared soon for feedback and then hopefully implemented. We're working on how to be more transparent with communications, server costs, and donations.
This shit is hard, I don't get why people want to dismiss it as a simple thing. People have gone to jail over this kind of content, and even if we could win in trial, none of us want it to ever come to that.
I just want to write code, lol
There seems to be a huge issue with administration lately, but you seem like one of the good ones. If things get too out of hand, I encourage you to share your contributions to the rest of the wider lemmy community, as it would be a shame for your talents to go to waste.
No one expected perfection this early. Mistakes were inevitable and I've made my fair share. I have been on the other side of things like this and I totally get it.
But JESUS HAMBUGER CHRIST...
The way they banned @PaddedPerson and now @NSFWusername is totally unacceptable. I'm done. I tried. I really did. But I can't.
(inb4 this post/account is banned for 47 Years)
This is probably going to upset you to hear, but NSFWusername wasn't contributing to anything except demanding we allow loli/shota, telling people that the instance was failing, and telling them to go to the other instance to have more freedom.
Overall, we're fine with advertising other instances, but that instance has been problematic for us, and right now we need to focus. I've asked the team to stop using decades long bans, I've adjusted NSFWusername to just 7 days so that everyone can have a chance to cool off. I've also asked for better reasons on ban/purge/deletion.
Frankly, we're just not interested in the discussion of "how to be more like burggit" - we just need to do our thing the best we can. That bridge has kinda been burned for now, we can revisit rebuilding relationships once we get our feet under us and feel like the instance is in a better place.
What about this is a bannable offense? The demands for content seem warnable but overall this seems like some serious power abuse.
None of the above justified a purge of all their posts/comments.
I want to be clear, I do not condone the actions of those other two users, nor the content that is hosted on that other instance. But something's gotta change. This is unsustainable. I don't know if that other site is for me yet, but I figure it's probably better than whatever the hell this has become and at least worth a shot.
I've just seen one of your posts on the other site. You say here you don't condone, but over there you say you "admire"... seems a bit of a contradiction.
Then the way you've thrown everyone here under the bus for being cautious with regards to drawn and animated content makes it clear to me you have no idea where this content stands legally in some places around the world.
Like it or not some types of illustrated content are illegal in some places. It's not a question of taste, it's the fucking law.
To criticise admins here for not wanting to go to jail is just plain stupid of you.
What's happening here is measure and caution. This could be sustainable.
What's happening elsewhere is doing to get people put in jail.
The Lemmy Federation is exploding and this will begin to draw more attention. Getting this stuff right matters.
I love smut. But being reckless is unsustainable, and thus I appreciate the caution and restraint exercised here.
It gives me hope that something attainable can be built.
Again, I do not agree with everything there. I still dunno if it's for me yet. And I never expected everything to be permitted under the sun here. I fully understand the risks of a NSFW site, and I don't know how many other ways I can say that I get it. But I'm leaving for more reasons than just their approach to content. I "admire" their supposed stance on speech, and I don't want to wait for the other shoe to drop.