hey folks, here's a quick update on our decision to defederate from sh.itjust.works! (and here's sh.itjust.works's side of this update)
we got in touch with the head admin over there, The Dude, and we had a pretty good chat about our concerns and reason for defederating. while immediate re-federation is just bluntly off the table with the rudimentary state of Lemmy's moderation tools, we now have a pretty good idea of the roadmap to refederating with them. we think we'll eventually be able to do this, although we don't have a timetable on when yet.
we're also now collaborating with him on how to move forward--and in the weeks and months to come we'll be pushing to expedite the process of developing some of the necessary tools. this decision has really helped us make connections that can hopefully realize those tools both on the desktop side and in apps being developed for Lemmy. we're also hoping to collaborate with other Lemmy administrators who have needs like our own, or just generally want more granular tools at their disposal.
we did also get in touch with the lemmy.world owner prior to defederating to share the concerns that prompted us to defederate[^1]--but we have not received any communication from him since it was levied, so there's no roadmap at all there as of now. we're always open to reconsidering and collaborating to end the defederation with him, but for now the earliest i can give you is "when mod tools are in a better state".
that's all for now folks. if any new significant developments take place we'll announce them as needed.
[^1]: we're only bringing this up now because it was just not useful information in the context of our announcement. it almost certainly would have been interpreted as some sort of callousness and/or brought unnecessary sectarianism and grief to him. at the end of the day he has his reasons and desires for running lemmy.world how he does, and we have ours for running Beehaw as we do. because of social and technological circumstances those are just incompatible right now, and that's fine.
It's quite unfortunate that Rexxit happened before the platform was ready for it. Looking forward to refederating when the time comes.
I think rexxit is the catalyst to get the platform ready. I don't think rexxit is a one and done thing. It's gonna be more of a constant trickle, and lemmy is in a very good place to absorb more users. I browsed /r/all today, and saw many comments of people saying the frontpage sucks because there's no content. Spez might like to pretend there's no impact to reddit, but there's certainly going to be a big impact at least in the near term.
Indeed, I think that ironically the pattern we're seeing from Reddit is pretty much ideal for getting this platform up and running. They sent a moderate surge of users over here to shake things down and start contributing, and then on June 30 a much bigger surge may come this way to see what's been built.
No one is ever ready for the Reddit Inqui-- er, Invasion.
How can you be ready for something you don't expect?
Expect the unexpected. Unexpect the... expected?
Im ready for a hot summer fling with an enchanting lover. However my expectation is that it will not happen.
Choose your own snarky reply:
I dont see it that way. Software improvements can be pretty stagnant if there is a slow influx of new users. A good dose of new redditors will expose the main issues with the platform, and thats a good thing imo. Defederation is now on the spotlight for many users who were clueless about it, and that helps development since awareness can bring volunteer work onto said issues more quickly.
If anything it's probably ultimately better (from this, specific perspective) that the Reddit blackout was only two days and only really drove 10k~100k over to try out Fediverse instances and not 100k~1m. In general I don't think things are clear and digestible enough to start porting entire communities (even small ones), but I think with some stress testing and getting some QOL updates, apps, etc., we could be in that position in as little as a few weeks or months.
Even with open-signup instances available, I wonder what the backlog looks like elsewhere. I don't think we can gauge the level of interest in alternatives four days after the larger Reddit community was faced with the blackout. Trends do not move in days in general.
We can't forget that the third-party apps are still functional for a couple weeks still too.
At the same time, Rexxit is getting more folks involved with Lemmy (both as users and developers). Lemmy's already a 4-year-old project. I expect we'll see it advance and mature a lot in the coming months from all the new attention.