Hey folks!

I’m writing this because funding for the Lemmy project has dropped to critical levels, which could seriously impact its future development.

Thanks to the generous support of our lemm.ee community, our server infrastructure costs are covered, and we even have a few months of runway. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed - lemm.ee wouldn’t exist without your help.

However, infrastructure alone isn’t enough. Our servers run Lemmy software, and without ongoing development, the platform cannot grow or even be maintained.

Lemmy is an open-source project with many contributors, but the vast majority of development work has been carried out by a small group of core maintainers. A few maintainers work full-time on the project, relying solely on donations and occasional grants to support themselves.

I’ve seen Lemmy development up close, and the maintainers have consistently gone above and beyond what I consider the standard for small open-source teams - they are constantly writing code, mentoring contributors, and keeping everything running. Their work is essential, and without continued support, it cannot be sustained.

If you value Lemmy, please consider supporting its maintainers directly. Every bit helps.

Please check out this post for more details about how to support the maintainers: https://lemm.ee/post/63034576

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great weekend!

  • hakase@lemm.eeEnglish
    257·
    20 hours ago

    Most of Lemmy is fine - just avoid the tankie triad of lemmygrad, lemmy.ml, and hexbear and you should be good to go.

    Edit: And maybe also the instances that haven’t defederated hexbear in particular, since when they show up threads tend to go to shit, as you’re seeing here, unfortunately.

    • person1@lemm.ee
      62·
      18 hours ago

      I can certainly see that Hexbear and the other two are very vocal and toxic here. Engaging in some discussion or getting my views challenged is fine, I’d rather not close myself in a bubble, but it’s sad that they would be so quick to insult and ban you. It does worry that they have some of the biggest communities. I wish I could say “oh well the protocol is neutral” but I think that with most OSS projects it matters tremendously who is at the helm; also, another poster outlined quite well that these instances seem to be the showcase for the system.

    • Ofiuco@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      73·
      20 hours ago

      Sadly that is not enough, blocking instances at user level leaves you forced to deal with their users who will spread propaganda in every comment.
      Defederate? My instance already defederated those 3 but their posts still appear if someone from a sever that aligns with them (I can’t see any other reason to keep a federation with them) crossposts to their instance, now that post will federate with the rest anyway. Defederation should be total, but they left loopholes by design.
      And it still won’t matter because not all countries have a no-bullshit instance/comm, so it’s extremely easy to see someone post propaganda about a country without enough users on the fediverse and nobody will know, but if someone from that country challenges it, the users will pile on them (specially if it’s a populist) and downvote them (I can safely say that the only news I’ve seen about my country are goverment propaganda, but lemmy users get MAD if it’s pointed out).

      Lemmy as it exists right now must dissapear, it’s designed maliciously to keep the propaganda going instead of fighting it, it’s just the other extreme of Reddit.
      I am waiting for PieFed to get more developed to see if it gets better blocking capabilities, because I’m tired of the lemmy loopholes.