It's an instance that crossposts posts from Reddit, except it also makes a new user for each Reddit account it came from. So if /u/hello123 made a post, it makes that post under a new account called hello123. That makes it impossible to block posting bots.

Not only that, it makes posts look like they're posted by real people, with many question and text posts being copied as well. I was very confused as to what these posts were until I realized they're crossposts.

Examples:

https://alien.top/post/263029

https://lemm.ee/u/pocalyuko@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/ItzMeRocket@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/CaptainCapp-n@alien.top

I strongly believe Lemmy isn't the place for mirroring content from other websites. You can host your own alternate Reddit frontend like LibReddit, there's no reason to spam the posts to everyone using Lemmy just because 5 people asked for it. Not to mention there are already enough instances mirroring posts, this is getting obnoxious.

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[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Can you please add a note to your original comment please?

alien.top misreports its instance name and can confuse client blocks. In some cases you have to manually add "selfhosted.forum" for blocks to work correctly. I know this is an issue with Lemmy Connect specifically and I have left a note for the dev about this. If alien.top is misreporting its name like I suspect, it could cause issues for other clients.

I requested my home instance (lemmy.ca) defederate from alien.top, but my cries went unanswered.

[–] forrgott@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago

Thank you for this. I also use Connect, so went ahead and manually added that to my block list.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I'm from lemmy.ca too, and while I'm conflicted about the project, I'd rather limit defederation unless it's about something very clearcut

After v0.19 drops, users can block instances which should fix the problem for everyone that might want it gone

[–] ZeroCool@feddit.ch 39 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I’d rather limit defederation unless it’s about something very clearcut

Alien.top is a spam instance. This is as "clearcut" a reason to defederate as it gets.

[–] OmanMkII@aussie.zone -1 points 11 months ago

While it likely is spam for the majority of users, I imagine the mods are looking at de-federating an instance that fulfills a specific need for a small number (keeping alien.top users updated on reddit). Because of that, it will likely have a bit of push back to de-federate entirely vs. a request to create the ability to block users/platforms. Think of it like newsletters, we need the ability to unsubscribe/block them, but we shouldn't necessarily ban them outright.

[–] uis@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago

Alien.top is one-way bridge instance. If you belive(I will not say think because it will be insult to thinking) that it is spam instance, are you sure you understand what fediverse is? It lowers switching cost for reddit users since they can come here, post here, comment here and STILL be able to see content they want to see, but without ads and spyware.

In easy to understand terms: u r spam.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I will say that as it is 0.19 isn't going to be the holy Grail people think it is because the instance level blocking only affects communities hosted on those instances it does not hide users from those instances. So for instance is that are still Federated to hexbear it's not going to remove the hexbear user spam and it likely won't help in cases like this either.

It'll mainly help in cases where the communities on the instance and not the users are the problem. Things like the NSFW instance.

[–] reddwarf@feddit.nl 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If this is true then I indeed misunderstood v0.19

All I want is to be able to block an instance completely as a user. How hard can this be? I really had my hopes up for v0.19. This needs to be built into Lemmy asap because the idiocy of some instances is getting on my nerves hardcore. I mean, why not go back to reddit if I have to take shit anyway? At least I know the communities are larger over there and if I need to suffer bullshit then by all means, I'll suffer over there. This is not good for Lemmy tbh...

[–] uis@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

How can you as user block votes from one instance?

[+] rglullis -14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

There is no "misresporting". Selfhosted forum is a topic-based instance, like many other that set up as part of !communick_news_network@communick.news .

alien.top is a fediverser instance, which is done to help mirror content and to help people from reddit to migrate.

The whole idea of fediverser is to make migration for redditors as easy as possible and in a way that they when they migrate they have access to all the content they were used to.

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Some clients see the instance name as alien.top when it is a actually selfhosted.forum. When the instance info is referenced, it's reporting back both names. Lemmy can clients see one or the other and just blocking alien.top won't stop the spammy noise.

When I try to block a post from selfhosted.forum the client sees it as alien.top. This is partially a client issue, but it is likely caused by how the instances are presented.

Nobody hates the idea of a "Reddit transition instance". We just can't stand the noise it generates and that little effort was put into identifying posts as bot generated.

You mentioned somewhere that people should comment on those posts to help bootstrap conversations. Unfortunately, that is not how this is working out and it is wasting people's time.