I might be able to set something up with the InstanceAssistant browser extension. It would be nice to have it in the main UI, but this could help temporarily.
I'll send a PM :)
cynber
joined 1 year ago
This is amazing, thank you for reaching out to the dev!
This was on the list of ideas for InstanceAssistant, but I didn't know where to start. It is great news that it was added to the original extension.
I think the issue here is
they don’t show up under “posts” on your own profile
It makes sense to hide read posts on the main feed, but not when you're looking at a particular user?
Yep I think the defederation point is the big one which causes the idea to break down. I'll edit the post to better reflect my thoughts now
Thank you!
Hope it helps :)
Look, honestly: if you want Facebook ot Twitter, go back to them.
This post was to talk about the merits/drawbacks of a potential change, and the constructive comments on the post have been helpful for that. Some of the other 'solutions' that have been posted here feel even more antithetical to the idea of decentralization (ex. redirecting upvotes, having communities follow other communities) so I was looking for a compromise that would address some of the annoyances without making the site another centralized platform. The intent was to allow users to choose how they want to link cross posts together, rather than having the community (or an app/frontend) make the decision for them. We've also been seeing users naturally gravitate to a few instances/communities, so I was looking for ways to redirect some of that traffic back to lesser known spaces.
Regardless, I appreciate the comment. Reading the perspectives on this post helped me see how locking the post completely would cause more issues and annoyances than it would help with. A simple "we are discussing X over on this post, feel free to join" seems like the better compromise.
that's fair :)
Everyone who's subscribed to the same communities will see all of each others' comments.
This still relies on everyone using the same app/front-end.
I guess I'm thinking about how it would be helpful in more general cases. If someone has an issue with a FOSS app, and they ask about it in two small communities, it would be much better to have the troubleshooting discussion in one place rather than have both communities missing part of the context.
Ultimately in your example, the user can still make both posts, this doesn't change that. It just directs the comments to one post's comment section rather than having it spread out.
Still it's good to think about cases where OP tries to abuse the system. Would a good middle ground just be the first implementation then? For OP to link to the post that they want to be the main discussion thread, but people are free to ignore that if they want.
I agree, instance assistant (our extension actually!) handles this, but it would be much better to have it exist natively.
this proposal would give more controls to the bigger communities
what are the concerns that come to mind?
I’d rather just have different communities
All the individual communities would continue to exist as they do right now. When it makes sense for a post to have a deeper discussion, users can lock and redirect accordingly
This works for viewing all the comments so far, but it doesn't solve the discussion aspect since commentors from each community won't be seeing or responding to the other comments. This is a bigger issue with smaller communities, where they'd mostly be top level comments / chains with minimal depth from each smaller community. Yes you can see all the comments, but the discussion quality is poor.
It's also not as helpful when the automation fails. Something I've found is that the 'crosspost' field starts to get crowded on posts that link to a popular website. Combining comment sections from ALL of those posts isn't as useful as having some intentional action from the OP.
A key aspect about this proposal is that it requires the OP to do something. If it doesn't make sense for a community (ex. different intents behind the Politics communities), then OP shouldn't lock their post. If OP does it anyway, then you can downvote that post.
49
EDIT: Thank you for all the great responses! I agree that a forced implementation is no longer the way to go. I've left the post as is, aside from this comment, in case anyone wanted to reference part of it. At this point, I think implementation 1 (Sincere Request) is the way to go if anything.
I've seen a few of these posts, some with really cool solutions, but a lot of them are difficult to implement, or complicated for casual users to understand. Here is my proposal on how we can coordinate communities that share the same topic, while also keeping the spirit of federation.
This post has some general thoughts on why I think this is the best solution. It also has some possible implementations, including a trivial one that works already without any automod or code changes.
General Thoughts
This talks about why I think this is a better solution. Feel free to skip to 'proposed solutions'.
Leave vote counts alone:
- Some proposals talk about sending vote totals to the original post or having all cross posts share a total vote count. This leads to issues since larger communities can manipulate which posts show up, and it creates an incentive for users to spam posts to unrelated communities. This also might lead to implementation issues, where the vote counts don't properly federate out. It's also confusing for casual users, and it takes power away from individual communities to decide if a particular post is relevant or not.
- With all that in mind, I also don't see much of a benefit in playing with the vote counts. It might be better to leave them alone.
What are the issues we're trying to address
- Comment threads are disjointed. Users need to open up multiple posts to see what is being discussed. With small communities, a few users are just talking into the void. This issue is addressed.
- Can't see relevant content without subscribing to multiple communities. While this can be seen as a downside, I think it has an added benefit because each community can decide if a post is relevant or not. Forcing posts into one community may lead to other drama with linking/unlinking, and it's very confusing for casual users to figure out who's actually going to see a particular post if it automatically appears pops up in other communities.
- Scrolling past multiple identical crossposts in a row. My proposal doesn't address this directly, but it may offer a way for apps and frontends to deal with them.
Proposed Solutions
The general premise here is:
- User makes a post in community A
- User makes crossposts in communities B, C, and D
- Posts in communities B, C, and D are locked, with a link to the post in community A
- If someone wants to make a comment about the content, they can do so in the main post in community A
Benefits
- User can pick which community to have the comments appear in. They can base this on rules, moderation style, or if they want to promote a niche community
- Everyone else is free to upvote/downvote the posts independently
Issues that need to be addressed:
- A malicious user can post a scam or misleading content, and then lock the post with no easy way for people to call it out. While this can be reported to moderators, people may fall victim to it before the post is removed and the user is banned. Simply checking for a redirected post isn't enough because a user can make that post be on an instance/community they control, and remove comments calling out the content.
Implementations
- Sincere Request: After making a post, the user can paste in a standard comment asking people to comment in the linked post.
- Doesn't require any code changes and you can start doing this right now
- Relies on commenters listening to the request
- somewhat silly, but this is the easiest implementation
- Automod locks top level comments: After making a post, the user can leave a comment to trigger automod.
- automod will prevent any top level comments, but still allow replies to the original comment.
- requires updates to core lemmy for partial locks, or for an admin level bot that can remove comments from posts based on characteristics
- Automod locks post entirely: After making a post, the user can leave a comment to trigger automod.
- automod will lock the post entirely, and leave a comment on how to deal with issues
- anyone can message automod with a link to the post, and have it be unlocked to discuss issues
- doesn't require updates to core lemmy, but it does require an admin level bot
___
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/6770347
This is a very small update, but hopefully it's helpful! As I mentioned in the last update, I'm a little tied up with other commitments right now, so I haven't had a chance to implement the other features on the to-do list. This one was requested the other day, and it was simple to add since I could reuse a lot of existing code.
Links:
- Firefox Add-on
- Chrome Extension
- Edge Add-on (waiting as of 2023-10-09)
- GitHub
❓ What is Instance Assistant?
If you're new to Instance Assistant, it is a browser extension with a collection of tools and features to simplify your browsing experience on Lemmy and Kbin. It is available on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge; you can also install it from the releases page on GitHub.
For a full list of features, please see the GitHub homepage: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant
⭐ What's new in v1.2.6?
- Redirect user profile pages: When you want to message a user and click on their profile, you might end up on a foreign instance. To message them, you need to modify the URL or copy/paste. Instead, you will now find a little button to jump you to your home instance.
💛 Also
Thank you for all the suggestions and feedback! Like I said before, I'm really happy to see that people are using the extension and finding it useful. Please continue to make suggestions and contribute your expertise.
Cheers :)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/3232301
Status & Download Links:
| Firefox v1.2.4 | Chrome v1.2.4 | Edge v1.2.3 |
|---|
Download from source: release v1.2.4 (github.com)
- While Edge and Opera are awaiting approval, you can install v1.2.4 from here, or through the Chrome store
Hi everyone!
On the surface, this update brings a handful of features integrating the extension with other tools and services. We have the first of many features from the LemmyTools userscript, as well as the support for Alexandrite and Photon frontends. You can also directly search for communities through Lemmyverse.net and for posts through search-lemmy.com, among other small changes.
The biggest change was behind the scenes. I've completely refactored the code throughout the extension. Now that we have a clearer plan for the extension, I simplified all around, such as consolidating most functions to a central utils.js file. I also reworked the settings, and unfortunately this means you may have to add your home instance again. Moving forwards, it should be a lot easier to maintain the extension and for people to collaborate, which brings me to:
Want to help?
Get started:
I've put together some notes on how the extension is structured for those that want to help. The extension itself is fairly simple, and it doesn't use any particular framework or anything. It should a great first project to work on, even if you are just learning or new to web development.
Having more people add to one place would make it easier for users that are juggling many extensions and userscripts. That's why I've been focussed on having a more intuitive structure for the project and leaving detailed notes and comments. I'm also likely not going to have as much time starting next month so I'm trying to do what I can now to get everything rolling.
If you don't know where to start or just have an idea, let me know and I'll see what I can do :)
As always, you can add new ideas and issues here: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant/issues
All new improvements with v1.2.4
New Changes
- search for communities through Lemmyverse.net or for posts through lemmy-search directly from the popup or sidebar
- You now have the option to hide the default Lemmy sidebar (more LemmyTools features to come!)
- Replaced non-functional 'subscribe' button on foreign
/communitiespages (only when no account is signed in, so not to replace something functional) - Support for Alexandrite & Photon frontends. Test them here:
- Alexandrite: https://a.lemdro.id/c/lemdroid
- Photon: https://nu.lemdro.id/c/lemdroid
- New 'communityNotFound' button to account for alternate frontends: https://lemmy.ca/c/lemdroid@nu.lemdro.id
- Fix for generated link on CommunityNotFound pages
- Completely refactored the code to move repetitive functions to a utils.js file
Future Plans:
- Exploring a 'Reddit migrator' tool, similar to the mobile tool in Voyager, powered by lemmyverse.net
- Adding more features from LemmyTools Userscript, with help from /u/howdy@thesimplecorner.org
- Prepping for Firefox Mobile app, now that they are opening mobile up to all extensions!
- Keyboard hotkeys, possibly collaborating with someone that already implemented something similar
- Adding icons and simplifying the design, as the menus are getting very wordy
- settings to limit onboarding / help instructions
- Ability to have multiple 'home instances'
- Finishing the setup so that people can contribute translations / other languages to the extension.
view more: next ›
This looks good, thank you!