tet42

joined 1 year ago
[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Feedly is the closest thing to Google Reader that I've found.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I do appreciate your feedback, but I think at a minimum that anyone trying to run a Lemmy instance in Docker should know how to install docker and docker compose and how to run basic commands like docker compose up -d. There are many tutorials out there for doing just that and I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. Once you have gotten that part done my document kicks in and picks up where the official documentation is currently lacking (in my opinion).

I do explain a lot, but I did my best to explain it in terms that most anyone could understand.

I will take your feedback to heart and maybe try to write a step by step tutorial for people who are completely new to Docker as well.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks for your comment, but I don't see much value in pulling a new copy of the docker-compose.yml from the Lemmy GitHub. The only things I would be updating when Lemmy updates is the tag/version. If they added new environment variables some time in the future I could certainly take a look at their updated compose file to see the changes but I wouldn't want to pull it down and replace my custom compose.

I specifically don't care for their (Lemmy devs) choices for logging, docker networking, and the built in nginx, so removing and simplifying all that was my main goal. Everyone has their own way of doing things, and this is mine.

I will probably take a look at your Traefik configs and add them as a separate document for those that don't want to use NPM. My goal is to add a subsection for most of the current revproxy choices.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I do not recommend using Ansible. It adds additional requirements and complexities that are unnecessary. Ansible is a great tool for managing multiple servers and software installs, in my opinion it is not the right tool to install Lemmy on a single instance. My install instructions require only that you have docker and docker compose installed.

That said, you could easily replace the docker-compose.yml that Ansible set up for you with the one I am providing. Just don't run Ansible against your server again or it will wipe out your changes.

26
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by tet42@ka.tet42.org to c/lemmy_support@lemmy.ml
 

I am working on writing up some quality help/instructions for Lemmy instance admins. This is targeted toward those that are newer to Lemmy and Docker, but even those that know a thing or two might learn something from me. I have been a sysadmin for over 20 years, so I know some things.

I thought I'd share the first complete page I have written. I'd love some feedback if you have any to share.

Be seeing you.

P.S. I frequent the Lemmy Admin matrix chat and I moderate the Install Support channel. Stop by if you have questions! https://matrix.to/#/#lemmy-support-new-instance:discuss.online

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Seems like the best thing to do would be to run that on a daily schedule and also ideally something done in the ui. I worry for those admins that just "followed the recipe" to get a Lemmy instance up and running but lack any real sysadmin ability.

I think theres probably a big overlap between the novice admins and the instances where the admins are unaware they are getting flooded with bot registration.

 

I'm sure I'm not the first to think about this, but I haven't seen it mentioned yet. I believe there is another problem with open registration instances besides just the threat of spamming.

If you go through the process of making a new post in ANY community and you attach an image and then cancel the post the image is STILL on the server at the given URL and is publically viewable if someone has that URL.

Theoretically, someone could upload illegal images this way and hotlink to them from another site. Because there are no posts on the instance with the bad image attached an instance admin would have no way of knowing the images were there unless they make a habit of browsing the pict-rs datastore regularly. There's currently no easy way to moderate or delete images in the pict-rs datastore.

I don't think I need to elaborate more on what kinds of images could be lurking on your very own server which could be hotlinked into VERY dark places on the web. Saying that you "didnt know" that they were there is not a defense. When the authorities are knocking on your door because you are hosting illegal images you will be sorry that you didn't take a more active role in your user base.

I realize that even if you close or set manual registration that there's still the danger of a bad user doing this very thing, but I think putting in some minor hurdles would greatly decrease the chances.

Regardless, I think there needs to be a better way to manage the pict-rs part of Lemmy and an easy way for admins and instance owners to be able to view EVERY attachment on their server to make sure there's nothing there that could get them in trouble.

I run a small instance that just have people I personally know on it, so it's not a worry for me. But the larger instances that are opening signups to strangers should be aware and take precautions.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Community discovery that spans all federated instances should be one of the top things that development should be working on. And it should be integrated into Lemmy, not as a separate website people have to go to and search.

Peoples are lazy. They don't want to have to go to some separate website and then search for something. And lets not even get started on the difficulties of adding a remote community if your instance doesn't know it exists, its wonky at best.

If a user cant type "Stephen King community" in the search bar on their instance and then get results, they are either going to assume it doesn't exist and give up OR they are going to be hitting that "Create Community" button.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Of the themed instances that exist now, I'd be willing to bet that in addition to their local communities they host that they also subscribe to other communities that aren't strictly related to whatever theme they are going with.

For example, I'm sure the Star Trek instance also subscribes to the lemmy@lemmy.ml community so the admin can stay abreast of Lemmy news. And probably also follows other technology related communities as well.

I think most people would just want to gravitate to whatever they want to be identified with. There's nothing stopping you from joining a music themed instance and then adding some non-music subscriptions to your list. It doesn't force those subs on anyone else on the instance.

And if you don't want to be identified with any specific topic or community, you can always join a general Lemmy instance like Beehaw or Lemmy.world and subscribe to whatever you like piecemeal.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

That's not how Lemmy works. You just need an account on ONE instance. And then subscribe to all the communities that interest you, some may be local to your instance and some may be hosted on other instances.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Honestly, I hope not.

For example, if all the "programming" communities ended up on a single instance, that is still a single point of failure. I think it would be better if they were spread out a bit. That way if the programming themed instance went down unexpectedly it wouldn't take ALL the programming communities out with it, only the ones it hosts.

There's nothing stopping anyone from creating a programming themed instance and then subscribing to various programming communities on other instances and then creating their own local communities to fill in the gaps. And ideally, I think that's what should happen.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I was never insinuating that an instance owner should limit their scope. But just because you run an instance doesn't mean you have to be the home node for all the communities you are interested in. It goes against the idea of federation. If a community already exists on another instance, as an instance owner you should subscribe to that community rather than making your own. That increases resilience.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 0 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to create a new community. I'm saying that due diligence should be taken BEFORE creating a new community, to be sure that community doesn't already exist.

[–] tet42@ka.tet42.org 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (27 children)

Hot take. I think the instances that are trying to be Reddit are the ones that give their users carte blanche to create new communities without any thought of looking to see if the same community exists elsewhere. I'd prefer that community creation be limited to the admins of each instance, that way they could - hopefully - at least do a cursory search to see if the community exists already and then just add it to THEIR instances subscriptions. There's a reason why every community shouldn't be on a single instance. It's a single point of failure.

4
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by tet42@ka.tet42.org to c/lemmy@lemmy.ml
 

First I want to say that I love the idea of Lemmy. I think it's very reminiscent of the old days of BBS's and networked message boards (FIDOnet).

With that in mind I'd like to suggest that maybe some thought should go into guiding people to the right instances to sign up on.

I think more instances should try to specialize in certain content and host communities that cater to that. Much like the BBS's of the olden days you could have an instance that is all about sports, or an instance specializing in comic book communities, or an instance that caters to a certain region or state.

With that in mind, it would be great to have a page that indexes instances by interest groups so people could make better decisions about which instance to join rather than just everyone trying to pile up on lemmy.ml.

Thoughts?

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