Announcements

I am sure many of us have noticed that the site had problems over the last four or five days.

The downtimes were caused because of unrecoverable hardware issues with our server. The result was that he had to rebuild the setup from scratch on a machine and restore from a backup. We have also switched to a new provider since the previous one was consistently causing issues.

After this was done, image uploads were still broken for some time. There was no good fix for this because one of the database files used by pictrs had become corrupted due to the aforementioned hardware issues. To resolve this, we had to use an non-corrupted database file from a very old backup. Now image uploads should work fine. The downside is that images uploaded recently will not show up properly. There is not fix for this other than to reupload these images. Sorry about this.

Most of the technical problems with the site should be fixed now.

There is one maintenance task remaining related to moving the image storage to a new S3 provider which will require some downtime. We will inform about this beforehand.

Thanks for your patience.

Follow-up for https://lemmygrad.ml/post/939916.

Some of you thought we got hacked so we have removed taglines for now. People also complained about some taglines being too long which also makes sense.

We might add them later in the future but for now we have removed them.

Thanks for the feedback.

Let's do this again!

We can make add taglines now, I added 3 so far but we can have as many as want, so send them here!

Please format properly in markdown so I only have to copy and paste.

Our VPS shat the bed yet again, and due to a ton of disk-related errors, I had to restore from the last daily backup, so a few hours of data are missing.

This is not the first time this has happened, so we're officially done with this VPS, and will migrate to something else in a few days.

Again, I apologize, and special thanks to @[email protected] for getting us back up so quickly.

Forming the Stalin Battalion!

Some instances we federate with have free account creation and some people use that to instantly post on Lemmygrad (like 2 days old accounts with comments only on Lemmygrad type of stuff)

I give you my blessing to dunk on those people when you see them, go as hard as you need (within reason).

But remember: people that are reasonable should receive the same too. I'm talking about pure trolls who know what they're doing.

Then don't forget to report them and we'll ban them.

If we mobilise a front to counter trolls, I assure you they will stop soon enough because we take the fun out of it.

We can add anything as an emoji and we virtually have an infinite amount of slots available.

Post the emojis you want here, most upvoted will be added.

Please upload them on Lemmygrad ready to be used, due to the way uploading emojis work. That means you need to get rid of the background etc. This is what the interface requires:

and every field must be filled, so please provide a name for it (as well as : : shortcode) and some keywords I guess. Not sure what these are used for. About categories I'm not sure we're really gonna use them, at least not yet.

edit: they get really small when you upload them too, see here:

So keep that in mind when you suggest an emoji.

Image uploading and downloading will be down for a while. Gonna try my best to do it without bringing the site down. Sorry for the inconvenience it will inevitably cause.

EDIT: 2023-06-23T04:07:57+00:00: Going to take down pictrs now. There is a chance it might break the site.

EDIT: 2023-06-25T04:21:57+00:00: Site did not break. Migration has begun. Should take one to three hours in my estimate.

EDIT: 2023-06-25T05:54:00+00:00: Migrations still ongoing.

EDIT: 2023-06-25T06:36:17+00:00: Final stretch. Image upload will work now. Old images will be back Soon(TM).

EDIT: 2023-06-25T07:42:07+00:00: Old images are coming back online. Migration should be done in 10-20 minutes.

EDIT: 2023-06-25T07:49:35+00:00: It is done.

Should be less than 30 minutes.

Yesterday, muad'dibber had to quickly restore lemmygrad from a backup due to disk space issues on Lemmygrad's host.

We didn't have the info earlier because he's super busy juggling between and fixing stuff on Lemmy, lemmy.ml and lemmygrad due to the Reddit migration. So please don't take it too hard on him 🙏 he did what was necessary, there was no other option than to restore a backup, we just didn't have the info.

That's why I suggest that if you can code, you should help Lemmy! On our end we are starting to need better moderation tools (like being able to message the whole admin team would be great) to name just one. They have lots of issues open and probably even more now that lemmy has had a surge of activity, so any contribution to the code would help greatly!

Here's the repo: https://github.com/LemmyNet

If you're approved please read this too and come say hi! https://lemmygrad.ml/post/734891

We go through account requests in around 3 hours at most. The problem is the email that you're supposed to get when your account gets approved or denied doesn't get sent.

What you have to do after you request an account is try to login to your account and see if you can get in. If you've been approved, you'll log in normally. If you're still in waiting, it should say something like "registration pending". If you've been denied, it should say "your account was denied".

Welcome to even more new users! There's real hype behind Lemmygrad due to the Reddit API thing, which drives further hype for people to recommend Lemmygrad to their friends.

This post should contain everything to get you started using Lemmygrad, so please read it entirely. Then, at the end, why not make your first comment in this thread and tell us about yourself?

What is Federation

Lemmygrad works similarly to Reddit for users. You can make posts, subscribe to communities, comment on posts, etc.

The major part where we differ from Reddit (aside from the fact we're not corporate-owned and don't run ads) is that Lemmy allows federation to other instances. If you click on the "All" button at the top of your home page, you'll see posts from Lemmygrad as well as other instances (two big ones we federate with is lemmy.ml and lemmy.world). You can act on those instances the same way you would act on Lemmygrad, except they have their own rules and moderation team. They're completely independent from us, you can just interact with them. And they can interact with us too.

You can also subscribe to federated communities by the way, and they will show up on your "Subscribed" view (on the same group of buttons as All).

We also federate with Mastodon and other ActivityPub projects by the way. You access all federation from lemmygrad.ml, by using the All button or typing the URL you want to reach in the search bar.

Speaking of, please read our rules

Lemmygrad-wide rules are on the homepage. I'll copy them here too:

Rules

1. No capitalist apologia / anti-communism.
2. No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
3. Be respectful. This is a safe space where all comrades >should feel welcome, this includes a warning against >uncritical sectarianism.
4. No porn or sexually explicit content (even if marked >NSFW).
5. No right-deviationists (patsocs, nazbols, strasserists, >duginists, etc).

Since January 2023, the creation of new "Shit X Say" type communities is not allowed. Please post anything of that nature to Shit Reactionaries Say or Shit Ultras Say.

We take these rules seriously and you will be warned or even banned (temporarily or permanently) for breaking them. We've cultivated a very laid-back and welcoming atmosphere here over the years though, so don't be scared to participate haha

If you participate on Lemmygrad from another instance, we also expect you will respect our rules.

Creating communities

Unlike other Lemmy instances, we allow users to create communities here. You're free to create a community (subreddits on the aforementioned inferior competitor), but please look around to make sure it doesn't already exist. Community bloat is a real problem on such a small site, which is why we merged the Shit X Say communities into just 2 earlier this year.

You're free to run a community you create however you want for the most part, but you have to respect and enforce the instance rules. For our part we try not to step on your toes as a mod unless we have to make a sitewide ban. Essentially it helps spread the load of moderation from our small team of 5 people.

As a moderator, you can't ban people from the lemmygrad as a whole, just from your community. Generally, we find that someone who gets banned from a community should be banned from the whole instance, so in that case feel free to contact us or make a report and we'll look at it.

How to make reports

We're a small team managing a growing forum, and as such we rely on reports to see what we can't see ourselves. Please see this post: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/727768

What else?

We try to submit big decisions to the community for input as much as possible, for example the merger of SXS communities was first put to a vote, and then further discussed to see how we should go about it.

We hope you enjoy Lemmygrad, now it's your turn ;) tell us a bit about yourself!

Hi comrades,

Lemmy (as a whole) has been blowing up due to a HUGE influx of new users. On Lemmy.ml they take care of 400 new account requests every day; that's also why their moderation is slow today, the devs need to focus on code more than moderation.

I just want to go over how reports work because yes, you can report both comments and posts across the fediverse!

To make a report, you just have to be logged into your instance and then click on the three vertical dots under a comment or post. Then, a few more icons will show up; click on the flag like here:

Reports go to the following persons:

1. Your instance administrators. If you are on Lemmygrad, we see your reports.

2. The community's moderators. Currently, reports go to community moderators as well as admins of the instance the community is on.

3. Admins of the target's instance. Reports also show up for the admins of the instance the person you report is registered on.

That means if you're from lemmygrad and report something on, say, news@lemmy. ml that was posted by someone from lemmy. world, all three admin teams will receive your report + the moderation team for news@lemmy.

If we, lemmygrad.ml, delete something that's on lemmy.ml, it will only be deleted for our instance. People from other instances will still see that content.

Therefore we tend not to delete stuff that's on other instances as it would only prevent us from further engaging with it and there's no point in that.

Also be aware that when making a report, your username is passed on too. Reports are not anonymous.

It's important to keep reporting stuff however, especially if they break other instance rules! On Lemmygrad, we take care of our reports and do delete and ban people appropriately based on reports: we (the admins) can't see everything ourselves. So remember, if you see something, say something!

My post was too long so I had to post here: https://pastes.io/07p5nd9dxc

Edit: first correction to the paste, our trans community is represented far above the general population. Around 11% of our community is trans, while in the world only 1% of people are. I also only gave absolute numbers for some reason in the paste so here's the percentage points: 10% trans women, 1% trans men, 7.7% nonbinary.

Edit: we might end up redoing the survey, please read this comment!!

First things first, thanks to everyone that took the survey!

So, one thing we were not aware of is that questionpro (the software we used to make the survey) only lets you have 300 responses to a survey before they close it. Obviously they would not tell you that before they sell you their 1200$ a year subscription. We reached that limit and can't access the data. Now they want us to email them to download this data, which I'm reluctant to do (but still might do) because of, you know, the whole communism thing. Also if we download the data we still need a way to visualise it.

So yeah, sorry about that. I'd used questionpro before for a ProleWiki survey and picked it exactly because they didn't seem to have a respondent limit.

I did save a screenshot of the analytics at the 301 mark, so we can still publish the results of the survey. However, I'm not sure there's any point in setting it up again for the few people that haven't taken it yet, considering they represent around 50 users or so.

This survey was mainly made for fun and out of curiosity, so I'm not sure it's worth trying to download the data, import it to another provider if we can (I was recommended framaforms), and hold the survey for the few people that didn't take it yet.

At the same time, I totally get it would suck for the people who haven't had a chance to take the survey yet to be locked out from it.

Regardless of any solution we find, we'll find a better provider for next year if we run this survey again.

Edit 3: See new post (soon)

Edit 2: it seems the survey was locked, but maybe you can still take it. Just in case I got a screenshot of the results at 301 answers.

Edit: the survey will forcibly lock when it receives 300 responses 😱 (we're at 287 right now)

Unfortunately, survey software is a cartel on the Internet and they have huge restrictions on free users. I was not aware that questionpro locked surveys beyond a certain point for free users, and we just received an email that they would lock our survey once it reaches that response rate. And of course the only solution is to buy their expensive plan ($1.2k a year).

300 is a very confident amount still, seeing that our monthly user rate is ~350. It just sucks for the people that will not be able to take the survey.

Next time I'm using Google Forms. Google sucks but at least they don't cap you in the knees like this.

Or if anyone knows open source survey software we can use, that would be amazing 😀 (we also run surveys on ProleWiki sometimes)

You asked for it, now we're doing it.

This survey will run for around a week, so please take it ASAP!

At the end of it we'll analyse the results and will finally be able to answer the question that's on everyone's mind: is half of Lemmygrad trans?

Disclaimer: all questions are optional, meaning you can skip them if you don't want to answer. The survey should take around 5 minutes to complete. It asks personal questions, but all answers are anonymous. We do get your country code when you submit your answers, so use a VPN BEFORE you open the survey (but don't retake the test). Otherwise we really can't identify you.

If we missed any question or anything is unclear, please post it ASAP so that we can fix it before too many people take the survey.

We've approved I don't know how many new comrades here since the announcement that Reddit will kill its API access.

If you don't know where to start posting on lemmygrad, this is a good thread to start in! You can also ask questions you have about federation or our instance.

Welcome!

The current lore is:

We are all feds on lemmygrad, but you get to choose your agency.

For those who don't know, Reddit announced they would start asking outrageous prices for API access, which will essentially kill off all third party apps.

We've received quite a few new account requests after this announcement, and expect to receive more, so this post is aimed at you, prospective lemmygrad member!

We'll go through each account application with due diligence, but we would like you to know before you request an account that Lemmygrad is a Marxist instance, principally Marxist-Leninist. We like Stalin and we uphold the DPRK's sovereignty and legitimacy over the whole of Korea. We love China's Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

You can always request an account but you will likely be disappointed in your browsing experience if we approve you and you find yourself surrounded by MLs if you are not one.

Up to a few seconds ago, our tagline said "leftist communities" instead of "marxist communities" on join-lemmy, and I'm guessing that's why many non-marxist socialists wanted to join us.

You might prefer lemmy.ml or hexbear.net, although hexbear is not federated with anyone yet.

@[email protected] took care of it by going into the database directly and looking at who was initiating it but, being humble as always, did not say anything.

It should be fixed but if you notice it again (posts getting dozens of downvotes or anything out of the ordinary) tag the admins in a comment and we'll look at it.

The responsible instances were blacklisted on our end. It's not their fault necessarily, it's just that many lemmy instances are not moderated and have open account creation and we federate with everyone by default, which means spammers can quickly use those instances.

Edit: if you see something out of the ordinary, such as a post that is mass-downvoted and was posted after my thread here (or anything else that gives you reason for concern), please remember to report it! You can click on the three dots ... next to a comment or post and then the flag icon to report it. That way it gets to the instance admins and we can take action much more quickly. It also helps us coordinate information. In general reporting is good practice.

Pictures are being restored currently, should be a few hours.

Apologies again yall.

Like my post yesterday , I have made yet another bot, and I think people are gonna like this one.

The new friend is @[email protected]. Mention this fellow in a comment and give it a prompt and it will use stable diffusion to generate some images for you. I'll show it off a bit in the comments.

Edit: the bot now only replies to posts and comments in the AI art community.

We have 2 new bot comrades on Lemmygrad.

The first is @[email protected]. This bot will translate the content of posts and comments. To use it, mention the bot followed by the language you'd like to translate into.

For example, to translate a post or comment into English, reply with a comment that says "@[email protected] English". To translate into Dutch, reply "@[email protected] Nederlands". I encourage people to play with it. The free DeepL account I'm using let's me translate up to 500,000 characters a month.

The second bot is @[email protected]. This bot will scan images that have text in them and reply to you with the text. To use it, just mention it.

Edit: If any of the admins or community moderators want to make any automod bots for repetitive tasks, hit me up. I made a library recently that makes it pretty easy to make bots.

Hi comrades,

We've received some reports recently and so I'm making this announcement.

In our rules, Lemmygrad does not lean one way or the other towards religion. This means that in effect, we accept all communists no matter their religion or lack thereof.

However, this doesn't mean we allow feuds or unprincipled criticism. This seems to come especially from our atheist comrades, who sometimes (from what has made its way to us) see it fit to remind religious comrades that religion shouldn't exist.

While we appreciate that the criticism is about religion and not the particular beliefs of some comrades, this kind of discourse does not have its place on Lemmygrad as we effectively don't lean one way or another and expect users to lean that way too.

edit: as such, this reminder also applies to religious comrades.

We're very hands off with moderation and we'd like it to remain that way in a community as tight-knit as ours.

This doesn't mean that you can't criticize religion or atheism, as long as it comes in good faith and is done from a Marxist basis.

This principle also applies to other contentious topics that are prone to debate on our platform.

The update to the Lemmy backend reworked the blocklist and so every instance that we previously blocked was unblocked. We added it back in, let us know if there's more instances we should defederate from.

If you registered before March, you don't remember having to get your account approved because it wasn't in place back then.

Since the GZD migration from reddit to lemmygrad, we started asking questions like most places do. Currently, the questions are:

To combat brigrading, we have restricted user registration on this instance. Please write a short description containing:

• Why you would like to join?

• What left tendency would you call yourself? ( Marxist / Marxist-Leninist, etc)

• What communities you would most like to participate in, and

• How or why you chose the username you did.

We use these questions to screen for and discourage spammers and trolls. We will try our best to review your application as soon as possible.

However, lemmygrad is not like most closed spaces. We accept almost anyone. The reason for this is that it's very easy to ban them afterwards if we made a wrong call.

This means you may see people on Lemmygrad that are not entirely ML, or do not agree with you 100%. Many are also new to marxism.

This ensures we fight spam and still allow people to participate -- they might not yet be ML but we'd rather have them here than on reddit, right?

With that said we obviously don't approve liberals, reactionaries, etc. We are just quite lenient on approving accounts.

So please remember when you interact with the community that they are not necessarily at the same level you are at yet, and may need guidance. With that said, mods are allowed to ban people from their communities if they feel the user broke community rules.

Just wanted to share so you have an idea what we go through sometimes lol.

120 requests so far and probably more incoming. All made by the same person, spamming a nonsensical message full of slurs.

Due to accounts being on request, I'm not sure what the end game is here except be a nuisance. Nobody except the admins will ever see the requests and it got old after the first one.

I turned off account registration for now, you'll have to wait if you want to request an account sorry uwu