Everyone on Lemmy seems to be trying to find ways to reduce content, as if we're sitting here drowning in it.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Right?! LMAO
That’s kind of been my position too. Like I guess “people were posting low quality content” but if it’s no evidence of malice/rule breaking, what’s stopping people from just curating their feed and blocking users they see too much?
Still fifty-fifty on this for the record but I am glad there is more wholesome and constructive discussion on this still coming in :)
I have yet to see any frequent posters pushing misinformation.
I have yet to see any frequent posters discouraging participation.
I have yet to see any frequent posters pushing quantity over quality.
To me, it seems like this post is addressing what's currently a non-issue. That is, this feels like someone's pet peeve about frequent posters dressed up as something beneficial using a list of non-applicable pros.
Meanwhile, news communities are posted to so infrequently on Lemmy that literal bots exist to fill the gaps. I would much prefer a human than a bot indiscriminately hammering the community with news (absent any evidence whatsoever that this would improve human engagement, when realistically, any humans who'd want to participate could do so at any time but haven't).
!politics@lemmy.world had UniversalMonk in the run up to the American election. They have about 15 alts, posted an average of 16 articles a day just on the main account, and would pointedly refuse to engage with any discussion of the actual content of the article in the comments. They were banned for "Indiscriminate posting of duplicate stories from different sources to flood the channel."
That's not this community, of course, but I think it is proof enough that it's not an unreasonable concern for OP to have
EDIT: @PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat is right that Monk substantially ramped up their post count in the month of October, being typically 6+ per day. I was mistaken about point 1 for that month, although I stand by that other months like September, they were about 3 per day.
I'll note that I consistently called out Monk to the point that multiple comments of mine lambasting them got deleted (the mods were just being fair and enforcing the rules consistently; hats off).
However, there are some points you've failed to take into account:
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(Most important) Monk posted to /c/politics at most about three times per day. This is realistically the bare minimum amount you'd want as a cap on posts per day. You can go back and check this for yourself; the overwhelming majority of their posts were on communities they created and moderated. Checking the month of September, the exception I saw to this was September 8th, where they posted four. This rule would have done absolutely nothing to deter their propaganda campaign.
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As your own comment notes, making alts is a trivial matter, especially assuming you're more subtle about the angle you're pushing than Monk was. That I was aware of Monk for months but knew and heard nothing about these purported alts is, to me, evidence of that.
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Every single post by Monk was heavily downvoted because everyone knew what they were doing.
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The main problem with Monk was their comments, wherein they would engage in essentially copy-pasting Gish gallop responses. The moderators knew banning Monk would've made the community healthier because of this exact behavior but refused to take action.
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Even if the problem had been the quantity of the posts to /c/politics (it wasn't), the moderators would've been able to use their discretion to ban Monk instead of a blanket ban on frequent posts.
TL;DR: Monk's problem on /c/politics had nothing to do with and could not have been stopped by such a rule proposed in the OP.
Fair enough!
(Most important) Monk posted to /c/politics at most about three times per day.
This is way off. During the October run-up when Monk was trying hard to influence the election, he was posting 10-15 times a day, which is about as much as anyone ever posts.
2024-10-21 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 4
2024-10-20 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 5
2024-10-19 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 6
2024-10-18 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 8
2024-10-17 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 6
2024-10-16 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 11
2024-10-15 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 5
2024-10-14 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 8
2024-10-13 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 14
2024-10-12 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 6
2024-10-11 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 11
2024-10-10 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 10
2024-10-09 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 10
2024-10-08 | https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk | 17
That's how many times only to the politics community, no other place, on each of those days.
TL;DR: Monk’s problem on /c/politics had nothing to do with and could not have been stopped by such a rule proposed in the OP.
This part, I 100% agree with. Discretion is always a part of moderation, and the fact that they didn't exercise discretion and common sense with Monk (and in fact actively protected him by banning people who he egged into conflicts with him) doesn't mean that we should set some kind of new discretion-free policy that will impact the heavy posters who do bring something good.
During the October run-up when Monk was trying hard to influence the election
How can Lemmy influence an election?! Hardly anyone has even heard of Lemmy. How on earth can you think that Lemmy would influence an election? Didn't Universalmonk say he was voting Green Party anyway? How is that influencing an election?!
I don't think Lemmy had any particular influence on the election, no, because of the small number of people here. I actually don't think UniversalMonk is part of any influence campaign, personally, although there is no way to know. I just said I thought they were trying to influence the election, not that there was any detectable impact from it. Certainly as soon as the election happened, they switched from promoting Rachele Fruit relentlessly, to promoting conservative ideology just as relentlessly, which would seem to indicate that the Rachele Fruit stuff was purely a tactical front because of the election.
In a broader sense, separate from this individual user, it is absolutely well-documented that there are foreign influence campaigns distorting social media to promote electoral outcomes operating on a massive scale. I think that is why Trump got elected, and I think it's why the far right is experiencing this massive surge right now all over the world, and liberal democrats like Biden, Trudeau, Scholz, and Macron are dealing with these insurgencies against their power which they're not coping with well at all. I think the problem is actually vastly understated in the media. I think it's one of the most powerful forces shaping world events right now, and it barely gets more than a footnote while the effects are talked about all the time in how politics is changing and new policies that are coming about because of it.
I am very surprised, as it sounds like you are, that it is on Lemmy. But also, it is very clear to me that there are influence campaigns on Lemmy, even if UM is not part of them. For whatever weird reason they decided that a few tens of thousands of MAU was enough to get someone involved in it. I think most people have a sort of anecdotal sense that it's happening, based on the various tides of propaganda that come across from time to time, and I've seen users fuck up in ways that unambiguously indicated it (a random example being someone who claims to be American and preaching nonstop about Democrats, then using non-American numbering and then not understanding it when it's pointed out to them that Americans don't punctuate their numbers like they just did.)
My main point about the election is that Lemmy, I guess like literally every other social media outlet except maybe Signal or something, had influence campaigns operating on it. Any given group of a few tens of thousands of people was laughably too small to influence the election. But, by casting a wide net, I think they produced quite a significant impact on the election, and I do think Lemmy was a part of it.
Certainly as soon as the election happened, they switched from promoting Rachele Fruit relentlessly,
I just looked him up, and he still promotes her and mods a community based on her political party. His profile seems to rage against the duopoly, so seems he is firmly still in third-party mode.
n a broader sense, separate from this individual user, it is absolutely well-documented that there are foreign influence campaigns distorting social media to promote electoral outcomes operating on a massive scale.
Maybe, but if that's true, I think it happens on both sides of the political spectrum. Just as many Democrats engage in that as Republicans.
Also, Lemmy is overwhelmingly left-leaning. So in that case, isn't Lemmy part of that surge trying to influence the campaign? They were heavily promoting all things Democrat, and heavilly downvoting anything that was third party or republican.
According to your logic, and your numbers, Lemmy is part of that influencing agent. And it seems to be trying to continue to influence things.
And since Lemmy is part of a political influence scenario, then that means you are too. As am I.
Maybe, but if that’s true, I think it happens on both sides of the political spectrum. Just as many Democrats engage in that as Republicans.
I do not think that American Democrats or Republicans are capable of running an operation that is anywhere near this successful. They are, for the most part, corrupt idiots. I'm talking about foreign influence campaigns which are designed to destroy the US by getting Republicans elected, not Republican influence campaigns which are designed to win by getting Republicans elected.
Also, Lemmy is overwhelmingly left-leaning. So in that case, isn’t Lemmy part of that surge trying to influence the campaign? They were heavily promoting all things Democrat, and heavilly downvoting anything that was third party or republican.
According to your logic, and your numbers, Lemmy is part of that influencing agent. And it seems to be trying to continue to influence things.
And since Lemmy is part of a political influence scenario, then that means you are too. As am I.
I do not think that American Democrats or Republicans are capable of running an operation that is anywhere near this successful. They are, for the most part, corrupt idiots.
Fair.
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UM was a case for moderators to use their discretion, not a blanket ban for everyone who posts a lot.
There are a couple accounts that do a lot of heavy lifting for these communities in a fair and balanced way.
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How would this rule prevent alts? Seems like it would encourage their use if anything
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It's not an unreasonable concern, no. But I'd rather the community be active and growing than address something that's not currently an issue.
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Agreed!
Sounds like a good way to lose our most prevalent posters and kill the community.
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We do allow [META] posts, when in good faith and on topic.
Allowing this to stay up.
Thanks! Of course I never had any doubts about this being left up but I do find it funny the number of people who were rudely adamant that this post was impossible, impossible I tell you!
cc @PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat @catloaf@lemm.ee I encourage you to add your input under this impossible post. :)
Ha. My input for what it's worth:
I'm not sure about setting a hard-and-fast rule, in part because at present some of the heaviest posters are also the highest-quality posters. MicroWave often reaches 10-15 posts per day, and their contributions are clearly an improvement to the community. I wouldn't want to set any kind of rule that would imply that they shouldn't be doing that.
The issue with The Poster Who Shall Not Be Named was not only that, on some days, they were hitting 20-30 posts per day to this community alone, but also that the posts were of an amazingly low quality. In my mind, proper moderation should take account of that kind of thing and use common sense and responsiveness to community complaints, meaning we don't need a special specific rule "please don't make 30 crap posts in a single day." The issue was mostly just that they weren't contributing good things to the community, not that there is some upper limit to how many posts in a day people should be doing.
Edit: The Poster Who Shall Not Be Named is not UniversalMonk, it's the poster me and OP were talking about that set off this conversation. Although, UniversalMonk is another useful data point for this whole conversation, and pretty much the same type of logic applies to them and any alts.
Valuable analysis ty
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There ought to be rules governing these posts to keep users who don't check the community on weekends or off hours from being blindsided by rule changes. Something like a designated day of the week for meta posts and a minimum time duration they need to be considered for.
Your comment is confusing because this is a petition post, not a rule change. I have no leadership role here. If anything changes there will most likely be internal mod communication and then an announcement post if the rule change is significant enough to merit it.
I mean, it's a petition asking for a rule change, so that's where my concern about surprise rule changes is coming from.
I do think you and other users should be able to petition the mods for rule changes, but I would prefer a system that didn't allow petition posts from users at any point in time, but instead encouraged petitions to be DM'd to the mod team so they could post them on a standard day of the week at a standard time and leave them pinned for user feedback for a standard duration, because that way all petitions would get as equal of consideration as reasonably possible.
I hope your next suggestion is as great as this one is terrible :)
if the mods notice a problem, then maybe consider action. but until then, no action needed
I don't think the proposal is necessary, at least not until it can account for the possibility of someone creating a legion of alt accounts to circumvent the rule.
In fact, if I am trying to push propaganda/news from biased sources, it would probably improve credibility if I stage it to look like it is coming organically from a dozen different accounts instead of just one.
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there are several news communities and most likely people look at multiple. multiposters will still be able to post to the fediverse news communities overall regardless of some rule on this community.
If you or others don't like the quality of content, then post more quality content. You can always block people you don't wanna get news from.
You are acting like Lemmy has some sway over the world or elections. Dude, hardly anyone has even heard of Lemmy.
Lemmy's need to go outside and visit the real world for a bit. lol
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Posting this because no one else seems to want to,
Maybe because it's a bad idea that wouldn't solve something that's not even a problem but would make the community more difficult to use.
- Frequent posters don't hold any more special influence than irregular posters, posts are sorted by their upvotes and downvotes not by who posts them.
- A community with stupid rules that removes your post for no reason because you went beyond some arbitrary limit will discourage new members from participating
- It is dumb to think about a news community in terms of quality and quantity. Not every news article should be some 10000 word Pulitzer prize winning deep dive, some of them are just going to be two paragraph breaking news updates. Also, there are some days where not a lot of news happens and some days where a ton happens, and this idea would just make the community struggle to be relevant and up to date on those big news days. If somebody posts a dumb news story, downvote it and leave a comment about why it's dumb and post a better one.
- I don't want you or anyone else determining the value of another post for me beyond your up/downvote and comment. If the post actually breaks a community rule that we've all been informed about and agree to by participating then a mod can remove it, but if you just don't like what's being discussed then just downvote and deal with it, and if you just don't like the person who posted it then please fuck off with your incivility to another website.
- People who really do want to push misinformation will just make alts that will work around this system, so you'll be making the community harder for people to use transparently while doing nothing to discourage bad actors
and it’s a discussion worth having outside of drama or personal conflicts.
If you wanted to avoid personal conflicts maybe don't propose a rule judging posts based on who posted them and what else they've posted instead of the content of the post itself
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I prefer quality over quantity but is the limited number of posters because they are quick to post news as it happens or because Lemmy is still relatively small?
I rarely post here but YES, this is a very good idea.
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