this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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sdfpubnix

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~~It is time to talk about sailing ship and encourage defederation of this instance, I think.~~

Update: Administrator action has been taken, thankfully.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I think this is an extreme reaction to (as far as I'm aware) the first instance of a serious issue with the sdf lemmy instance.

Another poster has brought up that the admins are possibly busy with taking over another pubnix system at the moment. That's quite a big project.

Lemmy is still a niche thing, run by a small group of volunteers. It is not anywhere close to reddit or other sites in terms of resiliency against admin life events. As far as I'm aware, Lemmy is not a primary thing for the sdf group, but instead just one of many projects amd servers they run. As a sysadmin, these things tend to be cattle more than pets.

Also, I hate to say it, but a single user posting hateful shit is not a true emergency. Even if it has been 48 hours. From a purely sysadmin perspective, it would need to be heinously illegal content being posted or an actual infrastructure failure to reach emergency level in my eyes at least.


Unless I'm missing something, the sysadmins have been reached out to through their admin accounts on this lemmy instance, and the membership@ email address. There has also (according to this thread) been one single person who posted in the IRC asking for an emergency method to contact the admins, and that only happened after this thread was posted.

Has anyone tried contact through the instance mastodon account? Looks like there was activity there a few hours ago.

Has anyone checked the whois records for the webmaster email listed and tried that?


All of that said, this does highlight a major issue on this instance that needs resolution: there needs to be enough active lemmy instance admins that an issue like this cannot sit with no acknowledgement for anywhere even close to 48 hours, and it should probably be someone separate from the sysadmin(s) since they seem to have a schedule busy with other things.

There also needs to be a clear list of contacts, contact methods, and escalation chain procedures.

Until then, 48 hours is not some absurd amount of time with no response for a place as small as the sdf lemmy instance. Hell, at least in the east coast US right now there is a nasty nasty Flu variant going around that is laying some people out for well over a week. I've heard of some people still having symptoms 3 weeks in. Not covid, just the fucking flu.

I'm not trying to say that the asshole isn't a problem, just that in the context I think that calling for defederation after 48 hours with no ack is silly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

We have used both Mastodon and the BBS to reach out as well. I will be back at my PC tonight and can do much more like using the internal chat on the pubunix box.

Editing to add: It isn't just this one incident. They have been doing the sysadmin side of things, but not doing the community admin side of things. The last we saw of the admin account was 1.6 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I would give it one more day just in case. But yeah, I'm already considering other instances and if I leave I'll stop my admittedly small monthly donation to SDF.

Its a pity because we had something beautiful here that was ruined by something so dumb. What instance do you think people will migrate to?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I will also stop donation if it comes to that. It is just plain irresponsible of them to let this go while giving us minimum ways to contact an inactive admin account. They do the sysadmin job, but do not do the instance admin job. I am incredibly annoyed and honestly angry.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Sorry to hear. The writing was kind of on the wall for a while, as they've been radio silent for months.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Has anyone tried getting to them via IRC?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

I've asked on com if anyone has an emergency contact, awaiting if anyone does

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What is the info? I can't get it to display from the site.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Well, I just did what I can from mobile. I can't connect.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I was able to get on and ask, seems membership@ is the only one (most) people know of

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Good luck. We're all counting on you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I was able to get on and ask, seems membership@ is the only one (most) people know of

As in the email address [email protected]? Can you ask how long they usually take to respond if you're still on and willing?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Aye, that address. I've emailed them before and have received replies within a day... I'm hoping they're not facing a personal emergency of their own

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (5 children)

If you like SDF because they didn't defederate anyone, then https://lemmy.today/instances is a good option

If you liked SDF for the "tech" side, then https://lemmy.zip/ . The reports on [email protected] are always nice to see.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Unfortunately, the reason I like SDF is the culture we have here. It isn't something that will ever just be replicated.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh, good too. The admins are quite active, and work on other Lemmy tools like https://github.com/db0/threativore

You can have a look at the sidebar and see if you like it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I'll second this, and add lemm.ee as another quite-good instance overall.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

Great honestly. Had no issues. It's a broader culture but everyone I spoke to there is usually chill and based af.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I mainly use SDF because of the services provided, specifically the MC server, though I admit I haven't been super active there lately. The culture here is also usually very nice. It's a shame this happened, and that the admins are just not here to fix the issue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Indeed, but in your case you probably have as many alts as I do 😄

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Oh yeah it's not actually a big problem for me to access other things. It's more an issue that people won't be able to access the SDF Minecraft community anymore, and the communities already here will likely be toast as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Mander doesn't defed either, which is why I chose it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Very happy on zip. Made a lucky first choice!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I nominate jawa21 to take over.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

I'd also be glad to help out too. Unfortunately we'd need the current Admins of SDF to get up off their ass and tend to the server that they're supposed to be managing and taking care of.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm out of the loop, what happened?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I don't understand. We can't just block a troll and move on? Will there ever be a troll-less site anywhere?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

We certainly can, alas I don't want this dickweed souring the good name of SDF!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

fwiw, I've tried emailing [email protected] three times in mid January about getting my Pixelfed 2FA reset. Never heard back. Between that and the issue here, I'm wondering if they're just spinning stuff up and then ignoring it.

I was made a mod on social.sdf.org but I report to no one and am basically left to my own devices there, too.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It is time to talk about sailing ship and encourage defederation of this instance

Nah dawg. I mean, obviously you do you and what you feel is best. But I blocked and reported the turd, and am not seeing any of the spam trash.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

If they leave this alone, it could destroy the reputation of the non-profit that does cool things. I have to disagree here. People just blocking is not enough. They need to ban this troll or kill the instance to save face. That's the way I see it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

They may have been preoccupied with taking stewardship of a different pubnix. It seems like it was a whole event set up.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Don't worry too much. Move to another server if you want, unfortunately this is part of the process. It's just gonna happen, this is what we get for using the freer kind of social media :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Looks like an admin has arrived! Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

What a relief!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

I agree, definitely a good time to start talking to instance admins about defederation, because even if they do address the problem at this point unless they can give assurances change will be made this WILL happen again, it's only a matter of time, and two days to squash out a neonazi troll is absolutely unacceptable.