Do you know any Lemmy instances not federated with other ones, living by themselves? Do you know any interesting or creative use case for a not federated instance?

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[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hexbear was the only instance with a sizable user base that used to do this, but these days they federate too

[–] IlIllIIIllIlIlIIlI@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Do you know why they were not federated and then changed to federation?

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I believe they forked from Lemmy before federation existed close to 4 years ago, added things like custom emojis and then only re-merged after federation was implemented then turned it on.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ah, that explains why their custom emojis don't render correctly anywhere else. I wish that piece of code would get merged into the main version so it'd be less annoying.

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wish they would merge in the pronoun support too, one of the better hexbear features imo.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm not a fan of forced pronoun badges as an Agender person. Allowing people to have pronoun badges is good but only if it is optional. When it isn't it creates a dilemma where a person has to choose between outing themself, or lying if they don't want to out themselves.

As it is though, their implementation of it simply uses (or rather commandeers) the display-name feature Lemmy has, so in a way we already do have an optional implementation of it for people who want it. It's just not mandated. The way they did it was to replace display names with Pronoun tags and have them be mandatory.

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The display names option does limit your actual name length combined with pronouns, hexbear it's a separate field. I do appreciate the arguments against having it mandatory/integrated into the main lemmy. Here's the github post about it, the lemmy.ml admins agree with your line.

That said, on hexbear I see plenty of people keep none/use name and they've also got specifically agender ones like null/void, undecided, any.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah the big issue with Hexbear's way of doing it is that it's kind of forced and can cause discomfort to people who don't want to out themselves yet. I wasn't aware they have undecided or any as options, I've never tried to sign up there and have little desire to considering among other things how isolated it is. Even so I don't think their way of doing it is very good since it heavily limits the options people can use, and locks people out of using display names, which are extremely useful. I think a better solution would just be to increase the length of usernames and display names to accommodate users who might want to use pronouns.

Also just want to point out, it does annoy me a bit when people say Agender pronouns, since Agender people don't have a universal set of pronouns. We all have very widely varied preferences and experiences among us. I don't blame you for that by the way, it's a common misconception about Agender and Nonbinary people.

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

To be clear I don't think I said agender pronouns in my last reply, that would bother me too- my point was that in the options available for that (mandatory) slot there are agender options - none/use name is actually the default option for all users (I made an account so I could poach emoji links). skeleton-motorcycle

I like that it's more isolated from the rest of lemmy, the vibe is just different in those comms and I have to imagine it's related to not constantly having people rolling up to sealion about reactionary/anticommunist shit. I do still like to interact with the rest of lemmy at the same time, which is why I'm pretty happy on .ml.

I do hope the support for community/server specific flairs gets some traction, it seems like it would actually have a pretty broad appeal and could be used for pronouns in addition to other things.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Ah I understand what you were saying now, I wasn't sure exactly and it reminded me of the "Agender Pronouns" thing, glad you didn't mean it that way though.

There are other problems I've had with Hexbear, I've actually been threatened and harassed by several users on that platform, I've also gotten some bad vibes in a few communities there that didn't really make me feel welcome, as a GNC person or as an Agender person. It's hard to describe, it just didn't quite feel right.

But yeah I do hope the user flairs get added to Lemmy at some point, it would be nice to have some of the helpful features from Reddit, like User flairs, and either post flairs or post tags (post tags are probably better since they can federate as hashtags).

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 hours ago

I do occasionally get some weird vibes outside of /traaa on there, though so far nothing like what you've run into. If you have any names I can look into this, I have mod privileges there and it could help me look out for sus stuff in the future.

Part of why I was interested in helping out there is because their megathreads are actually very active and I saw that whenever stuff like /tttt/ brainwormed shit came up there were lots of posters with actually good views on gender constructs chiming in to combat/explain unhealthy gender expectations.

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 week ago

They were running a self maintained fork of lemmy that wasn't compatible, though I don't know if that was the original reason

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hexbear essentially predated federation iirc, then migrated to Lemmy when that became possible. Hexbear is I think roughly the 3rd oldest instance - sorting its posts by Old shows that it is 4 years old, while lemmygrad.ml is 5 years old, and lemmy.ml is 6 years old. Lemmy.ca in Canada and the Finnish sopuli are both also 4 years old, mander.xyz is 3 years old, but Lemmy.world, by far the largest instance with ~80% of all users, is only ~2 years old, being formed at the time of the Rexodus.

Read some more about it here (don't click the link there to follow further - in true hexbear trolling fashion it will simply take you to a picture showing a pig in the act of pooping, you have been warned) and especially here, e.g.:

Two of the sites listed there, Hexbear (aka. chapo.chat) and Bakchodi, do not federate. They are not part of the Fediverse, but they are using Lemmy. Hexbear is actually running their own fork of Lemmy.

TLDR: bc they felt like it, then they didn't, now it seems like they almost do again, bc facts are nearly always stranger than fiction:-).

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

and especially here

Good to know that old post is still useful. (It's also nice to see that wolfballs, bakchodi and exploding-heads all died.)