I appreciate that earnest made a post yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, saying that he is not dead and hasn’t given up on kbin. It’s not on this magazine, so I’m not sure where it was since this seems to be the most appropriate one, but in any case.
Reassuring us that things will improve at some point someday probably isn’t enough, and I both moderate and donate to him every month, so I’m a pretty “serious” kbinner. I’m sure we’ve already lost many people who are less dedicated and just want something that works.
This site has been nearly unusable for days. There was the one day recently where it was entirely unusable. Everybody who uses this platform is an 'internet person". We need a platform which is (mostly) fully functional (mostly) every day.
Kbin needs to be fixed.
Ernest needs to give up on this being a one-man show and invite other moderators and contributors. Even I am looking at mbin because usability has just been so terrible that it’s not worth the frustration and disappointment.
/rant
Edit: To make this thread even better, I got an error when I tried to post it. Twice.
If Ernest is listening, I’d love to volunteer to help be a sysadmin/coordinate sysadmin schedules. I’ve got like 20 years of tech experience, with a lot of it being handling support teams and administering Linux systems. I know I said I couldn’t because of money, I realized that social currency is worth even more and I like you folks and want this place to succeed.
So if anybody can get in touch with him, have Ernest email 246FHD@protonmail.com
Personally, the main thing I want is for all of the pissers and moaners to go away, so the rest of us can just enjoy this place in peace. And that’d take some of the pressure off of Ernest, which would be good for him and, in the long run, good for the instance. You can all move to mbin - it was pretty much built by and for concern trolls and drama llamas, so you should be right at home there.
Yeah - this place has its issues. That’s the way it goes on what basically amounts to a hobbyist platform on a decentralized system. And it’s part of why I have multiple accounts scattered around the threadiverse - when one is having problems, that likely just means I’ll use it less until things settle down, which is fine. It’s not like I’m paying for any of this.
I like this interface and I like Ernest. That’s enough for me.
Pointing out actual flaws and asking for change is not pissing and moaning.
Yes, it in fact is.
Ernest doesn’t owe you a fucking thing. He’s not your employee.
You clearly missed the entire gist of this post and thread. So I’m just going to leave it there.
Could you give some examples of why it would be bad to have more community moderators, and maybe one or two extra admins? It seems like that would only strengthen Kbin. The moderators could fight the spam effectively, and the new admins could handle managing the busywork of the website while Ernest codes.
It seems like it would be an absolute win all around?
I didn’t say anything at all about moderators or admins. My point is very narrow and specific - I want the concern trolls and drama llamas - the people who post threads like this one - to fuck off. I’m tired of them pissing and moaning because this new, free, making-it-up-as-we-go-along forum doesn’t live up to their expectations. Fuck 'em. Ernest doesn’t owe them anything and if they’re so unhappy, all they have to do is get the fuck out, then they won’t have to deal with the place and the rest of us won’t have to deal with them.
That is “an absolute win all around.”
The funniest thing about this is that you are the one pissing and moaning the most in this thread.
I didn’t say anything at all about moderators or admins.
That’s what everyone here is discussing, that’s what the OP of this thread is talking about. You’re calling people who are correctly pointing out that Kbin needs more mods and admins, with the stated goal of REDUCING Ernest’s administrative burdens and stress, Drama llamas and trolls, and telling them to fuck off.
What on earth dude.
Agreed. If you want to leave just leave. There’s plenty of instances to join. I’m staying for now
Did you even read the post? The point is I don’t want to leave. I like kbin, but I can’t use it if it doesn’t work.
https://kbin.earth/ seems to be a nice kbin instances ran by the guy behind the Interstellar app, in case you want another kbin instance!
I do agree with you though - kbin.social is a lovely place but it’s large enough that it needs a proper moderation team.
The problem is that we can’t leave. We’ve requested for our accounts to be deleted a long time ago. It’s not our fault that we’re still waiting.
Nothing stops you from leaving. Just abandon the account and leave. In fact I’d think you want to change the password to something very long and leave the account so nobody else can take your username on this platform.
Or create your own instance:
This is was the original plan anyway. Not that everyone should join kbin.social.
Unfortunately, hosting your own instance of kbin can be extremely expensive, even for a single user. It uses a ton of storage.
Mbin was created to get kbin to the next level.
lol
I volunteered to moderate a magazine. It still has just Ernest. Those are the ones posting Watch Dune 2 with a link to LinkedIn.
Me too. I literally just want to remove spam. I messaged him to become a mod of one of those places, but he never responded.
Whenever Kbin is down I go touch grass.
Next thing you know I’ll be kissing girls and everything.
You should try it, what could possibly go wrong.
Not gay enough.
I asked Ernest 1 year ago about delegating and empower the software developers, but that didn’t happen and will never happen. That was the reason to create Mbin.
If I’m not mistaken this is not kbin issue. It is more too server issue. There are other kbin instances that are just fine especially the smaller one.
This is like complaining that the little mom and pop sandwich shop can’t product sandwiches as fast and uniformly as Subway. This clearly isn’t for you, just go to Reddit or something if you want stability. I love the little slices of janky internet we get from activitypub, im sick of everything needing to become highly available around the globe supporting millions of requests per second with no downtime tolerance.
I said in my post that it needs to be mostly functional, not perfect.
Your example of the little mom and pop shop is perfect, but not in the way you mean it. A mom and pop shop will have to hire help. Ernest needs help.
It doesn’t NEED to be anything, this is run by Ernest, for free. It’s worse than that, he is paying for it and not being subsidized with ad revenue. He can totally ask for help if he wants, he can also say no to that and continue running the site on his own. You are not entitled to this, good grief.
I made an mbin account to jump to whenever kbin stops functioning, which has been more frequent than I had expected. Each time I end up subscribing to more and more magazines over there to reach parity with my kbin account. Mbin hasn’t been enough of a carrot on its own to make me want to switch completely, but it’s always been working fine and even slightly easier to navigate. I’ve just got this lurking hunch that kbin will eventually end up like Artemis, the way it feels ignored at times.
I agree that it would probably be helpful to have more than one person running the program, but I also understand it can be hard to let a project go. I really like kbin, but will admit I set up another account elsewhere. It isn’t as nice as kbin. I don’t know rust but will definitely step up to moderate! Learning new things is good. I’ll do it. Happily 🙂
If he would just let people mod the communities that get spammed then that would be a massive improvement, and it would literally only take him a couple of clicks. But instead he keeps himself as sole mod of those forums, so they get tons of spam, ruining kbin’s Newest page.
Let him do it at his own pace, he has more important things to worry about right now.
Fair enough, but it should also be noted that this is not a recent problem.
Having thought about this for a bit, I think it might actually be better for ernest if this instance died a bit. Not entirely, but it could use some redistribution of users to other instances.
Like, it wasn’t meant to be this big main instance of kbin. That’s just what it became. And it’s got to have an effect on his stress levels and development time.
I feel like the instance is like a ballon that continually gets pumped with fresh air. Ernest constantly has to make sure the balloon doesn’t pop. Maybe it would be better for it to pop so he can focus on other things?
But that’s why he just needs a little bit of extra help. He doesn’t have to do it on his own.
I was considering moving to mbin, but their decision to make downvoting private makes that a very unpleasant idea for me. Public voting was one of the initial selling points for kbin for me. If I move, then it’s probably to another kbin instance like kbin.earth for now.
I appreciate that earnest made a post yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, saying that he is not dead and hasn’t given up on kbin. It’s not on this magazine, so I’m not sure where it was since this seems to be the most appropriate one, but in any case.
Are you not talking about this thread?
and invite other moderators
Definitely. I’ve applied to a handful of magazines weeks ago and have read about others having done so too. I really think magazine ownership requests should be accepted automatically on kbin.social. There’s already requirements in place to whether you can make one, that should be good enough for abuse safety measures.
Instance moderators would be better, but I don’t know if there’s people lining up for that role whom he also can trust with it.
and contributors.
The issue here is that all contributors have moved on to mbin. You don’t just look for contributors, the contributors choose to contribute. So unless he’s willing to pay them, I don’t think this is a problem he can solve, and I doubt he makes enough money to hire people.
Making downvotes private was odd to me as well. Just don’t show them at all if you’re going that route.
@Pamasich@kbin.social
@Drusas@kbin.social do you have a link to a discussion or documentation about down votes being private? Trying to Google this only returns this thread https://www.google.com/search?q="mbin"+make+down+votes+private
From what I can tell, it’s mostly brought up in the discussion of a pull request for supporting federated dislikes.
That’s where I originally saw it. I’m sure there’s probably some more discussion on matrix though, that seems to be their main discussion platform.
Some additional links without discussions:
Edit: Also, to clarify, it’s only seeing who downvoted that’s made private, the actual amount of downvotes is kept public. It’s not a Youtube situation.
I’m not sure why you tagged me because I didn’t say that downvotes are private.
Not a fan of hiding votes and it sounds like mBin does that… And apparently I’m banned from lemmy.world? Only thing I can figure is they don’t like my username. Which also suggests it’s too “safe spacey” for me anyways ("OMG the fee fees!!).
So… Thoughts?
Edit - KBIN.earth
Your comment contains many reasons why a community might not feel very welcoming to you.
Omg really? You’ve opened my eyes with your comment.
I am so glad you took time to write the out!
It totally wasn’t just verbal masturbation.
😐
Edit: To be clear, I imagine you’re the type of person who is the reason why streaming has basically become cable TV.
Ok
