PhilipTheBucket

Related to recent events:

So Lemmy, for some reason, just copied Reddit's whole model wholesale, which honestly isn't the best. Reddit was a neat design and had the advantage of scalability, but the clever people at Reddit either got driven into the background by the chodes or hounded completely out of existence by the feds, and it stagnated after initially being a successful nice place to converse.

There are better models to draw from. Slashdot was way bigger than Lemmy, and the system was that votes were given out in tiny batches of a handful of votes, randomly, maybe once every couple of months to each one of a big population of active users. Not everyone could vote, and no one could vote on any kind of big scale or control when they had input. The votes on comments on any given post would be determined by a couple dozen randomly selected users, not just whoever felt like being most vocal. That meant the votes on any given comment would generally range from +5 to -2 (they were actually capped to that range), and almost all the comments just sat at 1 (or 2 if you were an established user, I think, or 0 if you were algorithmically determined to be a dickhead a lot of the time). There would be a few +5 comments in the big posts, and it was fine, they were usually worth listening to. Anyway, the point is that they put some thought into how to prevent people from just making 100 accounts and spamming votes, and how to surface good content in a way that couldn't be gamed very easily. There were roles equivalent to "moderators" on Lemmy/Reddit, but they were very rarely used, because the impact of votes was just a lot better managed and so mods weren't needed nearly as much.

Lemmy / Reddit's solution to all of this is to give out unlimited votes to every single free-to-create account, and then put it on the shoulders of the mods and admins to realize when someone's abusing the system in obvious ways, and also trust that those people will never be clever enough to conceal it from the admins (which they will be able to if they are clever). Also there will be some collateral damage in terms of people getting punished for downvoting a dozen of someone's comments one day which arguably they should be allowed to do.

Basically what I'm saying is, there are fundamental problems with the ease of account creation and then letting people make inputs to the whole system that can be friendly or malicious from their free accounts, and then after the fact making all the admins play whack-a-mole with anyone who wants to abuse the system. It's not sustainable. It also causes a lot of drama while the admins are (very valiantly, don't get me wrong) making the attempt.

Another good system that is generally very well regarded is Something Awful. An account costs cash money, a one-time $10 fee I think, and if you're a douchebag to a sufficient level you can get your account permabanned and then of course just like Lemmy there is no way to prevent you from making another one, but you're out ten bucks. That seems to work very well; the SA forums generally are known to have very lively discussion but it stays generally on the rails. They're also extremely strict about some things that I really wish the Lemmy mods would be more strict about: For example, if in order to keep an argument going you start pretending someone else in the argument is saying something that they aren't saying, just so you can scream at them and into the void about this thing you're pretending they're saying, you get banned. It's wonderful. That's one of my least favorite things that a certain Lemmy contingent loves to do. I think it's generally a temp ban when you do it on SA, you're not out your $10, but it's not just an encouraged and protected and celebrated thing like it is on Lemmy. (I actually have been playing with the idea of making a politics forum on Lemmy that works that way, my only hesitation is that (a) it sounds like work (b) Lemmy already has a sufficiency of politics forums.)

Anyway, I don't think any of this is realistic to do on Lemmy. It seems like we're pretty much set on what the system is, objectively bad though it is. I'm just throwing out ideas for whatever the next thing is, and for people to keep in mind when they're dealing with any of the inevitable drama that's associated with the current system.

(Oh, also making people put in their emails when they sign up for a Lemmy account isn't much more than a speed bump to someone who wants to abuse things. It doesn't stop anyone who has even the vaguest motivation to try to fake up a bunch of new accounts (because making new emails takes seconds), but it does stop someone who wants to have solid privacy and anonymity when they're using Lemmy (because making new emails that are totally divorced from your identity if some agency really wants to come after you is actually a little difficult.))

That's all I got, cheers mate

Germany's Defense Ministry said it has no knowledge of any Patriot missile systems currently en route to Ukraine, contradicting U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the shipments are already underway, SRF reported on July 16.

"I cannot confirm that anything is currently on the way. That is not known to me," a spokesperson for the German Defense Ministry said, according to Swiss public broadcaster SRF.

The spokesperson added that a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) is scheduled for July 21 to resolve outstanding questions and work toward implementing the delivery of Patriot systems to Ukraine "as quickly as possible."

Patriot air defense missiles bound for Ukraine are already en route, Trump said on July 16, just days after unveiling a new NATO-coordinated arms initiative for Kyiv.

"They're already being shipped," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland when asked about Patriot missiles and other weapons. "They're coming in from Germany and then replaced by Germany. And in all cases, the United States gets paid back in full."

The announcement comes as Ukraine continues to press its allies, particularly the United States, for additional air defense systems amid a surge in Russian missile and drone attacks on cities across the country.

A German government spokesperson had previously confirmed on July 14 that discussions were ongoing among European allies over the provision of more than three Patriot systems to Ukraine.

Trump said the shipments fall under a new arrangement in which NATO and EU countries will purchase U.S.-made weapons systems, deliver them to Ukraine, and later replenish their own stockpiles through agreements with Washington.

The new weapons shipments would come a few days after Trump issued an ultimatum to Moscow, warning that the U.S. will impose "severe" tariffs unless Russia agrees to a peace deal within 50 days to end its war in Ukraine.

Russian drones struck a cargo truck in the city of Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast overnight on July 17, injuring five people, including three emergency workers, Ukraine's State Emergency Service reported.

Russian first-person-view (FPV) drones initially struck a cargo truck, causing a fire and injuring two civilians. Soon after, as emergency workers were working on site, another Russian drone targeted the scene, injuring three emergency workers, the State Emergency Service said.

Ukraine's Air Force reported that drone were approaching the city around 1:45 a.m. local time.

The attack hospitalized the emergency workers. No information was provided on the status of the other two injured victims, described as one man and one woman.

Russia has repeatedly employed double-tap attacks against civilian targets, often resulting in casualties among first responders.

Nikopol, located on the banks of the destroyed Kakhovka Reservoir, just across from Russian-occupied Enerhodar and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, is a near-daily target of artillery and drone strikes.

As Moscow continues to intensify its drone attacks against Ukrainian cities, Russian forces have attempted gain a foothold in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

Russian troops have been tasked with establishing a buffer zone up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine's military intelligence head Kyrylo Budanov said in an interview with Bloomberg, published on July 11.

Despite Russia's claims that it had entered the region, Ukraine's military has repeatedly denied the reports.

Read also: Ukraine’s new ground drones are hitting the battlefield in ever-increasing numbers

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