The popular Reddit alternative's user count has grown a lot over the past year. One problem, though: users and admins can't delete images.
  • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    54·
    8 months ago

    Another issue is that image storage is a huge resource burden, to the point where instance admins will simply purge images periodically to keep their database at a reasonable size. It seems like every time I look at Lemmy posts older than a couple months, the images are broken.

    I’m not convinced image support should be built into Lemmy in the first place. Back on Reddit, people relied on external image hosts like imgur for many years, and those worked a lot better than the image system Reddit eventually built in (which is covered in wall-to-wall anti-features like the inability to load a goddamn image directly).

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      20·
      8 months ago

      We saw what happend with that when imgur and a gif hoster (forgot the name) decided that the free loaders are occupying too much space.

      Suddenly the archival troops backed several TBs from imgur.

      • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        6·
        8 months ago

        Yeah, that was certainly not ideal. This is a problem with centralization more than it is with integration. I’d rather see a separate decentralized image hosting service. I feel like an image host and a link aggregation/discussion forum require different skills to develop and run, and it would probably be best to have something more specialized.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      10·
      8 months ago

      I agree with this. Also Lemmy likes to reformat images when you upload them. Its stupid. I have to hotlink from elsewhere anyway so yeah removing it makes more sense.

      It would also help reduce the proliferation of things like CSAM thus reducing admin overhead.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
      6·
      8 months ago

      My instance went down for almost 24 hours yesterday and it’s really small, and I post so much I was actually worried I broke it by just using it too much. I don’t wanna suck up all of Wander’s storage space. 😖

  • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
    35·
    8 months ago

    The lemmy devs should really focus on proper content deletion tools. It’s not just the images, it’s very strange and inconsistent overall. When I delete a comment, it’s seemingly still visible to many people and collecting up/downvotes even many hours after I deleted it. On the other hand, when a post gets deleted, it’s completely gone, to the point that I can’t even look up the discussion that I had within that post, just my own comments on my profile.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      18·
      8 months ago

      It’s always only had a handful of real devs dedicating time to it. A whole site like this is kind of a huge undertaking, especially when you’re deciding to build it from the ground up in a modern language like Rust, and on top of a relatively new API set, ActivityPub.

      Even from early on, I remember lots of discussion from people with database management credentials who were basically pounding their heads going “why are you guys doing it this backwards way?” I don’t follow the development super closely so I don’t know if those issues were resolved or not. I just remember a lot of discussion on it when I was first on Lemmy on a different instance.

      Anyway, the short point of what I’m saying is they probably have a plan that makes sense to them, but without more external poking on certain things, they will work on what they think is important first, which may not always line up with what the community thinks is important.

      Once again, it’s a handful of folks doing front-end-dev, back-end-dev, database management and admining a very large instance.

      • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgM
        14·
        8 months ago

        I don’t follow the development super closely so I don’t know if those issues were resolved or not. I just remember a lot of discussion on it when I was first on Lemmy on a different instance.

        not that i’m aware of, and fixing a database schema once it’s already in place tends to be a clusterfuck so i’m very skeptical it will get better any time soon

          • PenguinCoder@beehaw.orgEnglish
            8·
            8 months ago

            That query by itself in a vacuum is fine. Combined with many other triggers on the DB, and then federating that out before actually deleting from the local DB… well that is what creates all sorts of headaches.

              • Lionir [he/him]@beehaw.org
                2·
                8 months ago

                Images aren’t federated through ActivityPub so I don’t really see how deleting media is supposed to work.

                Yes, they are. Every instance downloads everyone’s images for a “cached” version that is currently never used. This is what makes this problem especially insidious and straight up dangerous in cases like CSAM.

    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
      3·
      8 months ago

      And even if you delete a comment the API will still provide the message content as due to federation shenanigans it’s actually just hidden. If you need to remove something, edit and redact the message first.

    • Lionir [he/him]@beehaw.org
      17·
      8 months ago

      They can, if they read the manual. Mods can’t, but instance admins can.

      Yes. If you use arcane commands using the docs that are in a pull request that is not yet merged. This is not accessible to many instance admins and it is only “technically supported” which is the worst kind of support from my point of view.

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
          5·
          8 months ago

          Given that the developers have publicly stated that there should be tons of instances run by anyone, pushing that much responsibility to admins with command line access is only asking for problems.

        • Lionir [he/him]@beehaw.org
          4·
          8 months ago

          It’s a basic curl command, that shouldn’t be “arcane” if you’re setting up a server.

          This is the equivalent of saying that any instance admin needs to know how to use curl while most people have never used a commandline. Not only that but you need machine access to know the api key which I would wager instance admins do not necessarily have.

          I think this is the result of not prioritising work that makes moderation possible by non-technically inclined people and it is genuinely a failure of the system.

          The priorities of development on Lemmy are decided by developers and the people who are not are simply pushed away. Most community leaders and moderators are not developers. The mental gymnastics to justify this lack of tooling is tiring.

  • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.ggEnglish
    16·
    8 months ago

    I would personally love it if apps would allow images on posts that have been flagged to appear blurred prior to admin review, or just to have a blur applied to all images unless you hover over it/hold your finger on the image.

    I know I saw one vulgar troll post that I could’ve lived life without ever seeing.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
    12·
    8 months ago

    Yeah, it does read like a hit piece.

    E: I read the GitHub thread, my god… the entitlement… yeah that’s not how open source software works. Heavy Karen vibes from the feature requester.

    • relevants@feddit.de
      7·
      8 months ago

      TIL it’s entitled to ask that software you use is either compliant with the law or clearly lets you know that it isn’t, especially when the developers have no idea what the law is

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
        6·
        8 months ago

        It’s not entitled to ask, politely.

        Open source software is collaborative, community effort. Everyone contributes what they can and are willing to. Contributing a bug report is one example. Submitting a patch is another. Donating a sum of money to someone to submit a patch is yet another. There are others.

        It’s entitled to demand that the developers of an open source software do anything they’re not willing to.

        Let alone trying to shame them into doing it on social media if they refuse.

        Let me give you an example. I could publish some work I’ve done which is 100% legal in the US. Other US citizens might find it useful. Say this software conrravenes some law in Europe that I am completely oblivious of. Someone comes to GitHub and demands that I commit some amount of time to make it compliant. I have no such time to spare. I’ll suggest you or someone else submit a patch and I’ll merge it. The end.