Demigodrick

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks - took ages but looks like it worked!

Took 4 hours and 2 database wipes to get the migration to even start properly last night, but its turned out ok!

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

Should be working now, with any luck!

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I was like oh, I'll just sleep through this and when I wake up it'll be done.

When I saw how little it had done, I became the living embodiment of the "my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined" meme.

 

Hi All,

Needing to do some image migration, so for a short while images will be offline. Cloudflare might cache a few for a bit, but new posts won't have them.

Quite rare these days I need to do this level of maintenance but hopefully once complete, the site will be a bit speedier and we'll be in a better position long term.

There's currently about 400gb of images so this work should help alleviate some pressure on the system.

Thanks

Demigodrick

~~Edit: Quick calc says this could take over 8 hours :(~~

Edit 2: 6 hours later it's 41% done, so my maths is way out. There's like 10 more hours to go? Sigh.

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The long term plan is to get things to be a bit quicker :)

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 108 points 2 days ago (3 children)
HAI 1.2
CAN HAS STDIO?
IM IN YR LOOP UPPIN YR VAR TIL BOTH SAEM VAR AN 10
    VISIBLE SUM OF VAR AN 1
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

A perfectly reasonable language. None of this Gen Z rubbish.

Something something better times. Shakes stick at sky.

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 days ago

How does it know about all of my tshirts?!

 

I just can't believe it. How is it time to turn everything off and back on again already?

Anyway, at 18:00(ish, give me a break) UTC tomorrow (or today if you're reading this tomorrow) I'll be doing just that.

There will be downtime because everything will be off. I expect no longer than 5 minutes downtime, but then if I get transported to an alternate dimension and have to wage war against an alien invasion to get home, things might take a smidge longer.

There will be backups, there will be docker pulls. There might even be space lasers.

Demigodrick

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That's a poor take, steam doesn't set the prices. They take a cut, sure, but so does every store. The dev/publisher sets the price.

Games aren't too cheap, again the publishers set the price and I'm sure there's plenty of research that goes into that.

Im not sure what you think steam are telling publishers to do? The only rules I'm familiar with are the consumer protection rules, and the not selling a steam key cheaper than they're selling the game on steam.

I'm not sure what part of what you've mentioned is therefore a harm to the publishers? Where publishers sell their games for maximum sales is going to be based on where the users are. If another company wanted to change this then they need to focus on what makes the consumer go there. Epics idea to lock publishers into their store with big wads of cash is what is actually harmful to the pc market (and didn't work anyway).

As others have pointed out, competition here is usually dictated by shareholders which means the end user is exploited for maximum profit. One of the reason steam is so successful is that they don't have this problem.

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 22 points 4 days ago

It's also a plus for me too.

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Alphabetti Spaghetti

I make no apologies.

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

Ooh this is interesting. I never fully recovered mine after covid. Thankfully it didn't entirely go, but I still notice that it's missing sometimes l (not always a bad thing!)

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

It's a valid point - I'll mull over it. I'm not sure ofcom are going to download an app, but I guess we'll have to see what they actually do end up enforcing. As long as it doesn't break federation, then it's a simple removal of allowing api access to the uk users which would stop apps.

 

Hi All,

Latest Lemmy update has been applied.

You can get more info in what has changed in this post.

Let me know if you notice any issues!

Thanks

Demigodrick

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/31644782

Hi All,

Some sad news, but it has become apparent in order to safeguard the longevity of this site, there are no options left other than to cease allowing people from the United Kingdom to access Lemmy.zip.

Just to reassure everyone else right at the start - this ONLY affects users from the UK accessing Lemmy.zip. There is no effect on everyone else, and nothing in your Lemmy experience will change.

Due to the implementation of the Online Safety Act, we will be restricting access to Lemmy.zip to UK users starting 15th February 2025 —one week from today.

Why is this happening?

Lemmy.zip is hosted in Finland, and we have always strived to operate with respect for privacy and in line with all applicable laws. However, the UK’s Online Safety Act presents significant legal and operational challenges for small, independent fediverse sites, just like this one. The Act’s vague and overbearing requirements, combined with the potential for disproportionate and extreme fines, force us to make this decision to protect both the site and its users.

This law impacts a wide range of content with vague or conflicting definitions, and as a volunteer-run site, we cannot ensure full compliance. We do not wish to compromise your privacy or force you to verify your identity through intrusive age checks, which is the only method allowed under the Act. Therefore, we have no choice but to block access from the UK.

This won't impact on federation, nor accessing the communities from an instance that tries to comply with (or ignores) the Act. Obviously if you're from any other country in the world that isn't the UK, this won't apply to you at all.

If this affects you, then you are able to export your data (subscriptions etc) from your profile settings, and import them on to another instance (Feddit.uk is a good shout for brits!)

Unfortunately this is also brought about by my personal circumstances as the site owner - I'm not in a position to just ignore the Act like many are. Complying with the act would mean we would either have to implement Age Verification for all users to access the site, or we would have to disable NSFW entirely, which means communities that use NSFW tags for spoilers or content warnings also wouldn't be accessible.

For those curious, UK users will instead be directed to this page when they try access the site.

This has been a really hard decision to make, and I fear many more fediverse sites that are somehow linked to the UK will need to take this step in order to protect themselves.

If this is overturned by the courts in the UK, then the block will be removed as soon as possible. I have my fingers crossed.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Demigodrick.

 

Hi All,

Some sad news, but it has become apparent in order to safeguard the longevity of this site, there are no options left other than to cease allowing people from the United Kingdom to access Lemmy.zip.

Just to reassure everyone else right at the start - this ONLY affects users from the UK accessing Lemmy.zip. There is no effect on everyone else, and nothing in your Lemmy experience will change.

Due to the implementation of the Online Safety Act, we will be restricting access to Lemmy.zip to UK users starting 15th February 2025 —one week from today.

Why is this happening?

Lemmy.zip is hosted in Finland, and we have always strived to operate with respect for privacy and in line with all applicable laws. However, the UK’s Online Safety Act presents significant legal and operational challenges for small, independent fediverse sites, just like this one. The Act’s vague and overbearing requirements, combined with the potential for disproportionate and extreme fines, force us to make this decision to protect both the site and its users.

This law impacts a wide range of content with vague or conflicting definitions, and as a volunteer-run site, we cannot ensure full compliance. We do not wish to compromise your privacy or force you to verify your identity through intrusive age checks, which is the only method allowed under the Act. Therefore, we have no choice but to block access from the UK.

This won't impact on federation, nor accessing the communities from an instance that tries to comply with (or ignores) the Act. Obviously if you're from any other country in the world that isn't the UK, this won't apply to you at all.

If this affects you, then you are able to export your data (subscriptions etc) from your profile settings, and import them on to another instance (Feddit.uk is a good shout for brits!)

Unfortunately this is also brought about by my personal circumstances as the site owner - I'm not in a position to just ignore the Act like many are. Complying with the act would mean we would either have to implement Age Verification for all users to access the site, or we would have to disable NSFW entirely, which means communities that use NSFW tags for spoilers or content warnings also wouldn't be accessible.

For those curious, UK users will instead be directed to this page when they try access the site.

This has been a really hard decision to make, and I fear many more fediverse sites that are somehow linked to the UK will need to take this step in order to protect themselves.

If this is overturned by the courts in the UK, then the block will be removed as soon as possible. I have my fingers crossed.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Demigodrick.

 

Hello & welcome to Lemmy.zip February Server Update!

Bit of a quieter one on the developments side, but we've had a lot of user growth over the past month. First though:


Communities

We've got a couple of new communities. If you enjoy them, give them a subscribe and join in with the conversation!


Server Update

In terms of our usual development, not too much has happened (It's been a busy month IRL for me!). We put out a call for admin recruitment and got some good applications. I will review these at some point, and will consider the activity of the site vs another admin.

We've also seen a large jump in user numbers, which for a while slightly overwhelmed some of the safeguards we had in place. Usually uptime is pretty good but it dropped below 97% in a 24 hour period due to frequent time-outs. Some configs were tweaked and it was mostly resolved, but it does show the appetite for an alternative space!

My main focus has been on improving Zippy to be much more talkative when something goes wrong with it.

A screenshot from the Lemmy.zip admin chat

I've also added some more tools to it, including the ability for admins to issue warnings to users. Given that our only options are to ban someone, I'd rather help people understand what they've done "wrong" before issuing a ban. To that end, Zippy will now issue and track warnings. They can only be issued by admins, and there is a log that flags to all admins (for transparency among us) that looks like this:

There isn't currently a defined rule for when a warning turns into a ban, but once we start to use this more we'll be able to define these rules. The ultimate aims is that these tools help us to act fairly with all users.

I'm starting to work on additional mod tools for community mods - this will likely be the ability to enforce post tags and the ability for a community mod to set their own "banned words" list. Both tools will have customisable options, i.e. choose between post removal or an automated reply.


Interaction reminder (help support the instance!)

If you’re new to Lemmy.zip - WELCOME! I hope you’re enjoying your time here :)

I am sure that long term readers are bored of reading this now, but it is really is true that the easiest way you can support Lemmy.zip is to actively engage with content here: upvoting content you enjoy, sharing your thoughts through posts and comments, sparking meaningful discussions, or even creating new communities that resonate with your interests.

It’s natural to see fluctuations in user activity over time, and we’ve seen this over the wider lemmy-verse for some time now. However, if you’ve found a home here and love this space, now is the perfect opportunity to help us thrive.

If you want to support us in a different way than financially, then actively interacting with the instance helps us out loads.

If you've gone to the trouble of creating an account, then come and be part of the Fediverse! Please don't be a lurker! :)


Donations

Lemmy.zip only continues to exist because of the generous donations of its users. The operating cost of Lemmy.zip is over 60 euros a month ($60, £50) and is mostly funded by the community! (PS yes - the eagle eyed of you will notice this has gone up!!!)

We keep all the details around donations on our OpenCollective page, with full transparency around income and expenditure.

If you're enjoying Lemmy.zip, please check out the OpenCollective page, we have a selection of one-off or recurring donation options. All funds go directly to hosting the site and keeping the virtual lights on.

We've also put up a link to our Ko-Fi page where you can donate via paypal instead of using a card. All Ko-Fi donations will be totalled up and added to OpenCollective each month for transparency. I've added a link in the sidebar, but you can also click the image below to go there:

We continue to have some really kind and generous donators and I can't express my thanks enough. You can see all the kind donators in the Thank You thread - you could get your name in there too!

Please remember, traditional social media is only "free" to you because they sell your data. We don't do that - if you want to support independent social websites like this one and you value your privacy, please consider a small donation. It really does help.


Graphs (now slightly more pointier)

(all over the last 30 days unless otherwise stated)

CPU usage: (very pointy)

RAM usage: (more bumpy than pointy)

Disk space use: (relatively flat)

Image storage: (lifetime - getting chonky)

Cloudflare stats over 30 days: (can you guess when people wanted to get off reddit!)

Requests:

Bandwidth:

Unique visitors:

Regional traffic:


So thats kind of a quick update for this month.

I am looking for feedback on an idea around the "new user experience" as this was recently a topic on Lemmy. Many people say they bounce off Lemmy as a whole due to the "overwhelming" politics. Many long term users will have probably set up blocks or filters on their feeds, subscribed to a few communities etc and so this is less of a problem, but new users first impressions will turn them away.

Therefore I am looking at the possibility of having new accounts have some "default blocks", i.e. blocking hexbear and lemmygrad (as two suggestions) upon account creation. All new accounts should receive a PM from ZippyBot upon creation with some information on how to use the site, and so a section on removing these blocks (which can be done in the account settings like a normal instance block) would be added to that PM and I'd probably create a post with specifics on how to do this on the various front-ends too.

This is still very much in the "would this even work" stage, so any thoughts on this are much appreciated.

Otherwise, I'll be back at the beginning of March for another update!

Thanks all,

Demigodrick

 
 

Time to press update, cross fingers, and hope for the best.

Will most certainly include me turning everything off and back on (I'll try to remember to turn it back on this time) - expect brief downtime!

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