I think it’s a cool idea, and it could be the best way to help users on Reddit learn about Lemmy and migrate over.
I have some concerns though
What I like:
If you go to communities like !datahoarder@selfhosted.forum, you can see what I mean. Lemmy commenters are generally more helpful, more detailed, and get to the posts a lot faster than Reddit users.
If I understand correctly, once the network is implemented:
- Reddit user signs up on Fediverser
- Reddit user posts on a subreddit that has a Lemmy equivalent
- Post is crossposted to Lemmy
- When a Lemmy user replies to the post, that comment is reposted by a bot on Reddit
Users on the Reddit post will:
- learn about Lemmy
- see the good quality reply (if the reply is good, Reddit mods won’t ban the bot)
- get a direct link to a community/instance relevant to them
Users in the Lemmy community will
- get more content from people that are already curious about Lemmy
That would be really cool!
HOWEVER
Right now, the network isn’t fully implemented. Instead, in communities like !datahoarder@selfhosted.forum, there is a flood of ALL content that is posted in the respective subreddit.
This is bad because:
- Lemmy users don’t know that no human will see their replies, and the helpful Lemmy users are just talking to a wall. This will make them… less helpful in the future
- Because ALL content is being mirrored, this spams out the actual Lemmy posts
- Reddit users have no idea, and no control, over whether their posts are mirrored. I only noticed on the datahoarder community, but there are more sensitive subreddits where I would want control over where it is posted. I would also need a way to delete the content from Lemmy, and right now the users can’t do that.
Proposed fixes
- Don’t mirror all content, only the stuff from Reddit users that sign up. There is already an incentive for signing up (more replies, better replies, better reach). If a user doesn’t sign up, their post will not be mirrored, and they will not get the benefit.
- If two communities WANT full mirroring, let them decide and have them contact directly (ex. from Modmail). Encourage them to talk to their communities before deciding
- Any automated post NEEDS a note saying so
- Posts to Lemmy should have a link to the Reddit user, the Reddit post, and an “about” page for Fediverser
- Comments to Reddit should have a link to the Lemmy comment, an “about” page for Fediverser, and a link to some “what is lemmy”/“new to lemmy” article.
- If it’s not being implemented like the above, maybe change it up to consider the points about user control
As it is, reposting everything is damaging to Lemmy and potentially harmful to Reddit users that don’t know their stuff is being mirrored.
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That’s a good point. I guess given that a lot of work is already done, it could be a cool learning experience for those involved if nothing else.
If and when it gets shut down, that would be another way that Reddit enshittifies, and people will see that. Part of my suggestions are to prevent the service from being shut down. The more we dot our i’s and cross our t’s in good faith, the worse it will look if Reddit shuts it down.
Ultimately I don’t see this as helping Reddit but rather helping the people and communities that make our platforms great. Some communities have official Lemmy spaces, and others are just two groups of like-minded people that would want interconnectedness if they could get it.
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Reddit has some excellent niche communities that don’t exist here. I want to access that content but I refuse to give Reddit any ad revenue.
Not even just the niche communities, there are plenty of large communities that just don’t have a presence here whatsoever. Show subreddits, for example, don’t really seem to exist or get any attention, apart from Star Trek and Futurama. If I want to talk about the new episodes of Invincible or Rick and Morty or Doctor Who, Reddit is currently the only place, unless I want to sit around talking to myself in an empty Lemmy community.
Conversely, though, filling dead subs with mirrors of reddit content that we can’t seriously interact with feels like it’s just ramming home the point that the specific Lemmy community in question is dead. It’s like saying “come to Lemmy where you watch reddit have a discussion, but not join it.”
Ultimately this whole idea is trying to apply a tech solution to a human problem. If people won’t come here and fill the place with content themselves, that’s not an issue that can be programmed away without Reddit’s API access, but if we had that, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.
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Redditors are smelly and icky and I don’t like them
I’m a Redditor. I don’t like you.
farts in your general direction
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Yeah the datahoarder one was the first time I commented on a post thinking it wasn’t a bot/reddit-repost. I had a lengthy answer and only realized later on I was talking into a void. lol
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I block every one of these garbage repost bots.
If I wanted to see Reddit content, I’d go on Reddit. Instead, I am inundated with content there’s no point in interacting with, when interacting with content is the purpose of these site.
Ban repost bots
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Keep it on your instance (that the rest can easily block or defederate from) and it’s all good.
Reddit users have no idea, and no control, over whether their posts are mirrored.
I can’t believe that I actually had to say this, but what these bot instances are doing is EXTREMELY ILLEGAL.
Reddit comments are COPYRIGHTED materials, and when reddit users sign up, they agree to a ToS that grants reddit essentially a permanent license to do with the contributed content as reddit pleases. However, anyone else mirroring these reddit comment would not have permission to do so, and theoretically reddit, or any reddit user whose comments are being mirrored, can start issuing DMCA takedowns against any instance that host these comments by federating with these bot instances.
I’m not a lawyer, but @rgullis@communick.news, instead of saying they are archivers or frontends that explicit do not host contents, you are ACTUALLY dumb enough to admit that you are illegally scraping, mirroring, and rehosting reddit’s content for the explicit purpose of making a competitor and harming their commercial interest so you can’t even claim fair use. You better pray that reddit’s lawyers don’t find out about your little projects, they’ll find you through your domain registrar or your cloud host, and you, and any instance that federates with yours would be in a world of pain.
Any instance owner should defederate from these bot instances immediately.
Has there ever been a case where a user has been able to legally enforce the copyright of internet comments?
From what I understand, the copyright is exclusively Reddit’s.
Well, you give them the right to do whatever they want with your content, as is common with similar services and social media, but you retain the ownership of the content. I don’t know of any services that take away your ownership and I am not even sure that’s legally possible in an agreement like this. Don’t quote me on the last part though.
From their user agreement:
You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content, but you grant Reddit the following license to use that Content:
When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.
I don’t really understand the part I made bold, so if anyone could explain it (optimally with credible sources) that would be great :)
I’m not sure but signing away any moral rights seems so dystopian.
Which moral rights are you signing away?
Copyright isn’t a moral right imo. Ownership might be the closest to a moral right and you are keeping that one.
I know it’s not quite what you’re talking about, I could see automatic posts being pretty useful if they are informational such as weather alerts. I guess it’s not possible to do a repost bot from Twitter at this point with their API restrictions, but hopefully there are at least some services on Mastodon that would be worth mirroring on Lemmy for people who don’t use kbin.
That could be cool
Once Lemmy gets the ability to follow other users, that could be extended to the rest of the Fediverse. Let Lemmy users follow people/services from Mastodon/PixelFed directly
I like that idea!
When advertising the service, the benefit to Reddit users could just be
Sign up here and forget about it. When you make a post on a subreddit with a Lemmy equivalent, we will post it with your Fediverser Lemmy account and let you know. Any replies from Lemmy users will be forwarded to your Reddit post.
We are curating a list of official and unofficial Lemmy communities for each subreddit. By signing up, you are likely to get replies from helpful, kind, and like-minded users on Lemmy; many of which who migrated from your subreddits to the Lemmy communities.
You can learn about Lemmy passively and migrate when you’re ready, or just benefit from the further reach.
Also @rglullis@communick.news, if you have a community where people can talk about the project and help out, I’m sure there are people here that would be interested!
I have selfhosted.forum blocked. All the posts I see I see no point in replying and since they’re all tech support it’s not like I learn something from reading them
I like learning about the stuff there, but recently I’ve noticed a rise in one sided posts
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I have. It’s dreadful. Suggesting it as the solution to a problem created by software that is not ready is profoundly stupid.
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Regarding “Reddit users have no control over the mirror”. I’d argue that they do have a way to delete the content from Lemmy and it’s quite simple. Any user that has been mirrored by alien.top needs to do the following:
When Google and company do “opt-out” features that people are forced into using unless they manually opt-out (usually with long and convoluted procedures that aren’t front and centre in the docs), they are (rightly) excoriated for it.
Thankfully you don’t have long and convoluted procedures to opt out…
- Sign up via the portal to take over the bot account.
- Login to the instance using the password provided.
- Delete all their posts.
… Oops.
Rethink this if you don’t want really serious backlash. This is almost the textbook case of how not to do features.
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“Other people do this obnoxious thing so it’s OK if we do this obnoxious thing” isn’t the moral killing point you seem to think it is.
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The biggest problem I see right now is with deleted and removed content.
Generally there is a reason for why someone would want to delete/remove something on Reddit.
If someone posts something that should be removed (spam, illegal content, hateful content), it shouldn’t stay mirrored here. If someone deletes a post/comment on Reddit (they’re getting harassed, they accidentally shared personal info, stalkers), it shouldn’t stay mirrored here.
A chunk of my moderation experience is from a university subreddit where stuff like that DOES happen, putting a real person at risk.
I like this idea and want it to succeed, and this is a concern for me. I don’t know about the legality/liability, but I think even Google updates their caches when stuff is deleted and tools like ceddit/removeddit/reveddit don’t let you see stuff that’s deleted by the user.
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Hi. With the utmost courtesy and respect: please look at the vote counts and feedback here.
At the least, in anything like its current form, we fediverse people don’t want this.
If people want to be on reddit, they can be. If they want their niche community on that site, they’re allowed. Trying to bridge content between sites that are potentially even antagonistic toward one another is not a good plan, no matter how virtuous your intentions.
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Thanks for the post.
I always found the project interesting, but you bring valid points.
Here’s one problem with bidirectionality.
I’m banned from reddit. But if a bot is mirroring my comments back to reddit, that means I get to affect the reddit conversation again. This tells me reddit is going to have a problem with mirroring comments back to reddit.
