It has been proposed a few times I guess, and while Lemmy.ml seems to be not actively hostile against “us”, I would say it is very much in line with the anarchist idea to decentralize and become self-sufficient.

However so far no one seems to have stepped up to actually run such an instance, or am I overlooking something?

I personally have thought about it (I have a quirky 3 letter domain name that I would find fitting and also run my own servers), but to be honest I am not deeply embedded in the anarchist community (more of an anacho-individualist in that sense, despite being in favor of syndicalism in theory) and probably also have some other unpopular opinions in some ways. I am also a somewhat grumpy old white male not very keen on moderating community drama.

tl;dr: I think it would be cool to have something like that, but I fear that me starting (and mostly running) it would soon not be very popular and I am also hesitant having to deal with the likely hassle of running something like that.

  • southerntofu@lemmy.ml
    61·
    4 years ago

    the anarchist idea to decentralize and become self-sufficient

    Strongly agree. I find it really weird/funny in a way that the federated (anarchist principle) newsboard Lemmy is developed by marxists, while the centralized (marxist principle) newsboard PostMill is developed by anarchists.

    Personally, i’m interested to federate with raddle.me but that will require some development on their side i have no time for. I’m happy to mentor someone who has some basic PHP knowledge to work on that, though.

    no one seems to have stepped up to actually run such an instance

    I haven’t exactly stepped up but i’ve been talking about it for almost more than half a year. I don’t wish to become an enlightened dictator and i already have a lot of projects to deal with, but i’m happy to help and provide resources for that.

    I have a quirky 3 letter domain name

    What is it? :D

    I think it would be cool to have something like that

    I agree, but it will require a lot of careful thinking through if we want to avoid reproducing terrible power structures. Although given the federated nature of lemmy, the power of moderators/admins is slightly less a concern.

    • poVoq@lemmy.mlOP
      41·
      4 years ago

      I’ll probably use the domain for a XMPP server or so at some point ;)

    • poVoq@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      4 years ago

      it will require a lot of careful thinking through if we want to avoid reproducing terrible power structures. Although given the federated nature of lemmy, the power of moderators/admins is slightly less a concern.

      Yes federation helps, but only so far. Of course you could go by the “market-place of ideas” concept and just start an instance and see if it becomes popular, but this as you say will likely result in an unhealthy power structure in the longer run.

      I also thought about just setting it up as a sysadmin and hand the metaphorical keys to some community organization, but with such a “political” and public website the (personal) risk of abuse and legal issues is high and therefore you can’t really not be hands-on as a sysadmin IMHO.

      Ideally some sort of established organization would run the server, but those are hard to find these days in anarchist circles (with Syndicalism and other more organized forms having fallen out of favor mostly).