An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and I work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Unfortunately the amount of donations has decreased to only 2000€ per month. This leaves only 1000€ per developer, which is not enough to pay my bills. With the current level of donations I will be forced to find another job, and drastically reduce my contributions to Lemmy. To avoid this outcome and keep Lemmy growing, I ask you to please make a recurring donation:
Liberapay | Ko-fi | Patreon | OpenCollective | Crypto
If you want more information before donating, consider the comparison with Reddit. It began as startup funded by rich investors. The site is managed by corporate executives who over time have become more and more disconnected from normal users. Their main goal is to make investors happy and to make a profit. This leads to user-hostile decisions like firing the employee responsible for AMAs, blocking third-party apps and more. As Reddit is a single website under a single authority, it means all users need to follow the same rules, including ridiculous ones like censoring the name “Luigi”.
Lemmy represents a new type of social media which is the complete opposite of Reddit. It is split across many different websites, each with its own rules, and managed by normal people who actually care about the users. There is no company and no profit motive. Much of the work is carried out by volunteer admins, mods and posters, who contribute out of enthusiasm and not for money. For users this is great as there is no advertising nor tracking, and no chance of takeover by a billionaire. Additionally there are no builtin political or ideological restrictions. You can use the software for any purpose you like, add your own restrictions or scrutinize its inner workings. Lemmy truly belongs to everyone.
Dessalines and I work fulltime on Lemmy to keep up with all the feature requests, bug reports and development work. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. Previously I sometimes had to rely on my personal savings to keep developing Lemmy for you, but that can’t go on forever. We partly rely on NLnet for funding, but they only pay for development of new features, and not for mandatory maintenance work. The only available option are user donations. To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached Dessalines and I can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. Please use the link below to see current donation stats and make your contribution! We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.
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Update: For those of you who want to support Lemmy development without financing the hosting of lemmy.ml, know that the hosting is paid exclusively through OpenCollective. You can see the payment details at this link. This means donations through all other platforms (Liberapay, Ko-fi, Patreon, Crypto) are exclusively for Lemmy development, and not a single cent goes to lemmy.ml hosting.
This should probably be documented on the open collective page.
Right, updated.
Who are the developers and what instance are they affiliated with?
deleted by creator
As far as I understand it, the development team of Lemmy is bigger than that, but nutomic and dessalines as the founders and paid to develop lemmy full-time of course are the most important ones.
@sleeplessone@lemmy.ml is a maintainer of lemmy I think and
@dullbananas@lemmy.ca is a maintainer of lemmy backend?
Not sure about the status of flamingos and phiresky who also contribute to the codebase and were part of the recent AMA
Flamingos is a much loved admin of feddit.uk ☺️
Nutomic and Dessalines, and lemmy.ml
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I advise you to consider the weekly pledge over the one time donation. It would be a better course of action as it might help them plan ahead.
Also, I’m a caveman, so I would advise against following my advice
The real devs are locked into a server room with appropriate supplies of food and caffeine. So dont worry about them.
Yearly or weekly doesnt make a big difference so whatever works for you. Depending on the platform small donations may have higher fees though.
But I want to support lemmy.ml
Then you can donate via Opencollective. But honestly it doesnt matter, because lemmy.ml hosting is already covered, and is very cheap compared to developer salaries.
I appreciate the transparency! :)
This update is what made me setup a recurring donation.
Thanks :)
I’ve been considering donating for a while (I already donate to my instance) so I’ve set that up now. ~$5 a month isn’t much but I hope if a few more people do it too it will start to add up.
Sent my money in. Thanks for what you do with the software, brother.
I personally block hexbear, and de facto ignore lemmy.ml because I find it to be a hive of vitriol and unproductive toxic behaviour, but I still signed up to donate because imho, lemmy’s open and decentralized nature make it fundamentally valuable and a worthwhile piece of societal infrastructure.
But please don’t abuse our trust.
maybe give incentives like upvote award feature for the respective instance that has been donated to. that way people would be more willing to get something out of it in a more tangible way
What do you mean by “upvote award feature”?
awards that cosmetically work like upvotes in a sense. reddit has them, but they link that to nothing or ad free features.
Bound to donations I dont see why this would be a bad idea. Gives a strong sense of community, especially if theres for example special ones bound to each instance
awards that cosmetically work like upvotes in a sense.
Upvotes are mechanical, maybe there’s a better comparison. I left reddit before they added awards, but I assume the idea is that someone donates and is then able to add a decorative award to their favorite posts they see, maybe limited to giving one award per day?
It’s fun, but on the other hand when I occasionally visit reddit, some posts look like a slot machine with a hundred awards, and even if they don’t mechanically push a post higher, it feels a bit pay-to-win for me, because someone with lots of money can put attention-grabbing awards on posts they like. So I’m not sure where I sit on on those kinds of features, because I do believe that it’s helpful to reward people who have donated, so long as they don’t get an advantage in the community for it.
well it would be tied to financing this platform in my suggestion, so I dont see the issue if the upvotes are the only metric for post ranking and on the other hand awards being only cosmetic
u can always ublock them away if you personally have spite against the look of some icon. but yea there surely is a wrong way to implement such features… as u mentioned a prime contentder for a service gone shady/shill
I see, or simpler yet a special badge which is shown next to donor’s username. Definitely worth considering. Thanks for the suggestion!
may I use this moment to ask you if this is intended (see spoiler formatted section in the post)
EDIT maybe its the photon frontend, I’ll crosspost there too
That might affect whether or not the income is taxable.
Why do LGTBQ+xyz10 always have to make a fuss about everything… It reminds me of the vegan fuss era.
You still use lemmy’s backend and have a safe frontend space to stay. That’s kinda hypocrite to use a service that is “anti-lgtb” and still make a fuss about it. If lemmy really was about racial or sexual discrimination you would already know it.
It also reminds me all the fuss about THEIR safe game space only THEM are allowed to use… Uuhhhg it’s kinda getting out of hand !
What ever, my point is, if you want to keep Lemmy alive, help out and donate to the creators. If you’re a just a dumb leech, use a service that somehow “discriminates” you, don’t donate, but PLEASE ! Leave.
Go Vegan :)
If you sincerely can’t keep track of an acronym like LGBTQIA2S, I totally understand. I find it helpful to use people with minority “Sexual Orientations and Gender Identites” (SOGI). You could say
people with minority SOGIs
Or
SOGI minorities
Or
SOGIm
It’s not a super widespread abbreviation, so I’d recommend spelling it initially as I did in my first paragraph. I don’t think it’s best practice to say “SOGIs” Because everyone has a SOGI and typically we’re trying to talk specifically about those that face(d) disenfranchisement and bigoted violence.
If you’re not sincerely struggling with the acronym, and enjoy trivializing people for fun, I hope you think of me everything you stub your toe.
Oh yeah, vegans were so fussy with their demands that you
Checks notes
Stop eating the dead flesh of abused animals that are bred in horrific death factories.
I always found carnists more obnoxious than vegans. Anytime you see a vegan offered a meat product and they politely turn it down like “oh no thanks” some idiot is always like “👁️👄👁️ ArE YoU VeGaN? I LikE BaCoN! HaHa I’M GoInG To EaT An ExTrA BuRgEr NoW To AnNoY YoU! MMM!” Like fuck off and let them eat their tofu, you dick.
You even get sick fucks slipping vegans meat and then laughing about it to them later like “HAHAHA I MADE YOU EAT MEAT!” cool bro, how would you feel if I made you eat your dog, you sociopath.
It’s LGBTQ, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Queer. Atleast pretend to be literate while you demean us and our hard fought victories to simply be able to live with dignity and respect that all people are due.
Yeah :) Just don’t forget to add all the other groups (+) !
That’s so original I bet no queer person has ever heard that one before
Why do LGTBQ+xyz10 always have to make a fuss about everything…
Because the group (collectively) have a history of being systematically killed and lynched for their sexuality, not to mention the rest of the suppression and oppression. So politics and attacks are taken seriously.
It also reminds me all the fuss about THEIR safe game space only THEM are allowed to use…
It’s pretty reasonable to create a community where they feel comfortable and kick out all the unconstructive trolling and arguments that people can find in a million other places. Lemmy.ml kicks out racists and other reactionary wastes, so you’re in a comparable safe space right now. Do you enjoy the lack of Nazi scum and rabid anti-socialist trolls? I do!
What ever, my point is, if you want to keep Lemmy alive, help out and donate to the creators.
Many of those comrades have already done this, judging by their comments on various instances.
Because the group (collectively) have a history of being systematically killed and lynched for their sexuality, not to mention the rest of the suppression and oppression. So politics and attacks are taken seriously.
I get that… And that’s a very serious issue and concern for whatever group you’re defending ! But com’on we are on lemmy here, not on some obscure, harsh dictatorship killing people. Some of the admin may have said something inappropriate (that’s arguable…) But that doesn’t take away that we all can thrive here as a community, what ever your color, sexual orientation, religion…
Without the lemmy devs and others, there wouldn’t even be any Lemmy at ALL. Seeing how it goes, this is going to ruine everything for everyone…
Lemmy’s backend allows to create every safe space and community you want and people will still go one and argue against a personal opinion that didn’t killed a fly…
What ever. This kind of mentality is going to ruin the fun for everyone…
Just gauging the sentiment towards lemmy.ml, even in the fediverse there needs to be a safe space for people. It’s sad to say, but merely jumping ship from reddit doesn’t ensure that comrades will be safe online. .world and .ee users seem to be reddit-esque but just in a different ilk. I regularly see users from those communities targeting .ml users and since the reddit exodus it’s only gotten worse. Stay strong comrades.
It’s sad to say, but merely jumping ship from reddit doesn’t ensure that comrades will be safe online. .world and .ee users seem to be reddit-esque but just in a different ilk.
It’s no secret that most people on Lemmy came from reddit at some point, and people left reddit for different reasons. The first big waves of users were from piracy subreddits, /r/GenZedong’s quarantine (went to Lemmygrad, which became the biggest federated instance at the time) and /r/ChapoTrapHouse (succeeded by Hexbear, the largest instance at the time). So because these groups were large, whole and somewhat outliers to reddit overall, there was only some broader reddit culture carried across.
The next big waves were with the API fiasco and Luigi censorship, which largely went to general-purpose instances like .world and .ee for various reasons. Their move was most likely about disdain with the admins’ choices or being forced off the platform, not any opposition to reddit culture in general, so the shift toward reddit-esque community was immediately clear. And while Lemmy has a few design decisions that materially disincentive things like karma-farming, it will take a while, and most likely effort, if we want to counter or improve that culture.
Yeah, makes sense. I was part of the reddit exodus with the api stuff. Although, I’m not someone that would be part of the typical reddit culture. Or at least the die-hard libs types. I always was on the fringes of reddit, and in the last few years I stayed away more often than not. There are a few forums and “smol web” places I visit. Even frequent irc occasionally. So, I’ve been out of the loop when it comes to the general reddit mentality. It sucks that those types have to take the piss out of .ml users so frequently though, it’s gotten pretty annoying lately with people saying stuff like “of course, it’s a .ml user” like we’re some type of pariahs.
I love lemmy the project. But there has too much political arguments in some communities and they will hate you if you aren’t 100% agree with them. Even the post and the group/community are not political, comments will turn it to political. I am kind of tired(although I know some ppl are thrilled with political arguments). There is not much the devs can do, but the content does affect the user experience quite a lot.
Nevertheless, thanks for all the hard work, nutomic and dessalines. I will donate.
Fully agree that theres too much politics. Like you say too often about attacking some kind of enemy rather trying to understand other perspectives. For better or for worse, those seem to be the types of people more likely to use a new platform like Lemmy. Hopefully in the future they will also get tired of this stuff.
Unfortunately Reddit and their mods/admins behaviour over the years show that the opposite will happen. When the Lemmy mods are already so militantly anti-open discussion and authoritarian, they’re not going to soften up - they’ll go even further towards the dictatorship they clearly desire.
I’d love to donate or even start contributing towards the code myself, but the current environment that is being fostered on the big “default” communities and instances is like Reddit on steroids, just speedrunning to the end game of mass bans and mod abuse - and I don’t envision myself wanting to be a part of that for too long. I wiped and deleted by 15+ year old reddit account because of what it had turned into.
I don’t know the solution, but something needs to be done at a system level to give users a way to remove mods and change how communities are managed.
I feel sorry for your situation. But at least in lemmy the dev are willing to try to resolve this problem. Low chance is still better than zero chance.
Here is an wild idea. Since a few communities are so divided and clearly they only have a good time when they talk to ppl exactly like them. Flame war happens when two groups of hardcore opposed users argue. Since normal users won’t have all days to argue with either side, if one side leaves, the wars is ended.
So instead of banning users by admin or blocking one users each time by users. Can we have allow users to create their own public group (or a gang)? Users can join any groups. Instead of blocking one user, users can simply block the whole group. Posts and comments will be hided if blocking.
Advantages:
- No banning is needed means admin’s time and gang members’ time can be saved.
- finally no one disagree with those gangs members anymore, so I guess they’re happy
- instead of using time from admin and uninvolved users, users who frequently involved controversial topics everywhere should spend their own time to create a group for staying in their comfort zone.
- uninvolved users don’t have to read all those flame war
Disadvantages:
- those gangs become more extreme cuz they miss the opportunity to understand each other
- dev have to do more work
- server may have more load
- some users might say those gangs should host their own instances
Ps: I don’t use the term community because our board is also called community. I don’t want to mix them up. May be i should call it users group, but I am too lazy. I do agree better word should be used.
I don’t know the solution, but something needs to be done at a system level to give users a way to remove mods and change how communities are managed.
Maybe just start an instance where politics are banned?
Donated on Liberapay.
As others have said, this is financing software development, not a political campaign. I first learned of the fediverse when Reddit removed 3rd party apps, and I felt like my eyes were opened. This is what I want the internet to be, decentralized and running on open source software, and I’m sure I’m far from being alone in this, so thanks to the devs for that.
Also Jerboa is great!
Jerboa is the best, it’s how I browse Lemmy exclusively.
Just did the $5 donation on patreon. It’s on a lot but I hope it helps, I might not agree with everything the founders believe in but I really appreciate this open sourced community and the ideas and conversations I’ve had on it. It’s definitely worth supporting
Thank you, all donations help :)
lemmy.ml is run by the developers?
Yes, it’s the “original” instance
Kinda but the overlap between lemmy ml admin/mod team and lemmy developers is not 100%
Have you considered applying for a FUTO grant?
I actually got in contact with them yesterday, will probably have a meeting soon to discuss how we can work together with them.
I don’t really mind which way I donate but I want to ensure I donate by giving the most money to lemmy and not to whatever platform is hosting it.
While I am not particularly interested in setting up crypto, aside from that which platform would you prefer I donated from?
Liberapay is the best option, because it doesnt take any fees beyond payment processing, and its also open source. Thanks for donating!
Do you have a preference as to which platform the donation is done through?
Liberapay is preferable as it has low fees and is also open source.
Thank you, Liberapay it is. Keep up the good work!
How long has it been since you’ve thought of the Zootopia Abortion Comic?
Anyway, I’ll happily keep paying the devs.
Just started a small monthly donation. I’ll up it, if I use lemmy more, but I appreciate its existence. Thank you Devs for your contribution.
Youre welcome!
