The problem:

The web has obviously reached a high level of #enshitification. Paywalls, exclusive walled gardens, #Cloudflare, popups, CAPTCHAs, tor-blockades, dark patterns (esp. w/cookies), javascript that makes the website an app (not a doc), etc.

Status quo solution (failure):

#Lemmy & the #threadiverse were designed to inherently trust humans to only post links to non-shit websites, and to only upvote content that has no links or links to non-shit venues.

It’s not working. The social approach is a systemic failure.

The fix:

  • stage 1 (metrics collection): There needs to be shitification metrics for every link. Readers should be able to click a “this link is shit” button on a per-link basis & there should be tick boxes to indicate the particular variety of shit that it is.

  • stage 2 (metrics usage): If many links with the same hostname show a pattern of matching enshitification factors, the Lemmy server should automatically tag all those links with a warning of some kind (e.g. ⚠, 💩, 🌩).

  • stage 3 (inclusive alternative): A replacement link to a mirror is offered. E.g. youtube → (non-CF’d invidious instance), cloudflare → archive.org, medium.com → (random scribe.rip instance), etc.

  • stage 4 (onsite archive): good samaritans and over-achievers should have the option to provide the full text for a given link so others can read the article without even fighting the site.

  • stage 5 (search reranking): whenever a human post a link and talks about it, search crawlers notice and give that site a high ranking. This is why search results have gotten lousy – because the social approach has failed. Humans will post bad links. So links with a high enshitification score need to be obfuscated in some way (e.g. dots become asterisks) so search crawlers don’t overrate them going forward.

This needs to be recognized as a #LemmyBug.

  • activistPnkOP
    1·
    9 months ago

    It absolutely changes priority

    That’s what I said.

    Bugs are things that are actively broken, meaning specifically that the functionality already exists, but it is non-functional/broken. … You are asking for an enhancement

    Again, this is subjective. The “functionality already exists” is users read and comment on news. If they cannot reach the news, that’s broken. If some people can reach the news and some cannot, the functionality of a community participating in news reading and discussion is broken. You can only call this bug report an “enhancement” if you have a baseline premise that that broken scenario is “not broken”, because e.g. you’re willing to accept that some people are marginalized from participation.

    but you can submit a request on GitHub

    No thanks. If a bug tracker exists for reporting Lemmy bugs that does not require #GAFAM patronage, I would be keen. But there is not. Github is an exclusive venue. Hence why it was reported here.

    Doing it here means pretty much nothing, unless you link the GitHub task and ask people to vote for it.

    That’s fair enough. If no #Github users are interested in mirroring this bug report into Github it would not likely get very far on Github anyway.

    Or, you can write it yourself and submit a PR

    Not a wise sequence. Even if I were a rust developer, I would not make the huge code effort before first discussing & getting some confidence that other people are interested in curtailing leakage of web enshitification into Lemmy. And from what I’ve seen here, the answer is no. If I had a PR ready to go right now, it would be refused judging from the thread.

    We developers aren’t “splitting hairs”, we’ve seen this trick from crappy PMs dozens of times.

    The only “trick” here is a bug suppression tactic used by Dandroid, who said:

    “if a tester posted something like this as a bug instead of a change request, it would get thrown right into the trash bin”

    Instead of changing the tag, Dandroid opts to suppress someone else’s contribution and demoralize them (thus discouraging future contributions), and ultimately reducing the quality of software in the commons because of a shitty attitude about the setting of an enum in a changeable metadata field. It’s reckless and shameful. On a profit-driven project management would rightfully have a word with Dandroid.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      Oh I love this, it’s just like I’m at work!

      Okay, let’s cherry pick yours since you did mine.

      Again, this is subjective.

      Nope, the code literally doesn’t exist, thus not broken. As explained in my first comment. Opinions and feelings do not a bug make. Broken code a bug makes.

      No thanks.

      Got it, you just want to bitch here, you don’t actually want to do anything to fix it.

      If no #Github users are interested

      Feel free to sign up for an account and make one. It’s a free account, and the repo is open.

      And from what I’ve seen here, the answer is no.

      Then why do you keep complaining here?

      I say again, for your last bit. You’re trying to tell us code is broken. Unless you can point to a line of code that’s throwing an exception that shouldn’t be, or an error page, or an error code - it is not a bug. It is a feature, and would be prioritized like a feature request. It is not broken, you want it changed. Changes/features require levels of review that it seems like you are aware of, and it seems like you know people don’t really care about, so trying to pigeonhole it as a bug is your backup excuse to get it fixed. Again, this is an extremely common and transparent tactic from shitty project managers when they do not get their way.

      I’m not weighing in on if the feature is valuable or not, I’m simply trying to explain basic software development to you because you keep seemingly trying to get around it. If you want it you have three options:

      • Write it yourself
      • Make an official issue on GitHub, with a full writeup on why it should happen and push for prioritization, that’s when you could post here linking the issue asking people to upvote it
      • Accept that it’s not as popular as you like and move on

      Pick one.

      • activistPnkOP
        1·
        9 months ago

        Nope, the code literally doesn’t exist, thus not broken.

        Of course absence of code can be a bug. If it weren’t, why write the code at all? A large portion of bugs are a consequence of lacking code. In some cases I’ve had to introduce hundreds of lines of new (previously non-existing code) in order to fix a bug.

        Got it, you just want to bitch here

        Got it: so if it’s posted on host A it’s a bug report but if that same content is posted on host B it’s “bitching”. If you’re going to run with that nomenclature, then yes I’m bitching (as my bug report did not make into the exclusive walled garden where you deem it to be a “bug report”).

        you don’t actually want to do anything to fix it.

        A bug report is a not a fix. So far I signed up for reporting the bug. I wouldn’t learn rust in order to fix it, but I would not object to participating in other activities inherent in the fix such as testing and documentation.

        Then why do you keep complaining here?

        You’ll have to substantiate that with a quote of a complaint.

        Unless you can point to a line of code that’s throwing an exception that shouldn’t be, or an error page, or an error code - it is not a bug.

        Again, absence of code can of course be a bug. If I were familiar with the code at hand, I could point to where the code is missing.

        Write it yourself

        Are you saying PRs will be accepted?

        Make an official issue on GitHub

        You can nix that since Github is an exclusive walled garden. Whether Github accepts me is not my call. It’s worth noting that github rejected my experimental registration. Had Github accepted me, I wouldn’t feed a Microsoft asset anyway.

        If you want it you have three options:… Accept that it’s not as popular as you like and move on

        Why is that an option “if I want it”? It’s the other way around. If you want a bug report to have effect, abandoning it is how you get it canceled. Devs will sometimes cancel a bug report when reporters leave the scene. I don’t intend to abandon my bug report regardless of the popularity of the idea. But feel free to move along yourself.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          Lol what do you want? Your feature is only going to be accepted on Github, but you’re whining about using that too. You’ve chosen none of the three options, which is why I said you just want to complain here. No one is taking you seriously here because all you’re doing is complaining. Go actually do something if you want it done. I already explained how, and you whining that you don’t want to take part in it.

          Oh, I guess there’s an option 4. Go fork Lemmy and build it yourself, hell host the code on some other service who cares. Then you can accept whatever features you want, and we don’t have to listen to your insufferable whining here about features that only you want.

          • activistPnkOP
            1·
            9 months ago

            Your feature is only going to be accepted on Github, but you’re whining about using that too.

            The code submission does not require /me/ to be on Github, only the developer. The bug report need not be on GH either.

            You’ve chosen none of the three options, which is why I said you just want to complain here

            That’s non sequitur logic. These arbitrary options were only just presented in the same post you attempted to frame my bug report as “bitching”. My rejection of your silly options came after that thus cannot serve as rationale for saying “you just want to complain here”. Even if your mental timeline were not screwed up, the logic still wouldn’t follow. Rejecting your silly options is not a complaint – just a statement that your ideas are a non-starter.

            Go actually do something if you want it done.

            You’ve neglected to back your own implied claim that PRs would be accepted, so doubling down on that idea doesn’t really make sense here.

            Oh, I guess there’s an option 4. Go fork Lemmy and build it yourself,

            There’s the first viable option you’ve mentioned. Congrats. Of course this is outside the scope of the bug report as it misses the point of how bug reports serve the quality process. This bug report serves no purpose if I fork it myself.

            • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              Wonderful. I’m glad you’ve opted for Option 4. Now, go actually do something instead of expecting others to do it for you. You want to be a part of Lemmy’s development process? I’ll see you on Github, otherwise I look forward to you releasing your own fork.