NYC Mesh!

https://www.nycmesh.net/

There’s likely others, but this one has been around for about a decade and is still operational.

Makes me wonder if the future of the internet is federated network hardware. There’s already efforts in bigger cities to distribute mesh networks (especially to lower-income areas), so it doesn’t seem like a far leap to create an internet by users and for users.

Anyway, somebody working for Microsoft isn’t proof positive that they share the values of Microsoft (unless you’re in upper admin); you’re not guilty by association. People generally need to work to eat in this capitalist hellscape, and FOSS doesn’t tend to pay well.

If better means “more inclusive,” then yes. It’s better. Did I say to stop downvoting? No. Did I tell people to abandon their downvoting-enabled instances? No (though have a look and see how I’ve been told multiple times to leave mine).

Dunno why people are hellbent on excluding people who don’t want optional downvotes when non-optional reporting exists.

But do go on about how I’m excluding the poor instances with downvotes by recommending an inclusive action that they also benefit from.

It’s not basic functionality. It’s optional, and I don’t want it. So, no thank you.

The insistence that everybody experience the Fediverse in a particular way is what makes centralized services garbage and prone to enshittification.

You’re supposed to report posts that break instance or community rules, not whatever you happen to consider to be “bad faith”.

This isn’t Reddit. Mods aren’t beholden to some set of standards handed down by moneyed interests. They’re real people with (hopefully) common sense and a desire to create something better than Reddit.

Besides, even if your instance has disabled downvotes, other instances can still see them.

That’s my point. If instances like mine can’t see downvotes, it’s excluding people like me, because people can’t be bothered to report. Furthermore, all it is is a popularity contest. “A bunch of people don’t like it” is no guarantee you won’t, nor does it demonstrate that the content is in fact garbage; it just shows a bunch of people don’t like it.

On your instance, yes. Those downvotes get dropped on my side, so I can’t see them, and neither can anyone else on a non-downvote instance. My proposal would address the issue of slop for everyone, whereas downvote proponents are just saying, “Yeah, well my way is better. Lemmy is only for people who do it my way.”

If this thread is a lesson in anything, it’s that the bad habits of Reddit carried over, and people are so fucking lazy, they can’t be bothered to click the report button.

I fundamentally disagree with downvotes, so changing instances isn’t an option. Just report it. It helps everyone and it removes it from the Fediverse, not just pushes it to the bottom of a list by the arbitrary metric of popularity.

No. My instance doesn’t have downvotes. You downvoting a post does nothing for instances like mine.

Report that shit instead. There’s no reason it needs to stay on the Fediverse.

My instance has downvotes turned off (which I like). That action only benefits people who care about downvotes.

The better option that helps everyone is to report bad faith posts.

So yes. Use the report tool and downvote it to oblivion.

My instance doesn’t have downvotes, so reporting is the most effective remedy for everyone’s benefit