Lemmy 0.18 contains a number of bugfixes and UI tweaks that appear highly welcomed: Release Info

Measures will continue to be in place to limit registration, especially as this release removes the CAPTCHA requirement.

It's no secret the bots have arrived on Lemmy.

I've been monitoring https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy and it seems that a number of instances with open sign-ups are getting thousands of new user registrations but have very, very little user activity to show for it.

To stay ahead of potential problems, I'm preemptively defederating several instances that appear to be used for bot signups. If there are instances that contain legitimate content that end up blocked I will be more than happy to consider removing them off of the list. The intent is not to remove access to legitimate content, the intent is to make it more difficult for bad actors to propagate spam to communities hosted here.

Current criteria I'm looking at:

• Little/No mention of the instance on popular social media sites -- I don't want to defederate an instance that became popular overnight for legitimate reasons
• Large number of accounts (>5000)
• Very little local posts/comments (<25)
• Few/No subscribed communities elsewhere (<5)
• Very low active user count in the past day/week (<20)

Throughout the last several days there was an issue when subscribing to Lemmy.ml communities.

Subscribing to a Lemmy.ml community would get stuck at "Subscribe Pending" and no content would come across.

It appears this issue is no longer present.

A list of communities on the Lemmy.ml instance is available here

First off, Happy Juneteenth!

Next, thanks to everyone who's subscribed to a community here so far. I'm glad that a few folks have already started discovering this place, sharing links, commenting, and posting. As a heads up, I think this place is going to be substantially quieter than communities on Reddit for some time, but my goal isn't to foster a ton of activity, it's to foster a community.

Community List

There's a number of communities on this instance available to join. Mind you, a lot of them are quiet and probably will be if/until more folks join. If you have suggestions for more locations I should add, drop a comment.

DC

• Washington, DC: !washington_dc@dmv.social

VA

• Virginia (state-wide): !virginia@dmv.social
• Northern Virginia: !nova@dmv.social

• Arlington: !arlington_va@dmv.social
• Alexandria: !alexandria_va@dmv.social
• Fairfax County: !fairfaxcounty_va@dmv.social
• Loudoun County: !loudouncounty_va@dmv.social
• Prince William County: !princewilliamcounty_va@dmv.social

MD

• Maryland (state-wide): !maryland@dmv.social
• Baltimore: !baltimore@dmv.social
• Montgomery County: !montgomerycounty_md@dmv.social
• Prince George's County: !princegeorgescounty_md@dmv.social

WV

• Jefferson County !jeffersoncounty_wv@dmv.social

Other

• Meta - Where most news/announcements will go !meta@dmv.social
• Chat - General chatter that doesn't fit anywhere !chat@dmv.social
• Introductions - Say hi! !introductions@dmv.social

Fediverse Tips

Joining a Community

If you're on the https://dmv.social instance, go to https://dmv.social/communities and click "Subscribe" next to any community you're interested in.

If you're on another instance, like https://lemmy.world or https://beehaw.org, this gets a little complicated but bear with me:

1. Go to https://dmv.social/communities
2. Click the name of the community you want to join
3. Go to the sidebar, and find the blurb of text like: You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [!communityname@dmv.social](/c/communityname@dmv.social)
4. Copy the [!communityname@dmv.social](/c/communityname@dmv.social) to your clipboard
5. Go to your Lemmy instance, and click the Search icon (magnifying glass) in the top right
6. Ensure your search type is set to All and paste the [!communityname@dmv.social](/c/communityname@dmv.social) to the search box and click "Search"
7. Click the community name in the search results, then click "Subscribe"

If you're on kbin.social: Go to the Search box, and instead of the [!communityname@dmv.social](/c/communityname@dmv.social), replace the ! with a @. For example, [!chat@dmv.social](/c/chat@dmv.social) will need to be typed into kbin.social as @chat@dmv.social

Mobile Apps (Lemmy)

Right now the mobile app scene for Lemmy is still in it's early phases, so don't expect an Apollo/RIF experience right now. That said, here's a few I'm tracking:

• Jerboa - Android - https://github.com/dessalines/jerboa - Google Play Store
• Memmy - iOS - https://github.com/gkasdorf/memmy - iOS Testflight Group
• MLem - iOS - https://github.com/buresdv/Mlem - iOS Testflight Group

Need further assistance?

• Join the dmv.social Lemmy Support Discord for assistance. Yes, "I've never heard of this, how do I even make an account on this thing?!" is valid. (note: this is a support only Discord server)
• Send a private message to @dmvsocial@dmv.social
• Send an email: :

Hi everyone!

On Saturday, June 17th this instance may be unavailable intermittently through the day.

This will be due to tasks affecting the server and network configuration. These changes are being made to ensure this instance is better positioned for potential future traffic and stability.

Hi folks,

An issue with receiving account verification emails has been found and is currently being worked on. This should be fixed in a day or so. Most accounts requesting access have been approved.

Almost all accounts so far have been approved in 1-2 hours, so you should be able to try logging in after those 1-2 hours.

If you do not have access after 12 hours, your account was not approved.

---

EDIT: June 14 @ 9:45am: This should be resolved. If you are unable to see emails, check your spam folder.

Lemmy's UI seems a bit unintuitive so I'll try to explain some things. So let's get started by walking through how to:

1. Create an account
2. Find a community to join
3. Reading a Post
4. Add a comment on an existing post
5. Create a post in a community
6. Other Gotchas I've Found

Create an Account

At the top right, click "Sign Up".

Now pick a username (this can't be changed!), give your email if you want to be able to reset your password, and write a short thing about what you like about the area. This is to help keep the bots at bay.

Find a Community

There are two types of communities to join: Local and Federated. Local communities are hosted on this server, Federated communities are hosted on other servers.

Joining a Local Community

To find a local community on this instance, click the "Communities" button at top

Now a list shows up with the local communities, how many users, posts, and comments are in each. For this exercise, lets join the !introductions community. Click "Introductions"

Now click "Subscribe" on the right side.

Creating a Post

Navigate to the !introductions community from earlier, on the right side, click "Create Post"

Now fill in a title and content. If you want to share a link, you can paste in a URL to the URL field, give a title for the post, and write a blurb about the link.

Adding a Comment

If you navigate to the !internal_testing community, I have created a Testing thread. Click the "Testing Thread" link.

After the post contents you should see a text above other people's comments. You can write text for your comment, then click "Post" to submit.

Other Gotchas

Issue: Unable to navigate/click links Workaround: It seems if any input fields have been modified, Lemmy won't let you navigate. Refreshing the page appears to make things work.

Hi Folks!

This post will stay updated to note the federation policy of this instance.

Generally speaking, the federation policy is open and ideally want to maintain this stance. We wish to allow open access to communities that operate at least closely to the Community Guidelines. I believe this to be the policy that's easiest to deal with.

Instances and communities may be added to the blocklist if:

• it primarily hosts NSFW content
• the instance primarily hosts pornography or community contains and allows of pornography
• it generally contains illegal content or content that could be reasonably deemed as pushing the bounds of legality
• the moderation and userbase are very politically motivated
• a host to trolling, bigotry, and/or intentionally offensive content
• Causes a severely undue burden of moderation
• it is hacked, breached, or used for spam

---

Justification

Hosting this server is a part-time operation and my concerns are two-fold:

1. Due to how federation works, I believe someone could argue that content federated from other communities may count as this server hosting the content.

2. This is a part-time operation with a limited number of community members helping out and flamewars/internet fights suck to mediate.

---

Appeals

If an instance or community is removed, you may appeal in @support@dmvsocial@dmv.social and all will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Instances and communities removed for being hacked, breached, or spam will be allowed after the admins/mods rectify the situation.

As mod tooling improves for Lemmy, we may be able to revisit former instance/community removals.

---

Updates: 2023-July-11: Added link to Community Guidelines; Added justification; Added appeals section;

Welcome to dmv.social, a Lemmy community for folks in and around the DC, Maryland, Virginia to chat and participate in Lemmy!

Don't have an account yet? Joining should be easy. Sign up here and try to log in a few hours later or the following day. If you get an error, it means your account hasn't been approved yet and you'll need to try again later -- this is only done to ensure there aren't any bots.

Be sure to introduce yourself in !introductions.

Why are you running this?

An open internet can be a good thing. I think it's important to have a site for locals to discuss and chat. As major social media sites work to become more profitable post-pandemic, I've become increasingly concerned with the direction they are going. I've had a lot of fun meeting folks on other sites in the area and participating in local discussions, so I'm hoping to foster an environment for that on federated social media.

Why do accounts require Admin Approval?

I don't want to host spam bots.

How is this funded?

Right now, out of pocket. I have zero interest in making money off this. If this instance becomes something you enjoy and you feel like you have to do something, thank me with a beer or coffee if we do a meetup in the future. If this instance is at risk of being shut down due to financial reasons, I'll post about it well in advance, but hosting costs are fairly minimal for a server that'll handle quite a number of users for a long time into the future.

Can I create a community here?

Absolutely! Right now the process is by request because I am hesitant to open the process up due to Lemmy's limited administration/moderation tools, but I'm fairly open to almost anything as long as it's SFW and doesn't promote hatred. Request the community in !support@dmv.social.

How can I find communities?

Check out the how-to guide