It’s just an instance of reposting reddit links. These showed up in my All feed sorted by Hot even though there’s zero interaction. It just feels like spam.

I have noticed quite a bit of delays on the frontend, not mad as I understand a ton migration stuff has been happening just wanted to check if I was alone in my expereince.

I just wanted to appreciate all the works all the mods do on this instance! I took a look out of curiosity earlier and was shocked how many things had been removed or banned just within the last hour! Holy shit you guys are hard at work keeping this place awesome! I appreciate, so much more than I know how to express, all the work you all do! 😄🥰

Other people comment like they can see them. I thought it was from reading via a different instance but it still happens reading directly on blahaj. It doesn't matter if my VPN is on or not. I'm running in an app so there's no ad blocker

Any ideas?

If you are a mod on an active community hosted on Blåhaj Lemmy and would like to join our matrix room, please send me a DM with your Matrix ID

This room will mostly be used to aid moderation, but also to give space for communication with the admins etc, however all of the existing contact channels remain as well

Blåhaj Lemmy will be down for database migration to the new servers in approximately 1.5 hours from now (06:00 UTC).

Downtime is estimated at under an hour.

I will have more details on the maintenance page during the migration and update the status as the migration progresses.

I was trying to change my profile picture this morning and found myself unable to change it.

All of my attempts to upload a new one are met with no feedback and no updated picture.

I had one before but I removed the old one thinking that was the road block but no dice.

Any solution is greatly appreciated

Keep up the great work 👍

Image posts from startrek.website don't seem to load when they appear on my timeline, to see them I need to go in the thread and open the image in a separate tab as a direct link.

Here's a screenshot of how !risa@startrek.website looks to me:

This happens only when I view its content from blahaj, if I visit the website directly everything looks fine.

Edit: Ok, I also tried accessing risa though lemmy.ml and the result is the same, but if I try though feddit.de then it works fine.

Edit2: The problem was Ublock origin, I'm not sure how but tinkering with it fixed the issue.

I'm from Connecticut and dropping by for a day trip today (August 26th.)

Hello I am wanting to shid post gifs or vids, but I do not do it correctly.

Adding them like you do with pictures makes gifs not show up, webms try to download as a file while also not showing up, and mp4s cause “SyntaxError: JSON Parse error: Unexpected identifier “Request”. I know these problems are not site admin’s fault, as you are not JSON.

What is the correct way? So they work like the pics do. (I use web browser to access)

Thanks!

I wanted to provide a brief analysis of the top comments on blahaj lemmy and compared to lemmy world (who defederated from hexbear preemptively). The red comments favored federation and the blue ones favored defederation.

Initially I was browsing Blahaj Lemmy and couldn't believe how many top comments favored federation.

When I started browsing from Lemmy World (who preemptively defederated) the top comments were way more favorable to defederation. On the top comment, it looks like 50 upvotes (more than half) came from hexbear users.

Whether intentional or not, this is brigading. I'm happy that they're defederated. I really don't think that individual/local blocking is good enough since this has the ability to steer the direction of a lot of discourse, and I'd just not see it, but it would affect our instance the same. The effects of brigading still happen. I'd still see the same number of upvotes that would imply sentiment different to the actual users of the instance.

Also, is there any proper way to see where upvotes come from? I feel like this would be a good tool to vet botting, trolling and brigading. Also instance only communities (though I'm on lemmy.ca rn lmao) would be good.

Lots of people who are seeing top-level postings about Hexbear. Net are probably confused about what has been going on and I want to give an SRD-style overview of the whole thing.
Note: As a user of Blahaj.Zone, I am not a neutral party in this and I do not pretend to be. This is how the whole thing has played out from my perspective.

Hexbear. Net is another Lemmy instance that had relatively recently started to federate with Blahaj.Zone and other Lemmy instances. It had previously been known as Chapo.Chat because it began as an instance for fans of the podcast ChapoTrapHouse.
Recently users from Blahaj.Zone (as well as other Lemmy instances) began to complain about the behavior of Hexbear users. The complaints were about rude, obnoxious behavior: Hexbear users calling people "libs" as an insult, denying crimes of Russia and China, denying the crimes of Stalin,...
Such behavior was not necessarily forbidden on Blahaj.Zone, but certain sub-Lemmys had their own rules on these subjects.
One of the threads about Hexbear: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1854795?scrollToComments=true

After an ever increasing number of users calling for defederating from Hexbear. Net, Ada (admin of Blahaj.Zone) opened a thread to talk about it. The thread was quickly inundated with Hexbear users, complaining in turn about being called out in this way. Though many of their comments exploited a current bug in the Lemmy code which resulted in emoji's being embedded as pictures which results in lots of image spam.
Ada responded by removing top-level comments in the thread which were not from Blahaj.Zone's users, because she wanted to get the feedback of her own community, not from anybody else.
This happened originally in this thread: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1959801

The discussion on Blahaj.Zone was a back and forth: Lots of people calling for "leftist and queer unity", others complaining about getting harassed by Hexbear users.

Meanwhile, elsewhere: Lemm.ee, a Lemmy instance operated and managed by someone from Estonia, also opened a discussion about Hexbear - at least partially motivated by the admin's increasing unease of the rampant denial of soviet atrocities and the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union. Russian propaganda in regards to the war in Ukraine was also an issue.
Lemm.ee was largely encountering similar problems as Blahaj.Zone, though the Lemme.ee admin admitted that the Hexbear admin was generally responsive to reports and complaints.
The thread on Lemm.ee: https://lemm.ee/post/4543536

The thread was also flooded with comments from Hexbear users. The admin of Lemm.ee also responded by hiding most of the comments from Hexbear.
https://mastodon.social/@brooklynman/110911292961470110

Back on Blahaj.Zone, a tangent opens up: A Hexbear user complains about c/196, the new home of Reddit's r/196 which had relocated to Blahaj.Zone and has been its biggest community ever since. The Hexbear user complains about their comments being removed, comments that called out the use of the r-word and other call-outs. The user posts pictures of the removal notices.
Blahaj.Zone's admin Ada steps in and intervenes on behalf of the Hexbear user, having a stern word with the c/196 mod responsible for the removal of the comments.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2136643

A Hexbear admin also gets involved and sends a message to the mods of c/196 demanding the removal of the sub-Lemmy's banner, because it contains "fuck tankies²", arguing that tankies is a slur. The c/196 mod refuses and publishes their message.
[²"Tankies" is a pejorative term for authoritarian socialists in the vein of Stalin and/or Mao.]
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1961004

While the discussion if Blahaj.Zone should defederate from Hexbear is still ongoing, the Hexbear admins defederated from Blahaj.Zone without warning from their side, because of...

unaddressed ableist removals from the /c/196 moderators, defense of chasers, no-quarter rules regarding our users, leakage of good-faith DMs from our admin team, and a general lack of initiative to punish these behavior

In her a response to these events, Ada points out in a comment that she never had the chance to adress the ableist incident (she was in bed) while other issues had happened in the past and had been adressed at the time. Thus she could not react before Hexbear defederated.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2135406

TL;dr: Blahaj.Zone's users complain about ill behavior of users on Hexbear. Net. A discussion about defederation begins on Blahaj.Zone. Meanwhile Hexbear users complain about Blahaj.Zone in turn and Hexbear. Net defederates instantly and without warning.

Don't let those shitheels from hexbear get you down. I joined in the 196wave but I've stayed because blahaj is the safe trans affirming space I need right now, and from what I've seen you've been a key voice in making that happen. Thank you for all the hard work you do!

Thoughts?

Hello Blahaj users,

Unfortunately we have been discussing defederation. I would like for this to be sorted out, but our trans and disabled users deserve to be protected from transphobia and ableism. We know these are behaviors are perpetrated by a minority of Blahaj users, but they are tolerated here in the form of the 196 community. Of course, most Hexbear users are willing to re-federate once this bigoted community is removed. The admin Ada has been very helpful and I have faith in her to do the right thing for the safety of her community members.

In the meantime, I would like to extend an invitation to all leftists here to make an account on Hexbear. As long as you are anti-capitalist, you will be welcome there. We are hyper-inclusive and are strict against all forms of bigotry. There has been much disinformation spread about us, so if you have good faith questions, feel free to ask. We are not “pro-Russia” as many of our detractors claim, we are anti-NATO, as they perpetuate the amerikan empire. Please ask us anything in this thread!

We hope this defederation is temporary, or better yet, never comes. We do not wish to split two large queer instances just weeks after federating, but we must do what we think is right.

Trans rights forever!

Also here is the head mod defending a transphobe/chaser https://hexbear.net/comment/3762972

This is an admin post, intended for blahaj lemmy users. Top level posts from members of other instances will be removed.

==

Edit - Hexbear announced plans to deferedate from us.

==

~~After recent events, it feels to me that sentiment has shifted and more people are asking for defederation of hexbear than previously~~

~~I've been doing my best to try and mend bridges and keep us connected, as it's my hope that we can maintain trans solidarity and work with them, despite the friction, however, ultimately, I feel that this is an issue for the blahaj lemmy community to decide, not the admins alone~~

~~So here's what we're going to do~~

~~We're going to leave things as they are for a week. That will give time for things to calm down whilst we see if we can work together. After a week, I'll put up a vote and get a feel for where the community is at in regards to our continued federation with hexbear. That poll will run for a week. If there is a strong will to defederate (a clear majority), then that's what we will do~~

I figured since their admin has asked them to stop participating over here it may be worthwhile to get a new discussion going that is primarily blahaj. I'm almost certain they'll still be upvoting so keep that in mind as that may skew things. Worthwhile to check in from instances that have already defederated them. The previous thread definitely left a bad taste in my mouth but what do y'all think?

Old thread can be found here

EDIT: With regards to the post on new federation guidelines here: https://hexbear.net/post/352119

The current top comment is:

Every instance that has talked shit and got dogpiled should be thanking us for breathing some life into their dead and boring ass websites.

So somehow I can't change my display name. When I go to settings I can change the value, but when I click save and refresh, the old value is still there. I have this problem for a few weeks already, so I don't think I'm just too impatient. It seems to be similar for other settings like 2FA, but it'd especially annoying for the name, bc I now can't set my chosen name. Does anyone else have a similar problem? Do you know a workaround? Can I help fixing the problem?

I’m not sure what’s going on over there, but half the time I see a post from there or go into a comment section and it’s just…bad. Like old reddit the_donald bad. Constant trolling, etc. You TS just really bad vibes. I’ve been blocking the communities as they come up, but I’m not sure what else I can do.

Been trying to upload photos using both Firefox mobile browser & Liftoff app, but both do not appear to be working.

Does not work when attempting to upload both as a post and uploading in post body.

Checked in other instances, and I am able to upload images there.

Do I need special permissions or something? Please let me know!

I took some screenshots of error messages, but obviously I am unable to upload then, so.

User profiles and banners appear blank for me. No error or anything just blank. Both my own profile and other profiles seem to be affected. I've tried logging out, using another browser, clearing cookies and it doesn't seem to change.

Was it an update or a DDos attack?