Hey folks!

I’m writing this because funding for the Lemmy project has dropped to critical levels, which could seriously impact its future development.

Thanks to the generous support of our lemm.ee community, our server infrastructure costs are covered, and we even have a few months of runway. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed - lemm.ee wouldn’t exist without your help.

However, infrastructure alone isn’t enough. Our servers run Lemmy software, and without ongoing development, the platform cannot grow or even be maintained.

Lemmy is an open-source project with many contributors, but the vast majority of development work has been carried out by a small group of core maintainers. A few maintainers work full-time on the project, relying solely on donations and occasional grants to support themselves.

I’ve seen Lemmy development up close, and the maintainers have consistently gone above and beyond what I consider the standard for small open-source teams - they are constantly writing code, mentoring contributors, and keeping everything running. Their work is essential, and without continued support, it cannot be sustained.

If you value Lemmy, please consider supporting its maintainers directly. Every bit helps.

Please check out this post for more details about how to support the maintainers: https://lemm.ee/post/63034576

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great weekend!

  • passenger@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    13 hours ago

    Sure.

    Many of them seem to be kids, judging by their posts and tasteless meme / emoji usage.

    But don’t forget that Putin’s troll factories are a proven fact and the employees are spread throughout the internet. I would not be surprised if this is just what some of these guys do for a living.

    • sudneo@lemm.ee
      2·
      13 hours ago

      If they do, they are really bad at it. They are basically a close community and they got isolated even in a tiny community like (the wider) Lemmy.

      I do remember a fun anecdote where a post was shared from a propaganda website, one of those that would appear here. The article was clearly faked, the alleged “Ukrainian Nazi profile” on Instagram didn’t exist, the same news couldn’t be found in Russian (only in English) and the text was the same across 3-4 random websites. They were discussing it seriously of course, but between them, which again, to me suggest more an echo chamber rather than a deliberate effort to push propaganda.

      Either way, I did block generously :)

      Edit: it was easy to find from my modlog, since I was banned for “Nazi apologia” of course. https://lemm.ee/post/37342752