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Rule 2 Clarifications and New Rule proposal

11 hours ago by curbstickle to c/selfhosted

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EDIT 2 AT THE TOP AGAIN:

It seems there is some confusion around the term "promo posts", so I'm making another adjustment for clarity. If this is muddying the waters instead, please point that out!

Self-promotion posts advertising their product requires community participation, or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be self-hosted in full without payment, your post is exempt from this rule.

I worry a bit that its getting unwieldy, so feel free to suggest options to clean up the language a bit.

EDIT AT THE TOP:

Promotional posts require community participation or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be used in full without payment, it will be exempt from this rule.

Intended to clarify on "paywall" - it has to be open source and run in full locally, no one-time or subscription-locked payment for features, to qualify. Donations don't count as that doesn't limit use, while something like Kavita (which has non-free features behind a subscription, despite the base being open source) would not have the benefit of exemption. The rule intent hasn't changed here, just the wording on the exemption limitations.

I've gotten through (I believe) all the comments in the meta thread. So I want to establish a few things, first being a better definition on spam.

Spam is not "I don't like this and its a paid product" or "I don't like this and they used AI/LLMs".

Spam would generally be considered:

  • Mass-posting - Posting the exact same post across a bunch of of different communities, rapidly.
  • Repetitive Content (aka karma farming) - repeatedly submitting old popular content. I'll note that this is completely irrelevant on lemmy, this was more of a reddit issue due to karma.
  • Bot Activity / AI Abuse - Using scripts/bots/gen AI to automate posts and comments.
  • Unsolicited DMs - Mass private messages or chats to users, completely unsolicited

I'd say anything other than that deserves a followup rule, and this definition should go in the sidebar.

Regarding the promotional posts themselves, I think something like the 10% rule makes sense - no more than 10% of the account should be self-promotional material or comments within the community.

I do think it makes sense to include an exception for 100% free/libre open source projects. Partially open projects with a closed (paid) component should be subject to the 10% rule. So what I propose as the rule would be:

Promotional posts require community participation or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & without any paywalls, it will be exempt from this rule.

Questions, comments, clarifications, and harsh criticisms are welcomed in the comments. As a reminder from my intro post, and because of some comments in the other thread, I will mention:

There are people on both sides of the keyboards, so please be respectful of others.

Mordikan 22 points 10 hours ago

I think 10% self-promotion is a very fair rule. It enforces the idea that if you are going to take from the community that you also give something back.

As someone who is partially self-hosted, I think that will help keep ads from muddying the waters when I'm searching posts for setup suggestions.

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Tolstoy 13 points 10 hours ago

Nice to see the changes, but may I ask if tagging could be beneficial?

Surely it would help to sort out self promotion, help requests and informational posts.

Also, since we're all in the lemmy-bubble, a lot of people may despise vibe-coded projects, at least it looks/feels like it, so it may be worth tagging project with AI code?

I'm maybe narrow-minded, but please enlighten me^^

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curbstickle_lw 7 points 10 hours ago

I actually do want tagging of some sort, I think its a sensible approach overall. I think its a quick way to identify that your project used AI and people can quickly filter, per your example.

That said, I think that should be a separate item, and I don't want to inundate with stickies either. That was going to be my next "oh look a mod is annoying us with his opinion again" post, but then we ended up seeing a ton of promo content this week. I'm trying to stick to a mod post every week or two so everyone has a chance to see and respond to things.

That said, if you want to get that discussion ball rolling, feel free to make a meta post about it of course!

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Tolstoy 4 points 10 hours ago

Thanks for your work, time and effort. I also think, it would be better to separate it and first end the discussion about promotions and co, so it could settle before kicking of another round^^

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carlnewton 8 points 7 hours ago

I saw the other thread and decided not to comment because there the conversation was looking pretty contentious, and I didn't want to put a target on my back, but as somebody who almost exclusively posts about my project on Lemmy, I thought that this might be a good opportunity to explain myself.

Due to my project being FOSS, I'm thankful that this 10% rule doesn't apply to me right now because I really don't think I could provide anything useful by spouting my opinions. I do look at questions to see if there's anything I can answer but the community is already great at that and most have more experience and knowledge of hosting infrastructure etc. I don't feel that I have a great deal of insight into what makes for a good self hosting setup, but I have a passion for writing open source software that can be self hosted, and this is the way that I feel I can contribute something meaningful.

I feel that when I post about my project, I am contributing. I'm telling you that it exists, it's free and you're welcome to try or leave it. I do try to keep it relevant so as not to hit anyone over the head with it, and I've put the detailed posts into their own community. Nobody is going to find out that some of these self hosted applications exist if they aren't told about them.

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curbstickle 5 points 6 hours ago

I feel that when I post about my project, I am contributing.

This is specifically the reason why the exemption would exist - because it is a contribution to the community. You don't have a paywall impacting use, the whole thing is just something being shared to others.

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i_stole_ur_taco 7 points 10 hours ago

I have opinions, but none of them well enough formed to have suggestions on the new rule.

Try it for a while and see if it works! We know this community ain’t shy about sharing when something isn’t working for them!

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curbstickle 5 points 9 hours ago

This will be up at least a day before the rule is put in place, and I'll keep the post up for the week for discussion in case there are clarifications that become apparent, so feel free to take time in considering it. And if it doesn't work or needs adjustment after, it can always be revisited too.

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breadsmasher 6 points 11 hours ago

Appreciate the clarification and expansion!

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non_burglar 4 points 10 hours ago

I do think it makes sense to include an exception for 100% free/libre open source projects.

Here we go again.

Both libre projects and free projects can make money via donation, patreon, or other business models. Allowing them a "vibe check" exception and not closed source or anything in between is propagating this notion that money and open source are mutually exclusive.

I appreciate the effort to establish some rules, but this is further entrenching the Lemmy self-hosting community in a mode where it's a FOSS-only space, which is both uninclusive and inaccurate.

If what you want is a FOSS-only space for self-hosting, I'd like to know that so I can find or start a similar community where ppl who do use closed source tools can post questions.

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curbstickle 11 points 10 hours ago

If you think this is about what I want, you haven't been reading any of my comments.

This comes out of what the community commented in the meta thread, with a bit of my own wording on top to meet the requests.

Also

I’d like to know that so I can find or start a similar community where ppl who do use closed source tools can post questions.

That isn't promotional material and would have nothing to do with this rule, so I'm not sure what you're driving at here.

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non_burglar 0 points 10 hours ago

Thank for the clarification.

If you think this is about what I want, you haven't been reading any of my comments.

I have read them, all of them. Your wording "I think it makes sense to..." suggests you're making a decision. It seems based on community input, but is nonetheless still your decision. As it should be.

I don't really have an opinion on the 10% rule, I don't think anyone can help but make that an arbitrary number.

I do, however, think it's a mistake to lean heavily toward favoring FOSS here because, as I mentioned, there is nothing preventing FOSS applications from making money. Further, it is very difficult to find software that is 100% FOSS through and through.

Ultimately, the line of what is FOSS and what isn't is what will become a problem.

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curbstickle 7 points 10 hours ago

Your wording “I think it makes sense to…” suggests you’re making a decision.

I'm taking an amalgam of the comments in the meta thread to rewrite for a singular rule. Of course it has my take in it. Which is why I use the word "proposed" - just like with rule 3 which was the cause of drama a few weeks ago, I put my proposed version out there, it saw some mild revision, now its in place.

but is nonetheless still your decision. As it should be.

I firmly disagree. The work is custodial, not dictatorial.

I do, however, think it’s a mistake to lean heavily toward favoring FOSS here because, as I mentioned, there is nothing preventing FOSS applications from making money. Further, it is very difficult to find software that is 100% FOSS through and through.

At which time as it becomes a problem it can be evaluated.

That said, it isn't hard to check the license being used (or licenses if it ties to multiple models), and the FSF has a great definition of f/loss. Can it meet the requirements to be f/loss and someone still make money? Yes.

Does that make a post about it an ad?

No.

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non_burglar 2 points 7 hours ago

At which time as it becomes a problem it can be evaluated.

This is functionally what I'm concerned about, and your comment above addresses it. Thanks.

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skankhunt42 2 points 9 hours ago

I think that's the important distinction to make. Maybe get rid of the f/loss exception and explicitly call out the paid aspect. If you're here to promote software that's pay walled you get the 10% rule.

ETA: I'm fine with the new rules. Just trying to find common ground.

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i_am_not_a_robot 3 points 6 hours ago

Are Home Assistant and Frigate exempted? Home Assistant is free and open source and you can self host it, but there is a built-in feature where you can pay a subscription to use Nabu Casa's ingress server and cloud GPUs, and many of the integrations are only useful if you have paid money for some piece of hardware or have a subscription to a cloud service. Frigate is free and open source, but it has built-in support for specially packaged computer vision models that are offered for a fee that supports the project. I wouldn't consider either application crippleware, but you can pay money to people who are affiliated with the project for a direct benefit that is related to the software.

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curbstickle 2 points 6 hours ago

Great question.

To be clear, this is about promo posts, and has nothing to do with discussing either of these projects.

So if HA decided to come in here and promo... Yes, that would be under the exemption, thats not a feature limitation but an add-on service. HA is not limited in any way by the subscription option with nabu casa.

Frigate on the other hand I don't think would fall under the exemption. You can't load models yourself - a feature specifically limited by subscription. If frigate devs came in to promote themselves, they would not fall under the exemption.

Again, either project (and closed source commercial projects) still can be discussed or posted about, this is specifically promo posting.

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i_am_not_a_robot 1 point 4 hours ago

You can load models for Frigate yourself, and the documentation tells you how to do it, but the recommended Frigate+ models are easier to use. For example, downloading and configuring YOLO-NAS becomes just copying and pasting a plus:// URL when you're signed in to Frigate+.

As another example, I would consider GitLab not to be free because GitLab is a for-profit company, the open source version of GitLab intentionally lacks features that would be particularly useful to business users, and you can pay GitLab to get those features in a special GitLab distribution distributed under difference licensing terms. If GitLab had a plugin model, and unaffiliated developers created paid plugins for those features, then I think GitLab itself could be considered free. But if paid plugins were developed by the same developers, would that make it not free again?

More strange examples:

  • Redis, which relicensed to a non-Free license in 2024, but would have still been usable by most people who are self hosting. Redis is available under AGPL since 2025.
  • All Hashicorp software, such as Terraform and Vault, which relicensed to a non-Free license in 2023, but is still usable for most people who are self hosting.
  • Docker, which is only free on Linux since it relicensed in 2022. Docker Engine only runs on Linux, but the closed-source Docker Desktop runs Docker Engine in a Linux VM and wraps the API to make it almost seamless on Windows and Mac OS, and for that you may need to pay a subscription.

I guess to me it seems like there's this gray area where you start having to think about intention and whether the software is really intended to be usable for the purposes that people in this community will want to use it for without having to pay the person doing the promoting.

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curbstickle 1 point 3 hours ago

You can load models for Frigate yourself, and the documentation tells you how to do it, but the recommended Frigate+ models are easier to use.

Ah, that didn't used to be the case. Or it changed quickly? I don't recall tbh, but "easier to use" wouldn't bar self-promo in that case, since you can load the models.

Redis, which relicensed to a non-Free license in 2024, but would have still been usable by most people who are self hosting. Redis is available under AGPL since 2025.

Not really weird, since v8 its AGPL, so its a fully open license. Prior license isn't relevant.

All Hashicorp software, such as Terraform and Vault, which relicensed to a non-Free license in 2023, but is still usable for most people who are self hosting.

Not a free license. No self-promo. OpenTofu? Totally fine (and personally recommended btw)

Docker, which is only free on Linux since it relicensed in 2022. Docker Engine only runs on Linux, but the closed-source Docker Desktop runs Docker Engine in a Linux VM and wraps the API to make it almost seamless on Windows and Mac OS, and for that you may need to pay a subscription.

Docker desktop - no self promo. Docker, promo OK.

I'm not seeing the complexity.

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EarMaster 2 points 4 hours ago

I find this too prohibitive. Even with the exception this would make me think twice about a promo post and maybe even refrain me from posting at all. For non-except services it is even worse. It may lead to spam posts or users trying to categorize contributions into useful and not useful posts.

Self hosting does not end for everyone with free services. Some of us are happy to pay for services provided by others and I would really like to read about these here as well. I know this is not the intention of the rule, but it will be its result.

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curbstickle 4 points 3 hours ago

I think some people are having trouble understanding what a promotion post is, thus the edit.

If you are not from that company, you can post about it, have discussions, talk about features in new versions, whatever. If you are from a company trying to promote your own product, that is when the rule applies.

How does this in any way impact your ability to post about a non-free product?

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