Entrepreneur, developer, seasoned system and network engineer, aspiring hobbyist pilot, husband and father.
Yes, this will not change. The /c/Agora will continue to be a platform for members to use to shape this instance.
Our Terms of Service will be likely be reviewed in the future, but our core philosophy of “don’t get us in trouble” will stay the same. We’ve always believed that the actions of a few shouldn’t negatively impact the experience for everyone else—and that belief still stands.
When it comes to defederation, we handle it on a case-by-case basis. We only consider it under very specific circumstances, or if there’s a clear mandate from the community. For example, we may choose to defederate from an instance if it's causing harm or violating our rules, especially if their admin team is unresponsive or unreachable.
Whenever we do take such action, we usually start a discussion with the community to keep everyone informed. In fact, this has happened recently—you can read more about it here.
Our Intentions to join Fedecan
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/35952239
Hey all,
Today, I’m writing to share our intention to join Fedecan, a Canadian not-for-profit organization committed to supporting the Fediverse. We believe this partnership will foster collaboration among like-minded individuals who share a common goal: to create a safe, welcoming space where people can connect freely.
Together we will help deliver a fast, reliable, and consistent experience for all and continue to be free from corporate influence and guided by the values of openness, community, and trust.
Who is Fedecan
Fedecan is a registered non-profit organization based in Canada, with the goal to provide a safe and welcoming space for people to connect with each other on the Fediverse. More information can be found here.
You may also know them by their Canadian lemmy instance lemmy.ca.
What does this mean fo
Our Intentions to join Fedecan
Hey all,
Today, I’m writing to share our intention to join Fedecan, a Canadian not-for-profit organization committed to supporting the Fediverse. We believe this partnership will foster collaboration among like-minded individuals who share a common goal: to create a safe, welcoming space where people can connect freely.
Together we will help deliver a fast, reliable, and consistent experience for all and continue to be free from corporate influence and guided by the values of openness, community, and trust.
Who is Fedecan
Fedecan is a registered non-profit organization based in Canada, with the goal to provide a safe and welcoming space for people to connect with each other on the Fediverse. More information can be found here.
You may also know them by their Canadian lemmy instance lemmy.ca.
What does this mean for sh.itjust.works?
From the outside everything will stay much the same, especial
I've went ahead and updated and applied the update to our configuration files. This issue should be sorted now.
Thanks!
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
I found that there were some changes to the nginx.conf file which can be seen here
it does look like its fixed in the 19.10 version of lemmy. I'll do another deep dive later tonight to see if we can just update the nginx configuration without upgrading to 19.10 and if its the case will schedule another small maintenance window this week to get it pushed out.
Thank you
sh.itjust.works
Give that link a try again otherwise as @[email protected] mentioned send us a PM with your account and we'll manually verify it.
Thanks
Hey there! I'm sorry that you didn't receive the activation email. Can I ask how long ago this was? I recently changed our email provider and want to make sure it wasn't after the fact. Thanks!
Upcoming Upgrade to 0.19.9
Hello SJW community!
I will be conducting an upgrade to the lemmy software this coming Friday, March 21st at 8:30PM EDT.
During this time we will be upgrading to lemmy version 0.19.9.
Users can expect up to 60 minute of downtime for the upgrade to complete. As always will do my best to do it in less time.
I'll be providing real time updates on our matrix channel throughout the process for those interested or who just want to keep me company.
Thank you all for being part of the fediverse and this instance.
Update: If you are seeing this, we have successfully upgraded to 19.9. About 20 minutes of downtime. Thank you all for your support and kind words.
Hey!
Everything has been reviewed and we're good to move over the 19.9. I'll be posting an announcement in the coming days to give everyone a heads up. I'm aiming towards the end of this week.
I want to say that I've been blown away by the amount of support that's I've received in the last 24 hours. You all have left me speechless. Thank you everyone who have donated and those who couldn't, know that being a good member of this community already more than I could ask for. Thank you!
Hey there, I considered this at first but my understanding with tesseract is that this would mean we'd be proxying account credentials/tokens of other instances. I'm comfortable in doing this for our own instance but it doesn't feel I'd be a responsible human to enable it for other instances. If there was a way to be more transparent to users using it for external instances I'd reconsider. I'm open to any feedback.
edit: typo
The 2025 SJW Update: Donations, costs and other points
Here it is, the update I've been promising you for some time.
When I first started this instance, I wanted a place where people could come together and share their experiences, knowledge and start discussions about the things that mattered to them. A place that was not driven by corporate greed but instead by its users.
In the early days of this instance, I founded the community /c/Agora to serve as a platform where users could openly discuss instance or fediverse-related matters and advocate for improvements and changes they would like to see. I want to put emphasis on the fact that this instance belongs to all of you, now and in the future.
Most of you know that since the start of this instance I've been personally funding the costs associated with it. While a lot of you have been generous enough to ask for ways to contribute over the last year, I haven't allowed it. This reason was mainly related to time and in no rush in making donations my top priority. Over the last few mont
The 2025 SJW Update: Donations, costs and other points
Here it is, the update I've been promising you for some time.
When I first started this instance, I wanted a place where people could come together and share their experiences, knowledge and start discussions about the things that mattered to them. A place that was not driven by corporate greed but instead by its users.
In the early days of this instance, I founded the community /c/Agora to serve as a platform where users could openly discuss instance or fediverse-related matters and advocate for improvements and changes they would like to see. I want to put emphasis on the fact that this instance belongs to all of you, now and in the future.
Most of you know that since the start of this instance I've been personally funding the costs associated with it. While a lot of you have been generous enough to ask for ways to contribute over the last year, I haven't allowed it. This reason was mainly related to time and in no rush in making donations my top priority. Over the last few mont
Absolutely. This is exactly why It's important that we get a donation strategy put into place sooner rather than later.
This is odd. I did not upgrade pictrs (the service responsible for image hosting). There may have been an error for some specific tables rows during the database migrates. Another possibility could have been an error during the schema update that I believe the new version had to go through.
Would you be able to DM me links to other posts that you come across with broken images? I will look to see if I can identify any common trends that could tell us more.
Thank you
We sure are!
SJW upgrade to v19.5
Hello sh.itjust.works community,
It’s been a while since my last update, and I owe you all a more detailed one soon. However, today I’m here to give you a heads-up about the upcoming upgrade.
Over the next 7 days, I’ll be upgrading the instance to v19.5. While this update doesn’t strictly require it, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to upgrade our Postgres database from version 15 to 16 as well. This process can be time-consuming and have take up to 2 hours to complete on other instance.
I'm optimistic that we'll complete it in less time, but to err on the side of caution, I've scheduled the maintenance window for 120 minutes.
To minimize downtime, I've split the upgrade into two phases: Phase one will cover the database update, and Phase two will handle the Lemmy code upgrade.
Note: If the database upgrade is completed in under 60 minutes, I’ll proceed with the Lemmy code upgrade during the same maintenance window.
Here's the tentative timeline:
| Task
It's coming. This instance is deployed using lemmy-ansible but with some slight modifications. I need to review a few things to make sure the transition is smooth. As you also pointed out, it's also summer time which isn't helping with my free time situation.
I have a long term solution that will speed up upgrades but I only expect to get it in place by the fall. In the meanwhile, I'm planning on getting this instance upgraded to 19.5 in the coming weeks.
Hey,
I'm due to make a post about the instances finances soon. I'll get one posted in the next bit.
I'm still covering costs out of pocket but my goal has been to have this instance fully funded by its members. I want this instance to stay true to its members, the fediverse and be put in a position where it can continue to thrive transparently without me. The admin team has been doing an outstanding job keeping this instance safe and moderated for everyone. I don't thank them enough but they are the true heroes of this instance.
As some may know, I've been working with a local non profit for the past 6 months to have them leveraged in accepting accepting donations for this instance. They have been slow to get things done but its progressing. I may end up doing what I was trying to avoid and create my own non-profit instead if that's what it takes. That direction does have its own challenges and would add additional responsibilities to my plate.
In the meanwhile, while some of the costs of the services have gone up slightly, I get joy knowing that I can continue providing this instance to all of you. I'm OK paying the costs to keeping the lights on until we can transition to donations.
Yes, I'll get this done
UPDATE: here you go https://oldsh.itjust.works/
There was a little hiccup this morning unrelated to the migration tonight. The Lemmy services like to be restarted every once in a while. Once we move to the new hardware I'll be able to look into implementing a better logging system and hopefully be more proactive when situations like these happen.
The biggest consumer of storage on this instance is related to the image hosting which we use an external object storage provider for. The second is the database which is no were near the 2TB capacity. 1TB SSDs are cheaper than 2TB SSDs and I also didn't want to spend more than I needed. As other mentioned if we need more space or IOPs in the future, I could accomplish this by adding more drives as a quick fix. This server does not support NVME unless I leverage its PCIe ports but I don't plan on doing that. By the time this instance gets to the point where 10 SSD drives just isn't cutting it anymore I'll probably have come across another opportunities on getting a new server with better NVME support.
Update on SJW upgrade to v19.3
Hello sh.itjust.works community,
Many of you have been eager to get an update about when the sh.itjust.works instance will get it's upgrade to the latest version of lemmy. Here's a update along with a tentative timeline.
In December 2023 I purchased a new server for this community. It took me awhile but I eventually made the time to get it racked at the local datacenter. For the sysadmins lingering and those interested here are the specs:
- Dual Xeon 2.9Ghz CPUs (32 cores total)
- 256GB ram
- 4 x 1TB SSD in raid 10 (with room to add 6 more disks)
- 10gbit networking
While I'm ready to proceed with the upgrade, I've decided to first migrate this instance over to the new hardware. Here are two reasons.
- Those of you who have been around long enough may remember that I've been running this instance on "borrowed" unused resources that were available at the time. There are no more resources available for this instance to grow.
- There are reports that the latest version of lemmy may
I've started the preparation steps to minimize the maintenance window needed for this upgrade. These operations are running some background tasks and once they are done I'll make an announcement to give everyone a few days heads up of the anticipated upgrade time and date. Should be soon.
Hey!
The best way is to @TheDude on our matrix channel. This action triggers notifications across all my devices, creating a barrage of alerts that almost always grab my attention, a.k.a a ddos to my sensory system.
@[email protected] explained it well. It was related to a small bug on the pictrs service that I've already reported which they quickly fixed in a newer version. I will tackle this upgrade at the same time as I get this instance up to v19
- SJW Rammy Statement
Please share your thoughts, concerns and opinions. Try to keep it constructive.
SJW Rammy Statement
Hey all,
Similar to the lemmy.world announcement, we have defederated from Rammy.
Want to discuss this more? I created a [Discussion] post for us to do just that.
Name the bot
Some of you may have noticed that there's a new bot in town. But this time, its one of ours.
What should we name it?
Post your entry.
Rules.
- The 5 most upvoted entries will be brought to a vote.
- The winning entry will become the display name of the bot.
Instance Upgraded to v0.18.0
This instance has been upgrade to 0.18.0.
The lemmy developers have removed the built in captcha so I had to enable email verification. They will be re-implementing this feature in the next update.
Lots of new improvements in this version. The Link i wanted to share is on the lemmy.ml instance and they appear to be down at the moment. Hopefully not related to this update.
Stay tuned.
Edit: Lemmy.ml back up, Here is the post: link of the update
- Agora Moderators
Hey all,
As discussed here, I am looking for 3 new moderators to help with this community.
Please review this post and vote for the candidate you would like to see help on this community.
In no particular order, the candidates are:
- @[email protected]
- @[email protected]
- @[email protected]
- @[email protected]
- @[email protected]
- @[email protected]
- @[email protected]
I invite you to review users post history when deciding on voting.
This thread will be open for 72 hours (until Friday June 23rd, 8PM ET) at which point voting will stop. Any votes after
- Seeking mods for The Agora
Since making the announcement last night to become community driven, The Agora has quickly become an active place full of discussions, proposals and voting. In order to keep things going I'm looking for volunteers to help facilitate the conversations and apply the rules that have been determine by this community.
As a mod of The Agora you should be active on our main matrix channel and willing to help facilitate conversations between other mods and users.
As a mod:
- you will still retain your right to vote just like anyone else.
- may be dismissed by the community if its felt you are abusing your powers or pushing your own agenda.
- will help maintain order.
- follow the rules of the community.
Not sure you want to help mod this community but would like to nominate someone else? go ahead and nominate someone.
Announcement: Embracing a New Chapter: Towards a Community-Guided Direction and Accepting Donations
Hey all
Today, I am thrilled to share two significant developments with you that will determine our shared future.
Firstly, the issue of donations. Since the inception of this instance, your most frequent request has been the ability to make contributions to support my initiative. While initially, I had never intended to accept donations, I've come to realize the value this brings in ensuring our platform's sustainability. In response to your requests, within the next week, I will be introducing several options for those of you who wish to donate. I want to emphasize that these donations are entirely optional and will directly support our instance's operational necessities - dedicated hardware, colocation fees, email services, and more.
The second announcement needs a full disclosure: it could be an extraordinary idea or potentially not so. Since the beginning of this instance, I've seen a number of insightful posts, recommendations, and ideas
Beehaw defederating update - sh.itjust.works
Like many of you, I woke up this morning to discover that our instance, along with lemmy.world, had been unexpectedly added to the beehaw block list. Although this development initially caught me off guard, the administrators at beehaw made an announcement shedding light on their decision.
The primary concern raised was our instance's policy of open registration. Given my belief that the fediverse is still navigating its early stages, I believe that for it to mature, gain traction, and encourage adoption, it is crucial for instances to offer an uncomplicated and direct route for newcomers to join and participate. This was one of the reason I decided to launch this instance. However, I do acknowledge that this inclusive approach brings its unique challenges, including the potential for toxicity and trolls. Despite these hurdles, I
"Give it to me!" She yelled.
"Give it to me!" She yelled.
"I'm so fucking wet, give it to me now!
She could scream all she wanted.
I was keeping the umbrella.
** Full disclosure, not my joke but still one I love to share
June 13 2023 - Lemmy Instance updated to version 0.17.4 - sh.itjust.works
Good morning,
Some of you may have experienced a small hiccup this morning (eastern time). I went ahead and upgraded our lemmy instance to 0.17.4. I also took this opportunity to make some small adjustments to the instance that required a restart of services. These changes were mainly related to increasing Federation worker count in hopes to decrease synchronization times with other instances. A small fix to help slow down the storage growth was also applied (limiting log sizes that get generated).
Everything should be back up now. In the future my goal is to be more transparent with scheduling downtime.
edit: updated link