I’ve gotten a few of them. I’m pretty certain they are spam or will be spam in the future. I block them.

If someone else has a better understanding of who/what they are, feel free to let me know too.

Copying, as you might not be able to see [email protected] response:

Dbzer0 is silenced on the piefed.social instance. I believe that you should (edit: not!) be able to read this comment (I’m not on dbzer0 but my instance is also Silenced 😆, so if you can’t see a dbzer0 user, you can’t see me too).

Edit: missed a punctuation.

.zip admins do make changes to the code (ex. removed the vote limiter). So they may have gone in and removed or altered the list.

As a slight clarification, Rimu specifically confirmed the change (voting restrictions) were not due to bandwidth concerns, but rather to curtail certain users from voting “too much”.

Also, confirmed the users in questions were not bots, just user who voted a lot (I’m in that category). My instance removed the limiter within a couple days of the update being implemented.

I may have misunderstood your comment.

If you’re asking what the downsides of not using “feeling” language is, from my perspective, when a comment is just stated, the statement comes across as a statement of fact, rather than someone’s understanding.

Someone’s understanding of something is not always fact and by lowering the statement from a ‘fact’ to an ‘understanding’ it lowers the temperature when information counter to someone’s understanding is presented.

My experience, is that it also helps start a dialogue. Example:

Person 1: “My understanding is that the government heats homes with space lasers.” Person 2: “I hadn’t heard that. My understanding is that homes are heated with building heaters. Can you provide me with a source to look more into the lasers you described?”

Versus: Person 1: “The government heats homes with space lasers.” Person 2: “You’re wrong. Homes are heated with internal heaters. Where did you hear that?”

From my perspective, the first exchange is more amicable and the second more contentious and more likely to lead to insults rather than a constructive conversation.

Edit: spelling.

Nothing. They’re a suggestion. I’ll work on restating the list to better reflect that. Appreciate the feedback.

Probably should be reworded as a suggestion rather than a rule.

Had another thought. If you could remote into their server could they not remote into your server?

I’m thinking this could be a good gateway trial option for clients. You set up services on your server and give them limited time access to the server to use the FOSS software. If they want, after the trial they can transfer their data. You then wipe the server to ensure their data is erased.

Also, an option I’m not sure you’d be excited about. You host everything for them and offer the service of using your server for their business needs (rather than just a trial). May be less headache in the long run (less overall hardware means less overall issues, presumably).

For the running of software on your server, I believe there are companies that do that already for the fediverse instances. May be worth looking at and seeing what they offer and for what price.

I think this could be a thing, but I feel getting the word out would be the hard part.

Maybe going to small business/incubator business networking events could provide potential clients. Getting in touch with incubators in general would probably be good, as they can pass word to their clients. Colleges and universities may be another avenue of getting the word out to potential new small businesses.

Also to consider, if it’s for businesses, there would need to be data redundancy. Otherwise, I feel, it would be a nonstarter. Data recovery/access to redundancy would likely need to be automated or very easy to do, otherwise you’re probably looking at irate calls in the middle of the night.