Programming

no offense, but i don't think copying reddit posts is the best idea to convince more people to join. when people say they want content on a social media platform, they generally mean organic, fresh content as opposed to stale & regurgitated posts. while the idea will probably catch a few temporary eyes, i don't really see many people staying on a platform for what is essentially an archive of years old topics. i mean after all if a lemmy instance is just a snapshot of old reddit posts, then why not just go back to reddit & get that content + the newer content too? even for those that do, if people are anything like me they'll want to actually see the original comments of the thread & not being able to do that will likely just frustrate them.

additionally, archived/mirrored reddit posts are already everywhere. you can likely find the top 100 posts of reddit on a youtube video or some random site already. do we really just want to be another reddit repost mill? you also have to consider the demographic - most people switching to lemmy are long-time/heavy users, because many casual/new users don't care enough about the situation to leave. those long-time users have likely already seen all the top r/bestof & r/all posts on the site, some of them getting popular many times over the years, & probably don't want to see them again.

imo the best thing that lemmy & the fediverse can do is be our own thing & focus on quality > quantity. this is not a for-profit platform, so i don't see the need to try & convince every reddit user to switch.

Personally I would think very carefully before doing this from a number of points of view. Below is not legal advice, just some thoughts you might want to consider.

• From an operational and strategic question is it desirable? Personally I question whether the threadiverse should want to align itself with R$ from a supply chain point of view in terms of content, or generating traffic for them, or perceptually.

• Is this activity something that the stakeholders on the R$ side would object to? Personally, I would put this somewhere between the maybe and probably category.

• Especially since there may be objections from stakeholders one would think that there may be legal issues. A question to ask then is under what legal theory are you allowed to do this and also under what legal theory would other stakeholders argue you are not? You might start by reading R$ user agreements. Can you find any explicit permission for the contemplated activity? Probably not? Keep in mind copyright is typically a deny, then allow type regime. So no support may mean denied. Moreover there are the contract terms if any. Moreover the agreement probably has the user give R$ a lot of rights, but does not give anyone else much for rights. Check.

• Ok what support might exist? Take a look at the user agreement, but last time I checked, I think the agreement states that the content originator retains copyright. This suggests that that the originator can give permission or perhaps can do what they want with their content. One might guess though that this may not include the structure of the content on the service.

• Then there is the question of linking. Since search does that all the time maybe that might be an avenue? But then the question, why would one want to direct people to content on R$?

Beyond this only an attorney can say. Seems a question for an attorney say at the Software Freedom Law Center (https://softwarefreedom.org/) or the EFF (https://www.eff.org/), or an attorney of your choice.

That’ll stop working after Jul. 1st though