During the past month, we've been working rapidly on adding features to lemmy-ui. We also finished up the last major backend changes. This means we can soon go to the beta phase for 1.0, which will focus on testing, bug fixing and helping Lemmy clients to start updating for the new API. After that will be the release candidate phase when version 1.0 will be live tested on lemmy.ml.

You can see the changes in action on the test server voyager.lemmy.ml (which was recently wiped). Registration is open, you are welcome to try things out. To stay up to date with our progress look at the lemmy-ui 1.0 and lemmy 1.0 milestone issues.

The major changes during October were:
- Speeding up migrations for 1.0 and reducing database size
- Notify users about moderation actions
- Default data for new instances (welcome post and popular communities)
- Card views for post listing
- Showing community sidebar on create post page
- Blurhash for images

::: spoiler Full list of changes by user

matc-pub

• Pick date-fns based on translation description (fixes #3483)

dullbananas

• Shrink things that are rewritten in slow migrations

SleeplessOne1917

• Re-export PersonResponse from lemmy-api-common

MV-GH

• Reduce recompositions in the comments

dessalines

• Remove special BanFromCommunityResponse in favor of PersonResponse.
• Multi-community-feeds should be at /m/ , not /c/
• Fixing a few issues with federation-view exports.
• Fix release builds by remove space in platforms.
• Add comment for is_upvote API fields.
• Make sure creator_banned uses item_creator for ReportCombinedView
• Make all the serde tagged types snake_case
• Adding read bool to mark_many_as_read API.
• Make sure create_multi_community_entry returns the community.
• Fixing admin instance block expires_at to use a unix timestamp, with a check.
• Making multi-community follow and edit return a MultiCommunityResponse.
• Add wait after delete user to fix federation CI tests.
• Changing NotePerson response from SuccessResponse to PersonView
• Adding follow_state to MultiCommunityView
• Adding creator and community indexes for post_aggregates.
• Clean up post and comment actions bars
• Adding enable_animated_images, and hide_media setting.
• Adding support for stay_logged_in to login and signup fields
• Adding community description to form and community sidebar.
• Add blurhash image using unlazy.
• Adding collapse_bot_comments setting, and doing that action.
• Upgrading for new API updates
• Adding card and small card views
• In instance settings move admin list to users tab
• Fixup instance_blocks.tsx
• Add more settings
• Fix link-dark issues
• Remove tables in favor of bootstrap columns
• Use btn-sm for post and comment actions buttons.

Nutomic

• Remove some unused code
• Small compile speed optimizations
• Revert changes to crud trait which slowed down compilation (ref #5874)
• Retry tests in ci on failure (ref #5925)
• Handle plain identifiers in markdown
• Setup default data for new instance
• Fix wrong federation error and simplify code (fixes #4363)
• Implemente federated instances view (fixes #6063)
• Expire logins after one week by default, add param stay_logged_in
• Create plugin hook for new notifications and reports (fixes #1027, fixes #5349)
• Fix for NodeBB compat and updated test assets
• Include caller information in error logs
• Include id for CommunityHasNoFollowers
• Auto-follow community when enabling notifications (fixes #6081)
• Serialize enum variants in snake_case (fixes #6062)
• Dont send duplicate notification in case of reply with mention
• Include keyword blocks and discussion languages in backup (fixes #5811)
• Use proper title for replies and mentions in RSS feed (fixes #5357)
• Private community fixes
• Add build.rs to update db migrations macro (fixes #6005)
• Allow users to view comments of deleted posts (fixes #6044)
• Multi-community fixes
• Proper error message for image upload (fixes #6042)
• Case insensitive comparison for read_from_apub_id (fixes #6037)
• Move some errors to not be translated
• ReportCombined: add missing column creator_ban_expires_at
• Allow mods to resolve removed posts (fixes #6018)
• Split apub code into multiple crates, other changes for faster building
• Notify mod actions
• Remove env var LEMMY_UI_HTTPS (fixes #3573)
• Check for untranslated error messages (fixes #3478)
• Use localhost as testhost
• Private community
• Use upstream status code for error responses (fixes #3085)
• Change format for inserted person/community links (fixes #1743)
• Consistent size for action buttons (ref #3503)
• Disable comment form if post is removed or deleted
• Revert "Add button to expand all images"
• Enable some lint rules for jsx
• Block community from context menu (fixes #3306)
• In comment search results show post and community (fixes #1959)
• Open link for markdown help in new tab (fixes #2129)
• Add rel=nofollow to markdown links (fixes #542)
• Show sidebar on create post page (fixes #1522)
• Add audio player for direct links to audio files (fixes #2529)
• Fix "show context" (fixes #3496)
• Indicate removed/deleted comments (fixes #1144)
• Use lint to disallow console.log
• Filter community selection for posting (fixes #2604)

:::

Or see the full list of changes at the links below:

• Backend
• Frontend
• Jerboa

An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and Nutomic work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. The only available option are user donations.

To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached we can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.

Donate

Cy-Fair ISD's board president and vice president were losing their re-election bids after the early voting period, and a slate of nonpartisan newcomers was poised to break a politically conservative majority in the Houston-area school district, based on incomplete results released Tuesday night by the Harris County Clerk's Office.

Lesley Guilmart in position 5, Cleveland Lane Jr. in position 6 and Kendra Camarena in position 7 were leading their races after the early voting period. Lane is trying to unseat board President Scott Henry and Vice President Natalie Blasingame — with Blasingame opting to run against her former ally Henry instead of seeking re-election in position 6.

Conservative board members have held a 6-1 majority since 2023. They will preserve that majority if at least one of the following candidates manages to win – either Blasingame or Henry in position 6, Radele Walker in position 5 or George Edwards Jr. in position 7.

The board runs the third-largest school district in Texas and oversees 117,000 students as well as a $1.2 billion budget.

Is there anywhere as ableist as my family's "social circle"? Like... anyone who acts slightly "weird" just get labled my language's equivalent of [the r-word]. Social awkwardness as an adult, neurodivergence, especially autism, they all get labeled in this one category of "the stupids". Idk what the fuck my parents keep talking to, but they say back in their village (idk if father's or mother's), there is a family where the mother died, and the the son, "went crazy/stupid" (emphasis on the quotation marks), so, my mom keeps projecting that fear on me, she thinks I would be a failure like that person. I think there are like a lot of these similar stories that gets spread around from other villages.

These people just get basically abandoned by society, like sure maybe people will have pity for them, maybe they'll live, but they're basically being treated like a beggar, sort of, a nuisance, a leech, a useless eater of the villages, yea sure they'll "live", but they're just gonna get hidden away from society, never really be accepted or even tolerated in public, so fucking depressing to think about. This is mainland China btw, zero disability rights, they're not seen as human beings, just some crippled puppy/kitten that they only keep around out of pity, to make themselves seen as saints or something, because they wanna pretend like good people, they wanna get "good karma" (as in the religious/spiritual sense), yet you go on wechat, you hear all the vile shit they say to each other about them on voice calls, zero political correctness, always throwing deogratory terms. I overheard these calls first hand, that's how I learned the term “低B” (a very deogratory term, equivalent to the r-word in English). They keep using these people as an example of what "failure" is. Like: "if you don't start acting 'normal', that is you one day", this fucking society... What the hell even is "normal", is neurodivergence "insanity" now? What the hell. And the reason why I feel so depressed is because these are literally my compatriots, from around where my ancestry is. In another timeline, I could've been in their position, I could envision that universe, being in their shoes. Depressing stuff to think about.

Oops! All Arbeit Macht Frei!

A Pennsylvania artist’s efforts to create a Halloween float for a local Catholic school went awry when he inadvertently included a replica of the gateway arch from a Nazi concentration camp, prompting a hasty apology from the diocese of Harrisburg.

In apologizing for the fiasco, Galen Shelly told PennLive that a lighted archway and lanterns he ordered to decorate a parade float he was building for Hanover’s St Joseph’s school did not arrive in time – so he searched the internet for images of cemetery gates to represent the idea that “none of us get out of this life alive”.

What he found, and replicated, was a photograph of the gates from the second world war Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, among the most notorious of the Nazi death camps during the Holocaust in which at least 6 million Jewish people were systematically murdered.

The float, captured in images of the 30 October parade posted to Facebook by the Hanover Area Watch group, featured Shelly’s cloned archway containing the German phrase Arbeit Macht Frei – work sets you free – a slogan the Nazis placed at the entrance of numerous concentration camps to mock those who passed through the gates to face brutality and extermination.

“I had no ill intent,” Shelly told PennLive. “I made a mistake and I am deeply sorry.

How the fuck do you not know that "Arbeit Macht Frei" is a loaded term?

Content warning: this article contains discussions of rape and sexual assault, which some readers may find upsetting

Israeli troops who (allegedly) raped a bound Palestinian prisoner so brutally that he almost died have appeared, masked, on Israeli TV to demand ‘justice’ and criticise those who condemned their actions and “tried to break us”.

Zionist Israelis are always the victim – even when it comes to rape they perpetrated

Their victim’s injuries were so severe that he almost died – and the senior military lawyer who leaked video of the crime has been arrested for causing Israel what wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu described as Israel’s worst ‘PR’ crisis.

But the men – three of the five accused perpetrators – are horrified at the supposed injustice of the charges against them, because they “defended the home and only thanks to [us] are we all here today”:

thecanary.co/wp-content/upload…

On Israeli Channel 12 last week journalist Guy Peleg, who published the original video of the gang rape, read out horrific details of the injuries the rapists inflicted on their victim, as they are laid out in the indictment against them. A panel member tried to stop him, saying it was “like playing that video again”:

thecanary.co/wp-content/upload…

Defendants kicked, stomped… used a taser… stabbed the detainee in the buttocks with a sharp object… caused a tear in the rectal wall… Ordered the detainee to put a club in his mouth.

Peleg has been targeted by Israeli right-wing media and politicians since publishing the video and has received death threats. The incident for which the five soldiers have been charged is just one out of dozens, even hundreds, of such incidents of sexual violence and torture perpetrated against civilian Palestinian abductees.

But Israel is always the victim.