Bonus Panel
Transcript
[A man in a suit stands on stage, arms outstretched before a crowd]
Suit: And with AI we won’t need apps anymore. We’ll have a single terminal from which you can find anything you want!
[A man in the crowd shouts back]
Heckler: That used to be called the internet!
[The man on stage shouts, his arms raised in anger. His robot minions rush after the heckler, drones fly after the heckler overhead as the heckler flees]
Suit: Seize him!
[Bonus Panel: The author shouts at the stage]
Author: Bring back Memepool!
On the topic of AI… I’ve found that smaller, self hosted models are actually quite adept at helping you search better. I’m not talking about replacing a search engine with an AI interface (like e.g. Perplexity did), but when you struggle to find relevant hits, throwing the query into a mini LLM (3-4B params), one you can even run on your phone, can be super helpful in refining the query itself, including further keywords you might not have thought of. Again, not talking about using a cloud hosted big model that burns through ten times more kwh to give a worse result.
Oh I’ve never thought of that. Thanks.
Do you have any examples of such models? Models like this are the only interest I have in LLMs.
I’ve been mainly using gemma4:e4b - interestingly, even though it’s supposed be a subset/lesser variant of Gemini for self-hosting, its overall approach in reasoning and iterations over search terminology and query optimisation is much, much better than what you get from Gemini.
And to be fair I also quite like Perplexity - its ability to find relevant information from multiple sources, find both supporting and counter arguments where relevant, and build quite precise summaries. I do wish it was DIY-able, but with all the malicious actors I don’t feel comfortable allowing any LLM to just browse the net, who knows, even with properly secured tool calling, prompt injection can happen.
We need a rule against ads.
Im on Lemmy specifically to not have ads. Those banners are seriously jarring. I blocked the artist’s sub for this reason, I don’t think comics with banner ads should be on the main comic sub.
This is how the comic is shown on the artist’s website and we went through a whole thing in this community about someone modifying the comic already.
This is also kind of getting into the reason why RSS failed. People wanted content without ads or paying for it and a lot of content providers didn’t see the utility of giving away the content for free without the chance for revenue to come in.
True. My personal issue was always more about removing attribution which takes the credit away from the artist. It feels wrong to modify the authors image.
We don’t have to crop it, we can just not allow it. My hate for ads vastly outweighs how funny this comic is. It’s also only this artist that is doing it.
I’m not against having links to his stuff in the post body and all, but this is a bit forced.
I also don’t think this sub will fail unless we allow banner ads. We are reposting content, it doesn’t have much to do with the RSS situation.
I’m firmly bent on never paying for any entertainment I can get for free. Whereas artists are firmly bent on wanting to be paid a living wage for the art they create which entertains the masses. This conflict of interests is a tale as old as time.
Support ethical ads.
I can tolerate unobtrusive ethical ads, that’s the best I can give you.
I block ads everywhere I can because I’m sick of the low effort, blatant manipulation campaigns.
An artist trying to get the word out that their work is for sale is completely fine with me.
I thougut I already blocked Beep.
Grimy isn’t Beep tho. Beep was all for removing attribution as he called even signatures “ads”.
What’s at the bottom is legitimately an ad for the authors new books on Kickstarter which support his ability to continue making these comics. But I understand frustration at seeing ads anywhere as I’m rather against it myself.
🤷♂️ Idk. I get your point of view, and you’re right it’s legitimately an ad. I’ll consider cropping it in the future, but I’m a bit torn on it. Let me think about it a bit.
it’s legitimately an ad
But at least it’s an ad for an author referring to more of their work. It’s not like he’s got a box of cheerios or something on there. Is a patreon URL an ad?
I mean that’s kind of where I’m at. It’s the artist promoting his book to support his livelihood, so idk. If you go to his website and click the image it will redirect you to his kickstarter page for his two new books.
I think the difference is the size and how it’s meant to catch your eye compared to a Patreon link. I don’t really have ads on anything I use so its kind of apparent when I come across his comics.
Im not against links in the body or a line or two at the bottom of the image or anything. I just consider all ads bad, I’m surprised this is considered controversial on Lemmy.
Well, I guess a bot that reads tags and drops a comment about merch and the author would be interesting. It’s arguably an ad but since it’s textual and all that.
Im ok with the ad, tbh I didnt even notice until I saw this comment chain
Ya, I think cropping it would be the best solution but would probably start a debate about the rules and all that.
I think a level of ads is acceptable too, like just a one line at the bottom of the comic inviting people to the website or something.
1/4 of this comic is an ad though, it’s a lot. The comic takes up my whole phone screen top to bottom when browsing, so it’s essentially covering 1/4 of my screen. It’s more aggressive than actual banner ads on websites.
It’s not even 1/4 of the comic.
I’m torn. Because like, I’m trying to audition for a show that’s going to be this December and when I get the part (because I am already working on it godsdammit, I just started arranging a blues rendition of lonesome polecat that when the directors hear it this June we’re putting it in the show) and I want all y’all to come see me make a fool of myself. So my position is a little self interested.
I wouldn’t lump self promotion by fellow lemmings with ads like these. You should definitely post about your show!
wait. this june. WAIT FUCK I GOTTA FINISH THE SONG
Lol I didn’t even scroll down enough to notice that.
My app doesn’t cut off images, I can see the whole post from my feed. Are people using apps that cut off images in the feed? I have to scroll past the ad if I want to view the next post.
Im on Lemmy specifically to not have ads.
That seems to be a topic a little orthogonal to the current one.
Nevertheless, how should Lemmy sites remain online? Is it the ads you hate, or the algorithm that prioritized revenue over your experience? If you hate the algorithm, that’s understandable; but if you want to use a service without kicking anything in - viewing interspersed ads or paying a subscription - that suggests some hypocrisy that I’d rather not assume exists.
So what kind of subscription did you negotiate, and can we sign up as well?
What are you talking about? Lemmy doesn’t have ads; this ad was just part of the comic image and has fuck-all to do with it being posted here.
Lemmy.world takes donations, and AFAIK it’s funded just fine.
Lemmy occasionally has announcement posts: “Hey bros, we’d like it if more people could donate to assist with hosting/maintenance costs”. That, by any basic standard, is an ad, just like choosing to support these artists is a purchase.
Any mention of a popular game or movie, like recent reviews, is also effectively an ad. The difference is, some can be less obtrusive, or even openly invited because the user base is actively seeking the type of item being advertised.
Uhhhh bro, why is everyone coming at me with “Lemmy won’t survive without ads”.
Almost every comic posted here since the start hasn’t had banner ads. This artist is starting to include it, just ban those specifically.
Lemmy doesn’t need ads, this isn’t Reddit.
I am not aware of any anti-advertising mechanisms available on Lemmy? That would be neat, if it were possible. 😅
I don’t always like, or agree with, every comic that gets posted to this community, but as long as said comic follows our established rules, I see no reason to remove the comic. We as a community have established that modifying a comic (cropping or otherwise remove any attribution, especially in the name of “advertising”) is not in the best interest of the community.
As an aside, I don’t know what Lemmy client you use, nor if it has a feature for filtering out keywords. If it does, you can filter out “SMBC” as cannedtuna has kindly tagged the comic series in the post title. If it doesn’t, it might be worth requesting that feature and/or finding a client that would allow you to do just that; filtering out unwanted posts is a really nice feature.
If there would be any rule change, I wouldn’t be opposed to requiring adding artist/comic series tagging in post titles. And I am certainly open to having that discussion with the entire community.
Are you opposed to having a conversation with the entire community about banning comics with ads?
We already had that conversation. It’s rule #4.
📽️ Credit Where Credit is Due - Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting. - Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
(emphasis mine)
Banning comics because they have aggressive ads is far different than cropping to remove attribution. Both rules can exist at the same time.
A small static banner at the end is about as unaggressive of an ad as you can get tho. And this is from someone who runs AdBlockers system and network wide.
If you consider that aggressive then I’m afraid what happens if a tv ad shows itself to your somewhere in the wild. I imagine you immediately punch through the screen in a crazed frenzy lest the animated ad make your heart stop from the sensory overload.
It’s a 1/4 of my screen
My apologies. I didn’t know you were viewing this on a gba micro. Pretty neat tho.
Your argument, as it stands right now, is not compelling enough to warrant a change in a rule that the community has voted on having.
Literally the opposite of having a conversation with the community. No content with 1/4 screen ads was being posted when the rules were made.
Let me remind you of a few things:
- I am allowed to disagree with any point or argument made in a discussion
- I am allowed to tell you when I feel your side of the argument or discussion is not compelling me in any way
- This conversation is still ongoing, as evidenced by any lack of comment removal, user bans, and thread locking
I understand you feel strongly about this, and whether you believe me or not, I respect your point of view. Show me a better argument than the one you are currently presenting and change my mind*. Also, you will need to change the community’s mind too.
~* This is not one of those typical bad-faith “change my mind” meme references you might have seen flying around.~
Yes they were. SMBC has been doing this for years.
![Terminal [SMBC]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e4ec1c5e-33dc-4412-8be3-0bd19be8e938.png){kind=link}