Exploding-heads.com is another instance on Lemmy where alt-right MAGA types tend to reside. Some people on this server want us to defederate from them immediately, some people want to save defederation as a last resort. They have 104 active users (more stats below).
It seems that exploding-heads has also experienced a recent botswarm invasion. This is obviously another point in favor of defederating them, assuming you are worried about botswarms, which is currently being discussed here.
My advice to you all is please try to discuss this in a civil manner, we need not allow them to create divisive conflict inside our communities. No matter how the vote turns out, you’re not going to be able to defederate from your fellow sh.itheads so be nice.
I’ve linked many of the previous discussions below so people who are out of the loop can get a general sense of the situation.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126 https://sh.itjust.works/post/410325
Lemmy.world just recently defederated them.
https://lemmy.world/post/747912
https://lemmy.world/post/577526
Although this could be considered a point in favor of defederation, it actually means even if we vote to remain federated, people have a great alternative in lemmy.world where they can still participate in our communities and simultaneously be protected from exploding-heads.
Ensuring diversity of servers is beneficial to the platform as a whole, but it is also not our responsibility to bear that burden.
TLDR, just wrap up any last points in this thread before we open the vote tomorrow. Please be civil.
EDIT: To clarify, this isn’t the official vote, this is the final discussion. The vote thread will be posted tomorrow and you will only be allowed to make a single comment saying Aye or Nay.
EDIT2: Vote thread is up, this thread is now locked. Very lively discussion thread sh.itheads. Please try to be more respectful next time.
How exactly are we giving them a platform by staying federated? They have their server, we have ours. Their posts only show up on this server’s timeline if someone subscribes to their communities, and even then, their 100 active users still have to create enough traffic to not be pushed down by the over 2000 active users on this instance, not to mention all the other instances we are federated with, that have each way more traffic than exploding-heads does.
Seriously, even while the sorting was busted in 0.17.4, I have never seen a post from exploding-heads. And as long as they don’t even come close to dictating what people on this instance see when they are looking at ‘all’, I don’t see the need for defederation.
It shows up when you browse the “all” feed. That’s the main point of federation. It greatly increases discoverability and it’s the main way newcomers (who do not yet have a lot of subscriptions) will interact with the Fediverse.
Sadly, my client doesn’t even let me block communities for myself. So right now I can’t avoid seeing alt-right shit under “all”. (I haven’t yet tried via my instance’s web site; hoping I can make a blocklist there.)
Yes, posts from exploding-heads can show up, but they only do if they “win out” against all the other posts. So if you sort by new or new comments, they might show up if they updated just recently, which is unlikely given how little traffic those posts get. For other sorting methods, there is little to no chance the ever making it onto the front page, because, again, they get so little traffic. Their numbers are simply too small to ever consistently,outside of bugs, make it onto the front page of this instance. Their limited user count also means that they, compared to all the other user visits this instance is getting, a few and far between. On the other hand, big instances like this one can dominate discussion on their instance. And as long as they don’t create an echo chamber on their side, I’m against us voluntarily depriving ourselves from the possibility of giving them pushback. And lastly, if we defederate, they can still create accounts here. I’d much rather have them visit this instance with their exploding-heads accounts, as that makes it far easier in spotting them.