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.
At first I was against defederating from them, since even though I do not agree with their viewpoints, I was of the opinion that we should not be so hasty to defederate with anyone. I thought that it was against the spirit of the Fediverse.
However, I have since changed my mind. There are three types of federation in Lemmy: allow list, block list, and open. We aren’t under any obligation federate anyone that feels like spinning up an instance.
The people on that instance, including its mods and admins, are a hate group. They break the sh.itjust.works rules of being respectful and having no bigotry. The exploding-heads content has no business even reaching the sh.itjust.works server, in my opinion.
It would also be a very bad look for us for sh.itjust.works users to create an account here and begin posting on instances which break our rules.
There is also the argument that, since we federate with a Nazi instance, we are also a Nazi instance. We had the “The Donald” and “Conspiracy Theories” communities which also supported that argument. Whether you agree with it or not, this is why we have been defederated from Beehaw, one of the larger Lemmy instances.
In addition to all of the ideological arguments above, they have opened themselves up to a botswarm invasion, and I think that is itself a reason to defederate them. It’s a simple security concern!
Finally, I am in disbelief we are even voting on this a second time. I would have expected the moderator team to honor the previous vote to defederate from them. Any further discussion and vote should have been to re-federate with them.