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Update on federation

Hey hexbears just want to update everyone.

We took the weekend to properly consider and are removing: programming.dev , aussie.zone , and lemm.ee from our allow-list.

We will look at refederation with lemm.ee after local-only communities are developed. When that feature is available we would really like to consider changing every hexbear community to local-only except for chapotraphouse, askchapo, news, and the_dunk_tank. The final say on if a community is local only or not is 100% up to the mod team on that community.

The reason for this is that lemm.ee despite having twice our monthly active users has a 700k annual comment rate to hexbear's 1 million, in addition lemm.ee has very little active communities that do not exist on hexbear.

Resulting in lemm.ee benefit of federation being votes and views, with a secondary benefit of comments.

However, as expressed by users belonging to marginalized groups, comments from .ee users are often lib-shit and in some cases outright hostile. While many on hexbear love dunking on these lost libs the duty to protect marginalized users is much more important.

The end vote for programming.dev and aussie.zone was a tie, so we decided to break the tie in favor of defederation. The decision on lemm.ee was much harder as the average user did express desire to remain federated however the admin team decided that a temporary removal from our allow-list was the best option.

As an admin team we have never wanted to prioritize growth, and we wanted to give federation with liberal instances a try, however we consider providing a safer browsing experience for marginalized users more important than the opportunity to dunk.

While user side instance blocking and local sort are options, neither address the issue of federated instance users coming into posts in hexbear communities to make reactionary comments.

Thank you everyone who gave input and please provide any feedback, comments, concerns, etc in comments.

final vote count:

federation

all 32

aussie.zone 27

lemm.ee 41

programming.dev 27

lemmy.blahaj.zone 5

defederation

all 40

aussie.zone 19

lemm.ee 4

programming.dev 19

lemmy.blahaj.zone 43

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243 comments

  • We took the weekend to properly consider and are removing: programming.dev , aussie.zone , and lemm.ee from our allow-list.

    lemmee 73 federation vs lemmee 44 defederation

    This is a crock of shit. We have a clear majority, and not only a majority, but a near supermajority at that. This isn't a "the Hexbear community is undecided over whether to federate with lemmee" or "federation with lemmee has proven to be controversial." We have a clear preference for federation and our clear preference ought to be honored.

    I bet you if you have another stickied thread with the simple title "Should Hexbear defederate from Lemmee," federation would not only win the majority, but win a supermajority as well.

    • I feel like you're intentionally missing the point. Democracies have the innate flaw of the majority winning out, even at the detriment of the marginalized. Voting didn't end Jim Crowe, it didn't end slavery, it didn't legalize gay marriage. The US isn't a democracy, but if we're communists and seeking a better world, the idea that a majority rules democracy is a bit silly when marginalized groups with legitimate concerns will just be ignored for the majority's will. I imagine most people when polled wouldn't give a shit if a pipeline was built through indigenous land, but the indigenous population living there and that will be impacted by it the most has a lot more to lose, but the majority otherwise wouldn't care. In comparison a quick vibes based polling of a website is insignificant, but the same principles are in play.

      • I think these comparisons are a bit extreme for what’s happening here honestly

      • marginalized groups with legitimate concerns

        It's not that legitimate concerns haven't been raised, but more about whether those legitimate concerns are prominent enough that you could elevate them from particular individuals to a group. And it's definitely not groups. It's a particular group, in particular trans femmes and enbies who have issues with getting transphobic DMs from transphobic assholes. This is what is at stack. Federation with lemmee certainly didn't make things worse for the few POCs here mostly because Hexbear is already like 90% white anyways. You can't pin the multiple embarrassing 200+ comment threads made by the white guilt mayo users here on Lemmitors.

        So, now that we narrow down the particular marginalized group to trans femmes and enbies, then the question becomes do trans femmes and enbies as a collective group rather than particular individuals face legitimate concerns? I don't think the question is as straightforward as the pro-defed crowd claim it is. For one, I see no meaningful discussion about a crisis of transphobic lemmee users on /c/anti_cishet_aktion, /c/transenby_liberation, or /c/traa. Prominent trans users like Awoo and kristina are pro-federation. Speaking of kristina, she not only wanted to continue federation with lemmee, but she even wanted to refed with blahaj, no doubt to save whatever is left of that instance's trans users from /c/196 chasers. And she isn't lax with transphobic bullshit either since she herself was the main person pushing for defederation with programmingdev, which I agree with. It doesn't make me "intentionally missing the point" if I say that the majority vote should be honored and that I trust the judgment of esteemed trans users over some other trans users.

      • Wait I thought defederating meant we don't have toxic posts like this anymore? Guess we didn't defederate hard enough, we should defederate more.

243 comments