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.
While I generally agree with the sentiment and I was very amenable to this argument originally, I have since seen enough and read enough that I now believe that a free speech absolutist instance that allows very close to anything will just cause any new users to see the communities with bigoted content and walk away. We will be left only with those that are ok with bigoted content. This will degrade our instance.
Well, all of us have seen the content by now, and we're still here.
However, you do make a good point. The limitations of this platform are quite grating at the moment. The solution would be a blocklist of communities and users that would be immediately applied to new accounts, and they could turn it off if they wanted.
It's hard to argue that having each new user potentially encounter bigoted content is worth it. The question still remains how much of that content actually pops up in their feed.
Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic to make the point. But still, over time this will change those who stay.
It's selection bias. I wrote a big, long comment just now before seeing this. sh.itjust.works has already bled users, even if the MAU has continued to grow. It's just that the makeup of those monthly active users is shifting, and will continue to do so the longer nothing is done one way or the other