I have so many communities blocked purely because they're not relevant to my interests and I like to use the universal feed to find new communities. My block list must be hundreds.
Mine too. And 80% of it is furry porn.
Is this a generational difference in how people consume stuff? I'm all subscription driven with an occasional dip into local and all to see if there's anything interesting that's made it big (i.e. Top by day or week)
People are weird on the internet. I would never bathe in the firehouse of crap that is All - New, even with filters.
Yup. And languages I don't speak.
Except the "instance block" filter doesn't actually block users or content from the instance - e.g. they can still reply to you, generating notifications, etc. It would have been better named as a "community mute".
The only way I know of to actually block an instance is to either move your account to a different instance that has defederated from it, or switch to using PieFed rather than Lemmy (you can block all users from any instance you choose without admin support, and unlike defederation reverse that decision at any time, back and forth as often as you like with no loss of content), or switch to using a Lemmy app that supports it (Sync and Connect iirc, though I've personally never tried either).
If you do want to migrate between Lemmy instances, there is an import/export button in your settings that can make it a tiny bit easier by porting over your community subscriptions and block lists. Although messages sent to your old account will not follow you, and you won't have ownership access to all of your old content (unless you keep the old account alive).
If you move to PieFed, there is a startup wizard walking a new account through subscribing to communities, and the way that Categories of Communities works is entirely different than merely having access to Subscribed vs. All (but you still have those as well, thus making the approach far superior imho:-). Though if there are any smaller communities that you want for sure to subscribe to, you'll have to do that on your own iirc.
Enjoy the Threadiverse!
The only way I know of to actually block an instance is to either move your account to a different instance that has defederated from it
It doesn't work that well, I still see crossposts from the 3 main propaganda instances whenever someone from an instance that tolerates them (or support them?) crossposts them to the instance they are in
But that is always going to be a problem. Wouldn't this fall under the description of a "Nazi bar" phenomena? Like, you and I may not personally be Nazis, yet Lemmy contains propaganda (tbf, more for Alt-Left tankie shit than Alt-Right Nazis) and if someone were to peer over our shoulders and see such on our devices, they could (strongly?) question how much they want to be friends. Literally 100% of the people that I've recommended Lemmy to irl have actually chided me for having suggested it. It's baked right into the name of "Lemmy". It doesn't help one bit either that the top Google result for that term is lemmy.ml, which shows Local rather than All by default.
While we may carve out and designate a corner of the bar to be "ours", so long as we are still inside the Nazi bar, can we really be so surprised at who else comes in here? They write the code, and ultimately it's more theirs than ours, so e.g. if they want to allow Hexbear alts on their instances, then what can we really do about it?
Btw two other features that PieFed offers that are relevant here (it really is quite superb when it comes to this stuff!) are the ability to block a "Domain" and various keyword filters. The former is a feature shared also with Mbin but is so heavily buried that I've seen feature requests that went unanswered for it, but if you know how to make it happen then Mbin can do it as well. And some apps - possibly Sync and/or Connect but I dunno. Though PieFed definitely can block not only the users from an instance but also links to it as well. And not just Lemmy instances, but anything, like if you wanted to block all URLs to the Washington Post or New York Times or some such, you can, easily (Account -> Edit Profile -> Blocks -> Domain). Lemmy is the Alt-Left Reddit, so I doubt you'll ever be offered that feature where you are at, except again from (maybe paid?) apps.
Here's an example post that shows an image that is hosted on lemmy.ml, which lemmy.cafe has blocked, but shows up anyway. Also, I note that defederation leaves intact all the older posts - e.g. here is an older community whose content remains behind after defederation (even though newer content does not come in).
Anyway, if someone wants more features, then it will need to be built. As PieFed, Mbin, etc. are doing already:-).
Except the "instance block" filter doesn't actually block users or content from the instance
Why on earth would you expect a single user to have the power to block something at a local instance level (and so for other users of the local instance?
It's called instance block because you are blocking all users of the remote instance for you and you alone.
But that's the thing; it does not block the users. It blocks all the communities on the instance, so you won't see things posted to those, but if the users from the blocked instance post to a community on your instance or on another instance that isn't blocked, you still see their content. Possibly even can still be DM'd by them but I don't know for sure.
One would expect it to be a total block of everything from the instance; the communities on that instance, and the users from it.
I very liberally use the block function. Could not use this insane asylum without it. I think it's getting worse than Reddit in many ways.
I know, right? It's especially bad with the people I personally disagree with
People disagreeing? On the internet? On a forum?
Completely agree, so many people react in the most over the top way here.
I also see a lot more overt racism here which is odd.
This is pretty much the main way I set what I want to see. Just block all the stuff you don't like and browse by new
I find this interesting given @techconnections recent video.
You seem to be saying you'd rather take the firehouse of information to the face and then trim it down by removing what you don't like, rather than subscribing to what you do like.
If so, I find that bonkers.
Yeah, I like the firehose because it helps me find new communities/interests that I then subscribe to. It takes some time to get rid of the bulk of things you don't want to see, but once you do it's pretty nice
I do the same. I subscribe to the slower communities, and browse All usually. Voyager has a setting to hide subscribed communities from All, so they don't inadvertantly get marked as read, which I periodically hide.
Like for that one guy who posts the Creative Commons license in every post that does nothing.
Blocked after the mods yelled at me. Was probably my first block.
