@TheDude What is the Deal with Lemmygrad and Are You Going to Block Other Instances for Personal Reasons?

Hey dude, thanks for dropping by.

Just wanted to say that I appreciate the direction you're trying to herd cats towards.

@TheDude

Hello and thank you for taking the time to respond to my post.

I appreciate you clarifying your stance on future blocking for both personal reasons and along the human decency lines. While I may lean fairly deeply into free speech territory, I also recognize the need for certain limits. The balance you've struck seems to be very reasonable, though I admit to being a hair surprised by the community driven approach.

I look forward to seeing which direction the community takes the instance.

I hope Lemmy will one day support defederating from content and users separately. As I wrote in other threads already, and I will just take your word for it that lemmygrad really is promoting hate speech, I can understand and support defederation from instances pr9moting hate speech, but at the same rime, it robs me of the opportunity to engage with tgeir users even on other platforms. As such, if the option to separately defederate from content and users ever becomes available, I hope the lemmygrad users will be federated again.

Short answer is no, I believe the community should determine what should or should not be blocked

Then how about not lock every discussion post as soon as you see people agreeing with you on who to defederate and actually allow discussion?

will continue to defederate instances that openly promote or spreads hate speech

That's great but please define hate speech and give us some examples.

Are you planning to actively moderate against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia?

Thank you. I would be interested to read it.

If this was one of the larger instances that has defederated a bunch of instances like lemmy.world, I wouldn't have blinked that it defederated another one. Sh.itjust.works has exactly two blocked instances, one of which seems to invite pedos the other seems like a political group. In my mind, those are a bit different and worth asking a question or two about before deciding this place isn't as welcoming as it seemed from the outside.

Well that's a shitty person then. I'm a ML and I joined over there on a different account because I like talking communism without the western prejudices. (ie people using Tankie as a slur but can't define why)

That and communism memes are fun. Good discourse on organizing ect.

That sounds like a good reason to block that idiot or maybe even that community from my own thread, but I would rather make my own choice as to when someone or a community is not acting in good faith. I don't need someone with different values than my own trying to protect me from some words I might find offensive.

On the other hand, blocking burggit so I don't have simulated CP showing up in my feed is not the kind of choice that I need clarification about.

I appreciate the thorough response, but yeah, you kind of did miss my main question. I am just trying to find out if it is @TheDude's intention to block other subs that conflict too strongly with his views.

I really don't care much one way or another if one instance that I am pretty unlikely to interact with is blocked, but I want to find out if it is a single event or if he just hasn't had a chance to ban all the groups that offend him.

FWIW, my original response here was 7/0 upvoted and then I checked a few minutes later and it was at 11/6. Certainly an unusual upvote pattern.

You said the community that mainly contains the following message would be as extreme as TD.

I support freedom. I support individual right to choose.

What does that even mean? I know a lot of republicans struggle with this concept. Don’t bully them. Their smooth brains struggle.

Guns kill people. Every other country has solved this problem. Control who has access to guns. Do you really think you will stand up to the entire government, military, with a single assault rifle? Grow the fuck up. Make your community better. Stop living in perpetual fear.

Women have a right to decide for themselves. Abortion is always an option. A ball of cells is not a baby. Its not murder. Stop forcing rape victims to birth.

Christian ministers, priests, reverends. These are the single biggest perpetrators of molestation. Supporting christianity is supporting the destruction of childhoods.

How many drag queens have been arrested abd charged? How many catholics?

look inwards. take a moment to consider why you’re being built, pushed, towards hate.

You can change. You can open your eyes. You can be accepted. I have forgiveness for those who are genuine. Reality is here for you.

do you not consider why you’re attacked or ostracised from society? Its because your views are toxic. Your views are hateful. Your views go against what the majority of humanity wants and stands for.

You can be better. You can grow and learn.

Hand in your fascist card. We can accept you. Just let go of your hate and anger.

Propaganda has blinded you. Its your choice to simply turn away. Help exists wherever you reach out.

Open your eyes.

Open your eyes

We are here for you. We are here to support your journey back to reality.

It’s scary. But you have support. Just ask.

https://lemmy.world/post/108227

Thanks for letting me add this

lemmygrad.ml is generally defederated.

The fact that a bunch of other instances also defederated something has no bearing at all on my thoughts or opinions.

To explain it, remember r/thedonald?

I do remember r/thedonald. Though it has been awhile the thing that stands out in my memory is that reddit seemed to ban it because other redditors couldn't stand it being around, not because it violated their TOS.

Its an extremist group.

lemmygrad.ml might be filled with extremists and is definitely not my cup of tea, but blocking any and all groups that are a little different from mainstream standards is not the kind of thing I can get behind.

Most of our beloved democratic, republican, and liberal ideals were extremist views not so long ago.

Are you saying lemmygrd.ml is not an extremist group? Or are you defending them?

And just so we are clear, I downvoted you because of this kind of you have to agree with me or you are defending me enemy phrasing.

That makes sense and I probably should have considered it more, though I also thought it would be useful if the response was public. Since I went searching for it myself, I thought other new users might do the same.

When I skimmed the announcement where he created the Agora, I missed that part completely. I thought it was just about people donating. Based on the link in the post, I thought he was making all these decisions himself while maybe considering input from others.

Doesn't seem like there is much point in DMing him now.

I both looked around and did a search. The only comment I found from @TheDude was the one linked in my post. I am just asking for a little clarification as to whether this is a one-off or typical fare.

Edit: Just re-read the last bit. I don't want to wait around for weeks or months only to find out that I should have realized on day one that this was a bad fit.

Is it really so wrong to ask for a little clarification about one of two total Instances that have been blocked here?

I know goat pushes some buttons (whether just due to being contrarian but earnest or actively trolling - I'm still kind of on the fence about that beyond 'they're kind of a dick'), but I've said this would be an interesting concept before, so it's neat to see it in practice.

Will reserve judgement until I see what's being curated, though.

So then block people instead of trying to shovel your personal feed curation onto everyone

That would be perfectly reasonable. It might also be perfectly reasonable if @TheDude's grandmother was killed by communists. It might also be perfectly reasonable that he and the main admin at lemmygrad.ml have known and disliked each other for years.

My concern is that I don't know which one of those things that it is or if it is none of them. Before I settle down here, I would like to have a better idea of what here is.

Let me pill out an analogy:

Right now, I am sitting in a comfortable lounge with pretty chill people and all along one wall are a bunch of doors with windows in them, but for some reason two of the doors are locked and have their windows covered. One has a little note near it that says, "beware pedos beyond this door" which is all I want to know. The other door has a note that says, "beware politics beyond this door" which leaves me with a couple curiosities. After asking around all I hear is that it goes against the hosts personal convictions. Is it really so wrong to go ask the host what is going on?

I am not arguing the door should be unlocked or telling anyone that they are wrong. I am just asking what are the odds that he is going to lock more doors, and if so, what kind of doors should I expect to get locked in the future? Oh and as a side note if he is interested in engaging my personal curiosity, "what made this particular political door so bad in his eyes?"

I don’t see @Nahvi@sh.itjust.works harassing anyone but asking questions I also personally find interesting. I started my life in the fediverse on this instance since a) I wanted to distribute the load new users were (still are?) generating moving away from Reddit b) the rules were good (upvote/downvote, nsfw, etc) and c) the name. I didn’t bother about checking the instance-admins preferences and only now learning about de-federation. And now I am wondering if I should ease down my enthusiasm because I might need to switch to an other instance (later than sooner).

So yes, maybe a few personal words about the instance and especially about other federated instances I would be curious to read.

Please keep up the good work though @TheDude@sh.itjust.works . I can’t imaging how much work is involved in keeping this instance alive and have great respect.

Seems like you didn't actually read my post.

This is the new parking lot that I am checking out. It seems pretty nice so far, but there is a weird statue in the corner. If it is just a one off that is cool. If it is the first among many then maybe I need to keep driving around.

Edit: Seems like I combined the two posts when responding, but I think I am going to leave it as is.

Exactly. There’s so many instances for anyone who don’t like one to migrate to

If you prefer to remain ignorant until you accidentally stumble across the truth then that is your problem.

Thank you for literally putting words in my mouth, quotation marks and all.

If you had bothered to spend one minute reading the post, that I literally spend thirty minutes typing up, you would have noticed that the first sentence was to express appreciation for the time and money @TheDude on creating and maintaining this instance. At no point did I say he was wrong or even that I disagreed with his choice. I just asked for clarification on the matter.

I assume you raise the same concerns under each and every post calling for further defederation from instances since they aren't being posted by the person/people in charge of hosting?

That is interesting.

Edited since I mixed up which comments were for which poll.

I don't make a habit out of arguing with people online; experience shows me that it is neither enjoyable, nor productive. I am also not above filtering out communities that I consider irritating. That said, I don't want to be a part of a community that is going to block any voices that are different from their own.

I am just trying to find out what kind of community this is before making it my home base for the foreseeable future.