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12mo ago

Updated - programming.dev defederation on hold

Update: In light of the programming.dev update here https://programming.dev/post/8399272, the defederation is no longer going ahead.

However, something more needs to be said. Even here on Blahaj, some of our users took issue with the choice to defederate over this issue.

So I would like to give some background and context.

Blahaj Zone exists, because both Kaity and I left mainstream social media to escape transphobia. Reddit, with its lackluster approach to fighting transphobia, and twitter, with its outright celebration of transphobia pushed us here, to the fediverse, and to create Blahaj Zone and Blahaj Lemmy.

To that end, we will continue to treat transphobia seriously. Our goal is to create a space where gender diverse folk can exist and let our defenses down a little, where we don't have to worry about getting dragged in to an argument with a transphobe, or a bad faith actor "just asking questions".

If you are looking for a more reddit like experience, where in the interest of increased engagement, we let low level transphobia slide, and push responsibility for dealing with it on to community mods and individual users, then you will likely not be happy with blahaj going forward. If you choose to stay here, understand that we may defederate again in the future over similar issues.

The choice is yours.

======

It has recently been brought to my attention that the lead admin of programming.dev is engaging in ongoing transphobia.

You can see the conversation in question here https://programming.dev/comment/6131539

For that reason we will be defederating from programming.dev in 48 hours.

There are only three communities on that instance used by small number of our users, so this won't have a big impact, but if you are one of those users, you will need to use an alt account on another instance if you wish to access the communities.

243 comments

So everyone involved seems to agree that transphobia is bad, but the dude had an idiotic notion of what constituted transphobia.
I feel that if we are in the business of defederating anyone who fails a purity test then lemmy will be quite small indeed.
- I will defederate from any instance with admins that excuse transphobia. If that makes our part of the Fediverse quite small, that sucks, but it is what it is. I moved here to get away from social media that won't take action on transphobia. I'm not suddenly going to decide it's ok if it means we get more traffic.
  
  Not talking back or being snarky but if you feel that way you might seriously want to look into Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, they have very bad track records of letting transphobes and bigots run wild, Lemmy.world is the worst, many of the people they've banned for bigotry have been unbanned or were only given temporary bans to begin with, often times they won't even action users who are engaging in transphobia, even if reported. It's really not great.
  I used to believe Beehaw was a bit overly strict but honestly I can see they blocked these instances for good reason, especially Lemmy.world.
  
  I understand completely. A space like that needs to exist.
  Thank you for the work you put in.
  
  best instance and best admins
  
  And this is why blåhaj zone is the best lemmy instance, I'm so glad I found this place.
- I'm okay with that. The smaller lemmy is, the better it is for me.

This alone doesn't seem like something worth defederating over. It seems like they just got baited hard by Hexbear. Did the comment chain get censored? It doesn't seem like there's much active transphobia here, just ignorance of the issues at worst.
From my cursory read, the only thing that reads as actually transphobic to me is when they say "And getting offended by it really isn’t helping your case here." in response to someone getting mad at being referred to as "they", and that itself was due to technical issues and not transphobia.
Frankly, one angry snapback and a slap fight with Hexbear doesn't seem worth defederating over. I'm all for defederating bigots, but I don't want hapless allies getting caught in the crossfire.
- Frankly, one angry snapback and a slap fight with Hexbear doesn’t seem worth defederating over.
  I have to agree.
  The bulk of Hexbear's userbase actively chooses to interact with others in the fediverse in antisocial ways, finding any excuse to be offended and generally make argumentative nuisances of themselves. This concerns us because they wrap themselves in trans-colored flags.
  I'm tired of Hexbear users stomping around Lemmy being jerks to everyone in the name of being trans. And I don't want us, or this instance, to suffer for it.
- but I don't want hapless allies getting caught in the crossfire.
  Especially not for the sake of hexbear
  
  But the admin here really likes Hexbear and has expressed the intention of federating with them the moment instance level blocking works
  Honestly this whole thing has me window shopping for another instance due to our admin again siding with Hexbear
- Yeah I agree, this definately does seem like a knee jerk reaction which ultimately does more harm than good.

I love you all and I'm obviously against transphobia or any kind of bigotry, but this is probably where I leave this instance.
- The action is Pretty blown out of proportion when we are honest...
  
  Right? The admin here sees hexbears engaging in their typical bad faith spam-bullying tactics against someone who, unless there's something really bad in that deleted comment, doesn't seem to actually be a transphobe, for the crime of enjoying a popular mainstream video game, and the admin decides to defederate the victim of the bullying.
  
  To be fair, programming.dev is moderated pretty badly. This is looks like a slap fight that escalated beyond what is reasonable, but it’s a good indicator of how respectfully people over there are treated. That is, not at all.
  
  Like I don't have the attention span to read everything the accused person wrote during that entire thread, and obviously I could have missed some important context or quote.
  My take on it was that this person liked the Harry Potter game, realized that people were telling them the game was antisemitic and transphobic (which I agree, it is), and then it seems like they refused to believe the game was in fact antisemitic and transphobic. The person then doubled down and because everyone got heated (which I'm not judging folks for getting heated, I don't know what you're going through behind the screen), and kept digging a hole.
  Like if the accused is actually a transphobic, fuck em right to hell I hope they learn they're on the wrong side of history and get better. Else if it is someone who's pro-trans and got caught being reactive and liking media that goes against their views, then I hope they look at that media with fresh eyes, and try to make amends with the people who were arguing in the thread.
  Plenty of people like media that when looked at with a slightly critical eye might go against their views or punch down at the people they care for, but are ignorant to the fact it does that. I think that a lot of people have really visceral reactions when confronted with that fact, and try to get defensive rather than learn.
  But I don't know anything any of these people and I'm just trying to dissect why I think it's also blown out of proportion.
- I left a while ago but I am disappointed to the degree that people over here are willing to carry water for hexbear. They absolutely cannot be trusted to be good faith actors.
- Yeah I'm feeling the same way TBH
  I've just got to find a new one that fits for me
- It's the best feature of the Fediverse - you have so many options! If one instance doesn't work for you, there WILL be one that agrees with you better.
  I'm not LGBT or Q but this is my instance because I whole heartedly support people and I appreciate that mods here do their best to separate from pure human garbage while retaining connection with like and different minded groups.
  
  It gets really tiresome to have to hop instances multiple times, though...There's scripts you can run for it but an official way to migrate would be nice.
  
  It's a great feature, but the "inter-instance politics" of it are exhausting. I'm a programmer by trade and by hobby so when creating my account I went with "the programming instance." Now I'm hearing that because of a thread on a different instance (lemmy.ml) this instance is defederating with programming.dev.
  I like browsing the communities here, I hadn't seen the original post on the other instance before this thread, and if I had missed this thread this whole instance would just disappear seemingly randomly.
  I get that you can migrate to another instance, but given how this is going how can I be sure this won't happen again and I'd lose access to instances out of nowhere? It seems unsustainable to constantly check other instances for inter-instance conflicts just to see the communities I like
  I agree with separating from different minded groups, but these are the words of one person who set up the instance who definitely doesn't speak for the "programming group." I feel like action could be taken against the individual without basically punishing the entire instance

If I cut out everyone in my life that is 99% of the time a staunch ally, but still eats at Chick-Fil-A, my life would be very, very empty. No one is ever going to be a perfect ally / comrade, even queer people. I feel like it's especially telling that the person got so heated because they want to be an ally and don't want people to abandon them because they played a single stupid fucking game. Especially because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, it's easy to death-of-the-author JKR without realizing the direct transphobia in the game. A lot of the direct transphobia in Hogwarts Legacy isn't obvious (like misgendering the token trans in the game files) and most people don't know about it. Does that suck? Yeah. But that doesn't mean those people are transphobes or bad faith actors.
I get that we need to have a sharp eye to make sure bad faith actors don't fly under the radar, but false positives do a lot of harm too. I really feel like this came down more to Hexbear doing what Hexbear does and setting the entire thread on fire than it points to transphobia on the programming.dev admin's side. Of course people are going to get stupid when you're getting insulted, flamed, and spammed with stupid-ass emoji. If they're willing to defed from Hexbear and acknowledge the direct transphobia in the game, that would go a long way.
- This isn't that.
  This is the lead (cis) admin of a Fediverse instance telling trans people that a Potter game is "the opposite of transphobic" and then arguing with trans folk about it, diminishing the relevance of their pronouns as a side issue, and calling trans folk "insane" for having an issue with the game.
  The hexbear pile-on clearly got to them, but that's not an excuse for the other behaviour. I need to know that other admins will deal with transphobia even when it's hard, not that they'll resort to it when they're frustrated.
  
  Having read the thread I really don't think the programming.dev admin was being transphobic. I know I'm cis so I'm less likely to see transphobia, and I am more lenient with my judgement, but it really looks like they were at worst abrasive or indifferent towards the sensitivities of the issue at hand, and not outright transphobic.
  Taking into account that this type of behavior is common in tech debates and that they have explicitly shown their support for trans people elsewhere, I believe that they are not transphobic, just bothersome to you guys in this debate topic because of how important it is to you to treat it with higher respect than some random topic.
  
  You're assuming bad faith instead of remembering Hanlon's razor. programming.dev's technical admin is not your enemy.

From what I can see right now in the link thread that doesn’t seem to be nearly enough grounds for defederation from programming.dev. What am I missing?
I’m especially confused considering it’s a thread on a lemmy.ml community. I expect community mods to mod and life goes on.
If the admin of programming.dev is a turd when posting on other instances, I expect him to get moderated and/or blocked. Not the instance that is unrelated to the incident defederated.
- The issue is that it's the lead admin of programming.dev, not one of their users.
  
  I don’t particularly oppose the decision to defederate. I have been vacillating on unsubbing from two of my programming.dev communities because of extremely poor social experiences and the third one hardly gets any posts. So if anything you are saving me the annoyance of having to do anything. But I genuinely do not understand.
  Maybe the really ghastly stuff has been removed, but what I’m reading right now is pretty much what I consider to be baseline behavior on gaming communities on servers where GaMeRs congregate. Am I setting my standards too low?
  Maybe the mods deleted some really horrible comments, but that’s moderation working as intended. Does it really warrant further action? Specifically this drastic?
  Am I underestimating the risks we run by staying federated with an instance with hostile admins? Are there things they do/can do/could do that could cause us major problems?
  I mean yeah, the guy seems like a rude abrasive idiot that condones some pretty horrible stuff to justify playing his wizard game. But this is literally the first post of his I have the displeasure to read. if I can block his account and keep reading the content on his instance that’s not complete crap, why wouldn’t I want to?
  
  I guess my concern is that as a user who created their account on programming.dev, it feels like it's coming out of nowhere. I like browsing the communities here, I hadn't seen the original post on the other instance before this thread, and if I had missed this thread this whole instance would just disappear seemingly randomly.
  I'm a programmer by trade and by hobby so when creating my account I went with "the programming instance." Now I'm hearing that because of a thread on a different instance (lemmy.ml) this instance is defederating with programming.dev.
  I get that you can migrate to another instance, but if decisions on defederation can be made based on the actions of one person this could definitely happen again, and I don't make a habit of following an instance admin to make sure I agree with everything they say. It seems exhausting and unsustainable to constantly check other instances for inter-instance conflicts just to see the communities I like/want to be a part of

Copying a top level comment from @Poxlox@lemmy.world since I'm a blahaj user and 100% agree with what they're saying and the view won't get discarded.
It seems many of the comments don’t agree that this issue is worth defederating. That whole thread was exhausting and filled with childish nonsense on both sides, fuck JKR fr but this is very silly. Please don’t defederate, and let people enjoy the game if they want to? Like, I’m pretty sure there are better fights to fight.
- I appreciate the sentiment. I hope we don't defederate.
- I am going to repost my comment here because it was removed with the top comment and I believe it is relevant to the discussion. I would also like to add to it as well.
  Here is my addition after I had a good night's sleep:
  I would prefer to federate with the larger lemmy community. However we are submitting ourselves to the standards and moderation practices of the larger lemmy community as part of that federation. In exchange, we should expect something in return, which should be a concrete goal.
  Getting other admins to agree that the things that are harmful to the trans community, such as transphobic video games that fund anti-trans causes, should be the low bar we ask of other lemmy communities. This is not a purity test, as others have suggested. This is a consensus that we should reach with lemmy communities about our shared reality.
  This consensus on our shared reality is desirable, because if the general lemmy community can agree on what is harmful to members of our community, then the larger lemmy community becomes a safer for place for members of our community. We are not asking the general lemmy community to stop playing the game or even to engage in a boycott, although we would of course appreciate that. We are specifically asking the general lemmy community to agree on what is harmful to trans people. This consensus on seemingly trivial issues establishes shared moderation practices that help us to achieve our goal of a safe place for trans and LGBTQ+ individuals on the internet. edit: typo
  Here is my original comment:
  This issue can seem insignificant and it can be tempting to want to brush it under the rug. I have personally have this urge to not to want to upset allies or potential allies. But Rowling as a famous, rich person does a lot of harm to trans people by contributing money to anti-trans causes. This game is the most recent piece of content that funds her ability to donate to those anti-trans causes. If this admin can understand that then we should be fine to stay federated.
  Unfortunately the nature of discourse in the post obfuscated this issue. Simply explaining the error in the admin’s argument backed up with sources should have been sufficient. The personal attacks do not add to the discussion and make it harder to arrive at any understanding. I think the conflict and ‘finding a win’ is sort of the goal with the tactics displayed in the thread, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the issue seriously.
  The error in the admin’s argument is that the content of the game is not important when the profits of the game go to causes that undermine the well being of trans people.
  https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hogwarts-legacy-release-brings-transphobia-harry-potter-franchise-rcna69628
  Again, I understand the nature of discourse made the topic seem childish. However, this is the fight we are fighting. There is no other hill for us to die on. We can only choose how we defend it, not who else is on the hill with us.

That conversation is really hard to follow between the hexbear emote spam (and non-emote spam), deleted comments and personal attacks.
- hexbear emote spam
  Is that what that is? How does that add anything to the conversation and who is upvoting that
  
  It doesn't and Hexbear trolls.
  
  we just really like shorks

Absolutely agree with this decision. Also, this one thing he said at the end of the argument really rubbed me up the wrong way:
::: spoiler quote from the admin during the argument where he was defending his transphobia and the wizard game
Now that I’m looking and see that you are all from hexbear it makes way more fucking sense. The actual trans people with sense are on blahaj, fucking hexbear morons invading this thread makes everything make sense now. Go touch grass.
Ngl I'm really starting to get annoyed with how transphobes on other Lemmy instances treat blahaj as like their trans best friend and use it to launder their shitty opinions just because hexbear users are more aggressive in calling out transphobia and then dogpiling whichever user said it
[Edit 1: the person who was debate broing me earlier about this comment from another instance went into a transphobic meltdown and got banned from blahaj and had all their replies removed lmao]
[Edit 2: someone else got annoyed at me for not including a disclaimer that more than two years ago this guy said that trans people don't have a biological advantage over cis women on Reddit so yeah, here's the disclaimer]
- Hexbear isn't calling out transpobia they use it as fighting word and make it meaningless, just like everything they do or touch.
  
  This is transphobic, almost all the people in that thread that are responding are trans, and as you can see by this thread and the other thread, the trans people on this site agree with the ones on hexbear on this issue
  Trans people have a right to call out transphobia
- Do you have a link to this exchange?
  Honestly though that comment about Hexbear is pretty on point. Hexbear makes every comment thread they invade a nightmare, and is one of the goals of their instance.
  
  Here's the comment they said it in: https://programming.dev/comment/6173847
  And ngl, despite having some disagreements with hexbear, I think them making comment threads a nightmare for transphobes trying to defend the grand wizard of the TERFs is a good thing
  
  Putting in the energy to make well-rounded arguments in a discussion and educating a person who clearly has no idea what they’re talking about does not seem like a nightmare to me. I'm honestly pretty glad that they did that.
- Wow, I missed that one!
  
  The whole comment that the previous commentor took a small section of actually includes them citing instances where they've defended trans people.
  And also includes them saying that they remove transphobic and antisemitic content all the time and invites people to check their mod logs.
  link to the comment
- Hey, as a Jew to a trans person, I don't make call outs on what is and isn't transphobic. I rely on your community when I think I'm seeing it since as the affected individuals y'all are the experts.
  Do me a favor, give us the same respect about antisemitism. I'm getting awfully tired of seeing people throw that word around and as a Jew it's fucking scary that it's losing its meaning.
  Thanks
  
  You and I are both Jews. It's true that some people are using the phrase "antisemitism" in a way that promotes their own interests instead of as a warning of bigotry, but that isn't the case here. JK Rowling and her works are antisemitic and promote vile stereotypes of not just Jews but other minority groups as well.
  Rowling is a bigot and her works should be forgotten.
  
  While I'd be happy to do that in general, Hogwarts Legacy has major antisemitic themes carried over from the story designer.
  https://theconversation.com/how-hogwarts-legacy-video-game-reinforces-antisemitic-scapegoating-with-goblins-202710
  
  I've edited out the bit about antisemitism in the comment o7
- Someone made a post to that on mtf
  https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7367407
- Fuck transphobes. Transphobes don't deserve to be coddled for having reactionary views just because they haven't murdered a trans person, fuck that noise. Transphobia is Transphobia.
- Yeah most of the argument seemed at first to me to be that admin and the hexbear folks slapping each other, but if being stressed out by some bad faith interactions causes you to rant about some other group of trans people being "the good ones" it's not a good look
- Oh wow that's really evil. Didn't know we were being used in such a way
  
  I've seen it one or two times before and Ive been getting increasingly annoyed with it recently, I was even considering making a post about the general sentiment I'd seen before and then this happened.
  It usually comes up in threads when people bring up how Lemmy is predominantly dominated by cis white males, and people will respond by saying stuff like "well what about blahaj zone?" as if all the trans people on lemmy not feeling comfortable enough to join up to anywhere except the one trans specific walled garden instance reflects well on lemmy as a whole.

This article does a good job at explaining that Hogwarts Legacy is transphobic because some of the profits will be donated to anti-trans causes.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hogwarts-legacy-release-brings-transphobia-harry-potter-franchise-rcna69628
Rowling herself has implied that her royalty checks are indirect indicators of the popularity of her views on trans rights. She will be profiting off Hogwart’s Legacy, and at least part of that profit will likely go directly into the hands of those responsible for pushing the fight to roll back trans rights, causes Rowling has implied she donates to.
This article explains the antisemitic blood libel conspiracy theory that is a core part of the game's plot.
https://www.gamepur.com/guides/hogwarts-legacys-goblin-uprising-anti-semitic-plot-controversy-explained
Players can choose to align themselves with Ranrok, but the game explicitly paints this as an evil decision, aligning those players with the Dark wizard faction. On top of that, Ranrok and his Dark wizard allies in the Rookwood Gang have a plan to harness the power of this forbidden magic by abducting the player character (who is a teenager) and extracting and using their blood. This latter detail hews uncomfortably close to “blood libel” conspiracy theories which have been leveled at Jewish communities across the world for centuries, in which Jewish people were accused of abducting and murdering Christian children in order to use their blood in sacrilegious rituals.
I spent some time watching videos on the game's plot. I couldn't find a specific line in a cut scene where the villain explicitly says he wants to harvest the protagonist's blood. But he does explicitly set some guys after the protagonist to try to kidnap them. They need the protagonist because they are the only one who can interface with the MacGuffins, ie plot devices. This MacGuffin interfacing seems to be hereditary in nature. Also, the villain's powers, specifically the graphics, definitely seemed blood themed to me.
The game is transphobic and antisemitic. Arguing the game is not those things is transphobic and antisemitic. Whether or not the admin in question knew that is irrelevant.
No one is mandated to educate people about any minority group that they are a part of.
That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that it is in our interest as an LGBTQ+ community to educate people when an opportunity arises. So much hate and bigotry is derived from ignorance. The more we can do to educate people about transphobia the safer we and the people we care about will be irl.
Ada is going out of her way to talk to the admin in question which she does not need to do, but I am glad that she is. She would be perfectly justified in defederating the instance without further discussion. Making a safe space for trans people means defederating from instances that espouse transphobia. By defederating, users on blåhaj zone will not see what this admin's posts or comments, regardless of where the posts or comments are made.
This is what the post in question looks like if your lemmy account is on blåhaj.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7199610
Most of the comments are not visible because we are defederated from Hexbear.
I'm really not a fan of how Hexbear users handled this. I am also not a fan of blåhaj being the admin's trans best friend. Despite that, I think this comment from the admin is relevant so I'm linking it here.
https://programming.dev/comment/6173847
I get the sense that this admin is engaging in transphobia and antisemitism because of their ignorance involving the game. I hope that in talking to the admin, Ada will be able to explain the error in the admin's position. Hopefully the admin will correct their position going forward and we can continue to federate with their instance. But I think that in the absence of that hypothetical success it makes sense to defederate.
It took me a bit to think about it, but it's good that we take a proactive position on combating transphobia. Tolerating intolerance for the convenience it might bring, in not having to make multiple accounts or having more perceived allies, really doesn't do us any favors in the long run. If we don't stand up for ourselves we are only giving cover for transphobes to maneuver covertly in our online space. Rowling is a terf. Hogwarts Legacy funds her terf causes. We don't need blåhaj to be connected to instances that fail to understand that. The point is to have an instance that is a safe space for trans people and more broadly LGBTQ+ people.
I'm adding this at the end, because this shouldn't matter, but I think some people think it does. I am trans. I am ethnically jewish.
- Tldr. Upvote because trans jew who gave effort.
  
  I'll take the down vote if the articles I linked to at least get read.

A shame. It reads (particularly at the top of that thread) like an ignorant Admin and a typical Hexbear user(s).
Please note when I say that that I am not suggesting or implying that the Admin was not in the wrong, but that when the Admin said:
It’s literally the opposite of transphobic. It’s like they tried as hard as they could to negate everything bad JKR has ever said…
That seems more like something someone ignorant of a lot of things would say and not necessarily what someone intent on being awful would say. The response to them, also from a Hexbear user, was:
You’re a transphobic clown that cares more about your Harry Potter treats than trans people. Stop pretending otherwise.
Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. Certainly in the remainder of that thread, the Admin falls pretty short of decent behaviour. However, I think if that first response to the Admin's response had not been so judgemental and had maybe seen it as ignorance rather than malice and level headedly gone on to explain why the Admin is wrong without the (i think we can all agree) standard Hexbear method of engagement, maybe (not definitely, but maybe) the outcome might have been an ally rather than a defederation.
I suspect that I'm going to get responses to that paragraph stating it's not a trans persons responsibility to educate others. I do see that and understand it as I am part of a minority group that has been marginalised, persecuted and wished out of existence for hundreds if not thousands of years. I understand exactly how annoying and exhausting it is to feel like you have to continually explain why it's OK you exist.
But I've also come to realise the difference between ignorance and wilful ignorance and that it's always worth making at least one try with someone. 99% of the time it gets you nowhere, but sometimes it gets you an ally.
I understand the defederation decision and it doesn't affect my choice to be on Blahaj at all. I guess my hope is that the two Admin's can talk it out and that refederation is an available option but that if that doesn't happen, the PD Admin at least learns how they behaved is transphobic and they change their ways.
- We're talking about it now, but due to timezones and travel, I can't say where the talks will lead.
  I will also say though, that as as admin that has been actively targeted by a Hexbear pileon, it's not an excuse to erase trans folks pronouns as a side issue, or to call people insane for trying to explain why the Potter IP is harmful to trans folk.
  
  I absolutely agree with both points.
  I just can't help feeling that had that initial exchange been with a non-Hexbear user(s), it might've developed differently. I don't know that for a fact obviously and maybe the PD Admin has a history of that sort of behaviour, I'm solely going by what was in that thread. By no means am I excusing their later behaviour, which was transphobic, all I'm saying is that those two sentences that I quoted seem (to me anyway) to be the flashpoint and that if it had not been a Hexbear pile on, ignorance could've been challenged in a way that might've lead to allyship.
- You'll get responses alright. Flurpity herpity floor.

I'm torn about this. Although I agree that the admin of that instance is being pretty transphobic and abrasive, I don't know if it's bad enough to defederate. In addition, I really like some of the communities there (especially the Godot community) and this might be the thing to push me off blahaj.zone...
It's a hard balance to strike, protecting vulnerable people from potentially harmful instances with bad policies, while at the same time, providing a valuable instance that people will want to use. Unfortunately, this will probably push me and some other individuals onto other instances that may have worse moderation and will likely expose us to a lot more bigotry. It's a tough situation, and I honestly don't know what the best option is.
- on that note, does anyone have recommendations for a neutral and controversy free instance but that also isn't so quick to defederate?
  I understand instances like this wanting to defederate on principle and I'm sure it helps to curate a better experience for the people looking for that. Personally I'd rather make the choice myself to block communities I don't like and leave defederation on an instance level to just blocking illegal content and poor moderation and the like.
  
  There typically will always be some form of controversy, tends to be just how the admins handle that
  I try to keep this instance federated with instances as much as reasonable (the only lemmy instances we really defederate with are burggit and rqd2 since their instance rules break our instance rules, lolicon+DMCA ignoring for the first and very questionable communities in the second (zoophilia, MAP)) and were dealing with the situation in this post internally currently to solve the situation here with blahaj. Should make a post in meta probably tomorrow
  I can give some recommendations of some instances with admins ive had positive experiences with (im one of the programming.dev leads though if that affects my stances on this)
  startrek.website - I dont talk with these admins much but the instance tends to be pretty positively viewed across lemmy
  slrpnk.net - one of the other niche instances. Admins seem relatively chill and I dont have anything negative regarding them. Active in helping stop spam accounts (defeds with hexbear + lemmygrad)
  lemmings.world - has been pretty active in making tooling to help out a bunch of admins + the fediverse in general. Made uptime badges that some instances use, a linking system so you can link to something that sends people to the copy of it on their own instance, and a gui for fediseer which a bunch of admins use to keep track of defederations + endorsements (defeds with hexbear + rqd2)
  
  I chose lemm.ee because of how rarely it defederates, and I'm not aware of any major controversy with it. Blahaj is still federated, as is hexbear, lemmygrad, and beehaw. For those who want to curate their own instance experience, I'm not currently aware of a better home (though if anyone knows of one, definitely let me know, of course!).
- Unfortunately the best option will probably be to see if the defederation takes place then if it does move instances.
  It's a tough call but it's starting to really seem like the right one.
  The problem will be finding a new instance, I think the solar punk one might be a good place but I have to see who they're federated with first.
  Edit: Spleling
- You can always make another account (on another instance) to view content from defederated instances.
  I'm not all that sad to see them go, honestly. I think proactively taking action against instances who tolerate or perpetuate transphobia is a good thing for an instance made to be safe for trans people.
  ~~The admin could just as easily respond to all of this, there's no way he isn't aware, but he has thus far chosen not to.~~
  Edit: misunderstood that there was only one lead admin of the programming.dev instance.
  
  We have been talking about it internally currently (+ was talking with ada). I'm planning to do a post tomorrow

Does this mean that we can't access the programming.dev communities anymore? I like the Godot community over there.
- It will mean that, yes.
  
  You could still create an account there I guess

Anyone have screenshots of the conversations? It appears some of the admin in question's messages are deleted

this is the way i learn that a mid game like hogwarts legacy won best steam deck game? like how... do they know baldur's gate 3 exists?
- BG3 won GOTY and you couldn't vote the same game for multiple categories.
- No one took the voting seriously and it was full of trolling. Guess what won the award for most innovative gameplay?
- The steam awards are awarded by a vote from anyone with a steam account. You should take these awards as seriously as any internet poll.
  Despite being the most derivative release of the year, Starfield won the award for Most Innovative Gameplay.
  BG3 did win both Game of the Year, and Outstanding Story-Rich Game.
- Does BG3 run well on steam deck? Huge if true
  
  when i first got bg3 i played it all the time on the steam deck (some of the menus take some getting used to but it works).
  
  My boyfriend and I play on the couch, I using a Steam Link, he using the Steam Deck.
  Both run great.

Would it make more sense to just block that one admin? Defederation is typically for a community-wide problem, and I've really not run into any issues with normal users of programming.dev

Yah, it’d be one thing if they had just like… packed up their opinion on the game and dropped the whole thing, but then continuing to hammer on about it and like, straight up ignore trans people telling you that they have a problem with the game and people buying it, that’s kind of another things.
- it’d be one thing if they had just like… packed up their opinion on the game and dropped the whole thing, but then continuing to hammer on about it and like
  Am I understanding you correctly, that the problem you have is that this person was responding to replies to him?
  straight up ignore trans people telling you that they have a problem with the game and people buying it, that’s kind of another things.
  And a trans person telling you they have a problem with the game, it means disagreeing is inherently transphobic?
- Fascists literally can't not. They literally can't.

Ah. Is there a list somewhere of places we've defederated from? I haven't been keeping up with my fellow lemmy.blahaj's.
- There's a link called "instances" on the bottom of every page, which will show you, but it's hard to read, because it also includes non lemmy instances, and there are A LOT of awful bigoted instances out there, though most of them are Mastodon.
- If you scroll to the bottom of this page it'll show the list of blocked instances
  
  Ar first I thought ALL the listed instances were blocked
- https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/instances

a reassuring move. glad I picked the blahaj

Fuck the transphobes and if they refuse to change they can stay removed.

Isn't Ategon the lead admin? And maybe I'm mistaken but I also thought she was trans?
- The way the instance is set up theres multiple lead admins
  snowe tends to be in charge of infrastructure side of things while I do development and community management. snowe is listed first in the admin list but I basically have the exact same access to the site resources
  Not trans, just use any/all pronouns

off topic -- what lemmy app did you use for that screenshot? i like the rainbow thread nesting indicators on the left :-)
- There's no screenshot. The link I posted was directly to the thread on programming.dev
  
  Ahh I'm blind, didn't even notice it was a webview. Thanks!
- That's the default lemmy web ui, no app needed

Alarming, but thats fair. Thanks for bringing this to our attention and doing this to keep us safe.

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