OpenStars

So do I understand correctly that these are identical to Topics, except customizable without requiring backend changes?

Sweet!

PieFed (and the Lemmy apps Sync and Connect iirc) can already do this, by blocking all users from the instance. It works much better than the Lemmy equivalent that would be better named as a community muting, since it still allows users to troll you in communities located on other instances.

Yeah for Mexico in particular I agree. I’ve heard that before - so you definitely are not alone there - but yeah there just isn’t a large enough base for it to really have taken off. Even your neighbors to the north don’t do much specifically, see e.g. [email protected] with fewer than one post per day, although Canada seems to have a lot more. Europe might have the most people here?

People were excited but the software development just hasn’t happened since a year or two ago. Kbin generated some excitement but failed, and while Mbin took its place it too seems to have stalled. Sublinks was even more exciting, promising to allow conversion of an existing Lemmy instance’s content into the new framework, but a year ago the developer had a baby and disappeared for a long time. Now I place my hope in PieFed, but it’s only slowly catching up to feature parity with Lemmy, even as in some ways it has already far surpassed it (though has yet to be tested at a larger scale).

That said, I cannot stand Reddit anymore - it’s too many arguments rather than facts or kindness.

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 - 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!

John Oliver fans are the perfect candidates to join the fediverse, hopefully some of them find their way to Lemmy.

Too late - we are already here!:-P