Yes, semantics.

Literally, no. Why would you pull that card then go on to write a paragraph that demonstrates your understanding of the distinction?

Administrators who defederate over differences in moderation choices rather than moderate their own communities and let their users choose what communities they want to see.

Again, that you want to choose with such granularity is a personal preference, one you can engage in by signing up on any number of aligned instances.

How, exactly, is your experience impacted by the way blahaj runs things? Except for your deluded perception that they bully other admins and mods into maintaining their standards in order to not be defederated?

Blahaj federates with corners of the fediverse they are confident are safe, and do not, when they aren't. It couldn't be any simpler.

If sopuli didn't defederate instances that are primarily for porn, I could not browse "all" in order to engage in community discovery without seeing a bunch of it. You keep trying pull a "then they should stay on local communities" card but that is completely insane. Why should moderation confine itself to local content?

The whole beauty of federation is that several standards and preferences can interleave and overlay, and each user can navigate to a place in the fediverse where the workload of moderation according to their preferences, has already been done.

Your argument against the way blahaj does things, is an argument against the diversity in the range of such places. You think each user should choose, because that is what you want to do, and so you argue against their ability to choose that someone choose for them.

This one makes the least sense so far.

Users can moderate their feeds.

That, right there, is the issue.

You don't seem to understand, that they shouldn't have to. Curate? Yes. Moderate? Absolutely not.

Moderation is just like discussion. I quote your agreement with my earlier argument:

Safe spaces are not a bad thing. Echo chambers are only echo chambers if the people inside them don’t move in and out as needed. Which at least I do, do. Discussion is good, but it cannot be mandatory, as those who cannot, do not want to, or are not ready to engage in it, can be harmed by it.

Yes, I agree.

Moderation is work done by the few to protect the many. If every one of us has to block every instance, user, or community, individually, that means we all get to see all of them. And thereby, be hurt by them.

Such personal moderation cannot be mandatory, as those who cannot, do not want to, or are not ready to engage in it, can be harmed by it.

None of this requires a server admin. Defederation is an admin function, not a moderation function.

That is a personal preference. Defederation along with community purging, hiding, and user bans are all moderation tools. Which ones are used and how extensively, is something each admin and mod can decide for themselves. In the same way, each user can decide for themselves how they want them to be used, and choose an instance accordingly.

That you, personally, want to make each such decision for yourself, is an exceedingly personal preference. One that any user on blahaj that shares it, is free to adhere to by signing up for an account on an instance that aligns with that preference.

You are assuming the users of blahaj ALL share it with you, in a thread full of people telling you, they do not.

You are literally trying to do the thing you are accusing blahaj of, applying a fediverse-wide standard that cannot be violated by anyone. In your case, it is that there are things admins should not decide over, for their users.

What, exactly, is preventing instances who differ on the matter from co-existing?

I'm not going to continue paraphrasing things I've already said until you get it.

You are under several misconceptions about what is good for the users of blahaj and the fediverse at large.

Blahaj would absolutely go private given no other option, but for now they are able to work with most of the mods and admins of the fediverse, so they don't need to. They can have their cake, and eat at least some of it, too.

For blahaj to ask other instances "hey, will you uphold this standard, if not, we don't have the bandwidth to be doing it for you on our end, so if you aren't, we need to know so we can make a decision on whether to federate" is not a fucking power trip.

It's a completely reasonable moderation practice, and they aren't interested in letting things get out of hand before they cut a given line. What's wrong with that?

Two cats

People who benefit from having an account on blahaj, aren't going to use that same account to go "out in the world" to fight their fight.

Especially because the worst among the kind of people they deal with, are the type to send death threats to their DMs. If another instance fails to moderate that, or any lesser type of attack, defederation is the only recourse.

Blahaj is being run exactly the way it should be, to maintain its goals.

That the admin reaches out to other admins and mods, is simply a courtesy, aimed to maintain as much federation as possible without compromising the mission.

And before you suggest that blahaj should simply moderate the entire fediverse from their end, that is not actionable advice. Blahaj needs to maintain a moderation surface area that they can actually keep up with, and hence they have to rely on the instances they federate with to match their standards, where applicable.

Have you heard about this one weird trick, called having more than one account?

You implied that their suggestion was making trans people less safe.

No I didn't. I said so. Because it IS so.

And I didn't lead with that. I lead with explaining that we can have both safe places, AND discussion. That this isn't a zero sum game.

Safe spaces are not a bad thing. Echo chambers are only echo chambers if the people inside them don't move in and out as needed. Which at least I do, do.

Discussion is good, but it cannot be mandatory, as those who cannot, do not want to, or are not ready to engage in it, can be harmed by it.

Stepping into the ring of rhetoric every day, is not good for you. Especially if you're forced to do so just to be granted validation on your basic right to exist. That there's a place to go in-between battles to recover, is a good thing.

No. I got it.

You think a single insult buried in a logical argument disqualifies the whole thing.

Did you have an actual counterpoint in there?

A little linguistic color hardly disqualifies a point. And if you can't see the relevance of my analogies, that's your problem. I'm not interested in dumbing it down even more.

Hardly.

Pointing out the inherent issues in a view that someone holds, is basic arguing.

People have opinions all the time without fully realizing every potential implication. That doesn't mean they subconsciously endorse every possible adverse effect their political preferences might hold.

If you can't point out the gotchas that a person might not have noticed in one of their adopted beliefs, what else is left when it comes to changing someone's mind?

Insults?

People can be racist, transphobic or any manner of discriminatory, entirely without meaning to. And if they aren't realizing what they are doing, someone has to point it out.

Are you suggesting people just suffer with it until they wise up?

No, those are armor-themed floaties.

Don't tell anyone.

Eeeeewwww!

Don't you dare stop!

I'll be watching it this weekend with the friend that I always watch overlord with.

Anyone had a chance to sit down and see it yet?

They are either going to get the same strand delivered back, or something entirely different.

What's the distinction?

Is this "online" discussion were having less real than the one we might have face to face?

Moderation isn't about convincing people presenting harmful views, to change their minds.

It's about protecting people.

And we aren't talking about physical harm. Except in the sense that mental harm can eventually become physical harm.

If you just jump in to argue with the offender, that does absolutely nothing to prevent your users from being exposed to it.

If I wanted to convince you that I genuinely wished you weren't alive, all I'd need is the written word. And if I threw a net wide enough, subtle enough, I'd catch some strays even if I didn't succeed with you specifically. (I do not want you dead, or wish you any kind of harm)

Do you genuinely believe such harm isn't possible? Or not worth preventing?

Every. Word. Counts.

If suicidal people can be saved through words, then they can also be killed by them.

You can go ahead an make it here.

I suspect it wont get as many eyes on [email protected], but I'll link to it from there.

You didn't.

The opinion you are presenting, is against their safety, though.

Fair. But the things you are saying are bigoted.

Doesn't mean you are one, just that you need to re-evaluate your views.

And, failing to counter my point, already takes you halfway to realizing I might be saying something worth listening to.

Think about it some more. If I'm wrong, all it'll do is allow you to figure out how wrong. If I'm not, then by changing your mind you'll just end up being more right.

Also, how is "countering and getting people to your side" working for you?

I am.

I have you pointing out my strong language, instead of dismantling my logic.