We should do our absolute best to not become a siloed instance. I predict we will start seeing certain instances be almost inaccessible which will lead to their users migrating to more open instances. It’s already becoming clear to me that certain instances will lose users over time if they continue actively segregating their instance from others.
Individual bad actors on other instances is not a good enough reason to defederate. If a troll is bothing someone they can be blocked/banned on sh.itjust.works. I don’t expect instance creators to ban all trolls, it’s not possible.
Defederation should be reserved for severe cases when another instance shows no interest in moderating. The two instances defederated right now are justified: one condones the denial historical events and actively censors opposition, and the other was condoning heinous illegal activies regarding underage individuals. These are two clear examples of where defederation makes sense.
Defederation should only be used as a last resort.
My previous post continues this sentiment from a couple days ago here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126
Ive seen a lot of opinions like this, and for me its missing the entire point of the fediverse: instances are free to make their own decisions.
If you think defederating for anything other than the most extreme reasons is bad, thats fine. There are instances like that
And if people are happy with more defederation for any reason, those instances exist
Any meta-discussion about how widely defederation should be used across ALL instances is inherently kinda dumb
And as an aside: people are really overreacting to beehaw temporarily defederating from two big instances to deal with an unprecedented rise in users and activity. Its not a big deal.
Unfortunately, this is true. We’ll never convince everyone in the Fediverse to see things our way, nor vice versa. And we shouldn’t. So, some instances will pick and choose, while others will stay wide open to federation.
The other side of this coin, though, is when an instance gets large enough to be able to host differing views. At that point, federation or defederation can’t simply be what I want, or what the loudest voice wants, but what everyone can live with.
What I see eventually happening, is there will be several large instances with large user bases. These will federate with almost everyone. Then you’ll have smaller niche instances, for those looking to fine-tune their experience.
Likewise, there are instance that already have the likes of exploding-heads defederated. This is a discussion on how defederation should be used. And I for one agree with OP, only use defederation when absolutely necessary.