Because someone, eventually, is going to make this post anyway, we might as well get it over with. I know someone posted something a week ago, but I feel something a little more neutral would be useful.
There's a lot of talk on lemmy.world right now about lemmy.ml at an instance level (edit: see here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/20400058). A lot of it is very similar to the discussions we've had here before- accusations of ideologically-based censorship, promotion of authoritarian left propaganda, 'tankie-ism', etc. The subject of the admin's, and Lemmy dev's, political beliefs is back up as a discussion point. The word defederation is getting thrown around, and some of our beloved sh.it.heads are part of the conversation.
What do people think about lemmy.ml? Is there evidence that the instance is managed in such a way that it creates problems for Lemmy users, and/or users of sh.itjust.works specifically? Are they problems that extend to the entire instance or primary user base, or are the examples referenced generally limited to specific communities/moderators/users? Are people here, in short, interested in putting federation to lemmy.ml to a vote?
To our admin team and moderators: What are your experiences with lemmy.ml? Have you run into any specific problems with their userbase, or challenges related to our being federated with them?
Full disclosure: I have very little personal stake in this. I don't really engage with posts about international events, I don't share my political beliefs (such as they are) online beyond "Don't be a shitbag, help your fellow human out when you can", and have not run into any of the concerns brought up personally. But I'm also not the kind of user who would butt against this stuff often in the first place.
What I will say is that I have not personally witnessed activites like brigading or promotion of really nasty shit from lemmy.ml. I cannot say this about other instances we defederated from before. But again, this may just be a product of how I use Lemmy, and does not account for the experiences of others.
This is just an opportunity for those who do have strong opinions on this topic to say their piece and, more importantly, share their evidence.
If nothing else, given similar conversations a year ago, this will be an interesting account of what sh.itjust.works looks like today (happy belated cake day everybody!)
Edit: Added an additional choice - block whole instance at user level - to 'option' list. If you, nahuse, or anyone else have ideas for options f through zz, feel free to say so!
Thanks for joining the discussion, nahuse! I appreciate the specifics you've provided.
As an aside, you and a few others raise an interesting point re: archiving of deleted comments, particularly when there's evidence of those comments getting removed from the modlog intentionally (I'm not claiming that this is objectively true - I don't know, but it is one of the common claims in the broader discussion here and on similar posts). Seems like a worthwhile project for someone with the interest, skills, and time to develop. But anyway.
Your experience does echo that of other politically engaged sh.it.heads* in this thread. I would ask - given the choice between
a) blocking lemmy.ml communities with evidence of ideologically motivated moderation (either on a case by case basis, or as part of a community-sourced blocklist - something I mentioned here before but do not know can be implemented), and using alternatives for 'controversial' topics;
b) blocking lemmy.ml at the instance level, as a user;
c) joining an instance which is not federated with lemmy.ml;
d) having sh.itjust.works defederate from lemmy.ml as a whole; or
e) keeping things as they currently are, in terms of your engagement and 'positioning' [eg. Instance of choice, community engagement, etc.] - retaining the ability to try and engage on lemmy.ml communities with the same risk of ban/blanket ban, and talk about it there while enfranchised and elsewhere in the Threadiverse during ban periods.
which makes the most sense to you/would be preferable?
The dynamics of Lemmy instances are kind of interesting, as each can have very different approaches to moderation. An instance admin may simply have a policy of "Please just don't post anything that's going to make CSIS or the RCMP knock on my door" (Canada bias here), and individual community moderators either a) apply an even hand with that edict in mind, or b) apply and enforce more restrictive policies. Others may have a more consistent throughline based in interests, political beliefs, and so on - which seems to be the case for lemmy.ml and is why we see these blanket community bans over innocuous comments.
I'd like to touch on that 'innocuous' point - what I've personally seen results in bans/deletion looks like fairly bog standard internet political discourse (alongside legitimately not cool stuff, but that's not in scope at the moment to tease out). You present a point, you get a counterpoint, things get a little heated - with the difference that the person with the heated 'not our flavour of far-left discourse' comment has a much higher risk of getting ban hammered.
I don't think this is ok - but at the same time, this is a moderation choice of a specific group using a specifically allocated set of resources. Alternative communities exist, and can be used, that may not have this problem (though someone will always find something to complain about re: moderation practices, tale as old as the internet)
There is, of course, the stickier point of lemmy.ml being not necessarily the main instance (see imaqtpie's post, makes some good points), but the Lemmy dev's instance. I don't think the problems people have with lemmy.ml (usually in global events and political discussion communities - unfortunately resulting in blanket bans from unrelated communities on the instance in some cases) extend to the tool/protocol itself [see: exploding-heads, all of the more distasteful instances that exist], but this may be a concern for some [see Socsa's comments here]. It may raise concerns/doubts about Lemmy as a whole. It sucks - I love this thing - but it shouldn't be unacknowledged.
*If you haven't seen this term before, it's what I like to call users of this instance (much to the chagrin of some :) ). Think Deadheads - enthusiasts of sh.itjust.works. A little cheeky, but ultimately good natured and fun - which kind of sums up my feelings about this place. We love sh.it.heads - not to be confused with shitheads.