this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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/0 Governance

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Anyone with voting rights can open a governance thread and initiate a vote or a discussion. There's no special keywords you must be aware of before you open a thread, but there are some. here's the governance thread manual.

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Update: Although we officially still have a few days remaining on this vote, it seems clear that this proposal won't be voted in.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback and votes! I had expected a split vote on this one and it turned out around 1/3 for the proposal and 2/3 against, so that is a quite emphatic no! And of course, we will respect the vote.

I hope we can maybe revisit our instance blocking policies more generally after lemmy has properly working per-user instance blocks, as some folks commented as it will open up more options for personal choice. For example, we could keep a list of sanctioned instances (like csam site) as it works now, but maintain a separate list of "use with caution" instances (aka hesitations in fediseer) that are blocked by default in each user's personal blocklist. But now users could choose to enable those sites for themselves if they wanted to.

For me, that seems like the best overall solution for user choice, and for the new user experience. But it may not sound good to you folks, so that's why we have the voting system in place so we can get quality feedback and also hopefully generate ideas for improvements that will benefit the community.

On that note, anyone can contact me or any of the site admins if they have a proposal they want to appear here on the governance community, and we'll be happy to help you out.

Unruffled


Hi mateys. I'm gonna keep this short and sweet because I don't really have any skin in the game on this one. I am in fact quite happy to leave this decision up to the wider dbzer0 community. On that note, please do not comment on this post unless you are a dbzer0 user - we'd prefer not to have anyone else weighing in.

This post isn't to convince anyone to re-federate or otherwise. In fact, our admin team genuinely doesn't know for sure what our community sentiment is on the topic, or whether or not it's worth a try. My guess is that the community will be quite divided on the topic, as many users are on the topic of hexbear. But the only way to find out for sure is to ask you, so here we are.

But I will say that for me personally, although we still have the occasional drama, and despite past run-ins, I have slowly grown to appreciate having some hexbear users around to help balance out all the turbolibs. While I think its fair to say our instance and theirs will never see eye-to-eye on certain topics, we have coexisted with them in relative calm over the past 12 months. If we can achieve ~~harmony~~a ceasefire with hexbear, then maybe we could do the same with lemmygrad?

I'd also prefer our users to make their own choices with regard to instance blocking of leftist sites in particular.

Obviously there will be some folks here that will hate this idea, and some who think it is worth a try and/or would like to make their own choices with regards to blocking. All I will ask is that you go have a look at lemmygrad.ml before you vote, and ask yourself if there is anything posted there you think warrants keeping them defederated?

Because this might be a divisive topic, I'm setting the threshold for this proposal succeeding at >66.6% majority rather than the default >50% so that there is a clear mandate.

The proposal is as follows:

That dbzer0 removes lemmygrad.ml from our blocked instances list for a 1-month trial period. Another vote will then be conducted to either federate permanently or to reinstate the instance block.

Notes

  • AFAIK none of our admins have discussed this with lemmygrad prior to this post, so we don't know how they will respond, even if this vote succeeds. But having just checked, we are not currently blocked from their end, so in theory re-federating will be a straightforward process (at least technically).
  • We really don't want to cause a big rift in our instance over this, so please there is really no need to get into heated arguments (I mean, what are the chances? Lol). Your vote is what counts most and we will commit to be guided by the voting outcome.
  • If this vote succeeds we will reach out to their admins to see if we can come to some mutual agreement about reintegrating our communities while hopefully keeping conflict to a minimum. Having said that, some conflict is probably inevitable ngl. But I think we will be able to ride it out ok.
  • I've covered a lot of concerns and talked about conflict a lot, so I'll just add that the big positive of re-federating is that there will be a ton of new users and content to interact with, which will hopefully add to the Lemmy experience for our users if the proposal is voted in.

expiry: 7

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[–] div0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 6 minutes ago) (3 children)

Acknowledged governance topic opened by https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/flatworm7591 Early Bird: a parrot, orangered colors Jolly Roger: an icon of pirate jolly roger skull wearing a hat, in orange-red, black and white colors A book with a loaf of bread in the cover  in orange-red, black and white colors Deck Hand: An icon of anchor crossed with two staves in orange-red, black and white colors First Mate: a pirate ship's steering wheel, orangered color

This is a simple majority vote. The current tally is as follows:

  • For: First Mate: a pirate ship's steering wheel, orangered color Vouched: a minimalist compass icon. Orangered color Powder Monkey: An icon of powder barrel in orange-red, black and white colors Vouched: a minimalist compass icon. Orangered color First Mate: a pirate ship's steering wheel, orangered color Vouched: a minimalist compass icon. Orangered color First Mate: a pirate ship's steering wheel, orangered color
  • Against: Vouched: a minimalist compass icon. Orangered color (2), MVP: a star icon, in orange-red, black and white colors (2), Deck Hand: An icon of anchor crossed with two staves in orange-red, black and white colors (3), Threadiverse Enjoyer: An icon of a doubloon with a black hole in the center in orange-red, black and white colors (3), Powder Monkey: An icon of powder barrel in orange-red, black and white colors (1), First Mate: a pirate ship's steering wheel, orangered color (1)
  • Local Community: -0.5
  • Outsider sentiment: Positive
  • Total: -5.5
  • Percentage: 35.00%

This vote will complete in 5 days


Reminder that this is a pilot process and results of voting are not set in stone.

[–] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

how the heck am i supposed to read this somebody help 😭

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Top just says who opened the topic, and below it the type of the vote (there are discussions and simpje voting)

Each user has a relevant flair, like admin/donator/etc. The 'for' tells the total of all the relevant users flairs (not everybody has flairs!)

The against is the same thing but with downvotes.

Local community / total? I have no idea lol

Percentage is the ratio of upvotes against downvotes (only counts votes from dbzer0 users)

Outsider perspective is the same but for non dbzer0 users, and doesn't show a percentage.

The rest just tells when the vote ends and a footnote

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 41 minutes ago (1 children)

"local community" is dbzer0 users who don't get an individual vote as they're not supported or vouched for, but are tallied together at a 1/10 ratio.

"total" is the absolute for minus against tally.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 35 minutes ago (1 children)

Noob question, but do I have to add a top-level comment to get my vote accounted with my flair, or is that done automatically by the bot without having to comment?

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 34 minutes ago (1 children)

You don't have to comment.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 23 minutes ago
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[–] Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

For an exact tally at 2025-07-16 20:45 UTC:

Internal: 71 for, 118 against
Outside: 36 for, 17 against

The huge negative total is from the supporter votes.
I did a cursory read of the outside instances votes and did not notice anything obviously suspicious. No ml or hex participation at all.

As an aside, I think when one of the tallies of "For" or "Against" has enough votes to turn from a list to a bucket-list (i.e. object and number of occurrences, not a list of objects with repeats), then the other should do the same. Else it's a bit confusing to read.

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[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (3 children)

Hard disagree. Honestly, this would even be a compelling reason for me to leave this instance and spin up my own. I wanted to try out running an instance for quite some time now, and this would probably push me further toward that. That wouldn't have an impact on my moderation efforts, e.g. in c/piracy; there would be a smooth transfer.

little rantHonestly, there are even more points that bother me about this instance. For example, the outright hate for cryptocurrency. Yeah, I'm aware of the anarchist theory of having no money or currency at all, but the first step is perhaps creating a better currency/money system with fewer inherent issues. It's hard to objectively judge whether crypto is better or worse per se, as there are always some positive and some negative aspects, but I don't understand why an anarchist instance pushes for a state-controlled, state-issued currency and hates decentralized attempts to create a currency controlled by the people. Sure, I don't like Bitcoin either, especially because of the privacy concerns, but Monero is a solid option with privacy/anonymity as a core design feature and an algorithm that makes using GPUs or ASICs unfeasible to try to democratize the mining process. At the same time, the criticism of AI, a similarly controversial topic, is restricted by policy. This doesn't make sense to me. I neither love nor hate AI, and I neither love nor hate cryptocurrency, but I think we should be able to have healthy and constructive debates/discussions about both without any instance-wide restrictions.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

We're pro-GenAI and anti-crypto, because I started this instance, and those are my takes. I wanted to attract people who think the same way as I do in my instance.

I don't see any saving graces to cryptocurrencies. They're just a scam gallore. Monero sounds good in theory until you realize that not only is it not used nearly enough to prove it scales (all crypto doesn't), but that it also makes everyone using it engage in money laundering by design.

We also don't prevent GenAI criticism as a blanket rule. I criticise corporate GenAI and its hype plenty. We just have a rule to prevent GenAI haters causing flamewars under every goddamn GenAI image

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

think we should be able to have healthy and constructive debates/discussions about both without any instance-wide restrictions.

Maybe that could be the topic for another governance vote

[–] frozenpopsicle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Support

It will be some degree of annoying, but I am against blocking in general. I feel if instance blocking can be avoided then it should be. Give it a try.

[–] finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

That's a no for me dawg. While I'm not opposed to the idea of giving people a second chance, I think lemmygrad has shown itself incapable of doing anything other than unapologetically licking fascist boot.

Edit: typo

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (3 children)

Absolutely not.

All I will ask is that you go have a look at lemmygrad.ml before you vote, and ask yourself if there is anything posted there you think warrants keeping them defederated?

This is the wrong question. The correct question is, "has something materially changed at lemmygrad.ml since we defederated from them, and has it changed sufficiently to warrant refederation?"

My issue with grad was never their local content. Yes they have shitty propagandized tankie takes and deepthroat Mao and the North Korean state all the time, but I always filtered and blocked those sorts of communities, which is any user's perogative. Hell, since we can blanket instance block on a user level these days, it's even easier.

The issue was always their users picking fights outside of their instance and actively spreading dangerous misinformation in every community they can get their fingers in; then their admins doing nothing, if not actively encouraging, this sort of bad faith engagement. Grad, hex and ml would all to varying degrees end up on many news comms and try to flood them with a certain viewpoints. And if you get into their space with an opposing view point (e.g urgyhur genocide) you will be banned more often than not.

Look back in history and see why we defedded. Db0 made the call early on because he also realized they do not make any arguements in good faith and are, for any purposes, just fascists with a different kind of red flag that were directly antithetical to this lemmy's principles. They were not worth the added moderation load to manage their users when they would get into our local comms then. And I doubt they're worth it now.

I opened their site, and right off the bat I see at least three usernames I recognize as bad faith actors that I previously blocked, I can only assume their administrative structure has not changed a bit. Refederating will be a net negative for db0.

Off topic: I forgot how the governance system works, can someone link the post where it was implemented because I'm on mobile and search is really hard here. I don't know how to see my vote tallied. ~___~

[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 11 hours ago

I think this is the link you want - https://p.lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/lemmy.dbzer0.com/35725820

Yeah this proposal isn't gonna pass in any case, so its a bit of a moot point now.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Off topic: I forgot how the governance system works, can someone link the post where it was implemented because I’m on mobile and search is really hard here. I don’t know how to see my vote tallied. ___

Upvote or downvote the main post

Ohhh, then the db bot replies. Thanks

[–] Getting6409@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

No. The world is slipping into authoritarianism of various flavors. I'd rather not filter out the shit on my end, but i will if i must.

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[–] Morningstar_bitch@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 14 hours ago (9 children)
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[–] LucidNightmare@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Nay.

I can think of every time a commenter said something obviously false and crazy sounding, and lo and behold, they’re from one of the triad servers. .ml, hexbear, and grad are full of non genuine people/bots.

Hardest of passes.

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[–] No_Bark@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I say refederate. We haven't blocked any of the turbolib instances, so I think we should let users themselves decide what instance to block.

Anecdotal, but I've never had an issue with Lemmygrad or Hexbear like so many people here constantly complain about. I find both instances preferable to most of the shit that appears from places like .world

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[–] curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (7 children)

How about waiting until after instance blocking is working nicely rather, rather than rely on the hope that it will be sorted out during that time?

I personally have zero interest in lemmygrad content, and would just block. I haven't had any real issues with hexbears at all, though some I've just tagged to never bother interacting with (FWIW, I've tagged users of other instances this way as well). So as long as they aren't randomly bringing in auth apologia to me, I generally don't care.

That said - I still vote no precisely because instance blocking is not as good as it should be yet. Until then I think its just inviting problems.

I'd vote yes after the tools are in place, not for when I expect them to be ready.

Edit: mobile kb typos.

[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 15 hours ago

Good point.

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[–] SilentStorms@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm for it. We don't block all the lib instances and they're arguably more disgusting for supporting all manner of bullshit going on around the globe.

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[–] nullpotential@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Federate and let people block the instance themselves.

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 hours ago

User-level community blocking is not at all the same as instance-level defederation. It doesn't hide posts and comments from users of the blocked instance, instead it only hides the communities themselves from the search results.

I'm quite sure that this is by design, because the tankie devs who also run lemmy.ml know that otherwise half the fediverse would instantly block them on a user-level and they would become tiny and irrelevant, but it's harder to convince an entire instance to block lemmy.ml.

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[–] jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

while hexbear, .ml, and similar communities do engage in genuine praxis in the form of mutual aid and other such assistance forums, their rhetoric and dogma is enough to absolutely destroy any amicable sentiment that might build up imo.

everyone in the comments talking about leftist unity and historical awareness is an idiot and a hypocrite. historically whenever anarchism collaborate with the red fash, we get crushed on all sides. there isn’t an instance that has gone differently. we can be that instance.

the lack of genuine rhetoric, absolute widespread acceptance of bad faith argumentative tactics, and general behavior of .ml and hexbear’s communities are both so egregious as to warrant not federating with either community, honestly. i agree with the sentiment found elsewhere in these comments that i have nothing to be gained watching western incels post about how much they love north korea and daddy putin in my feed.

i can’t and won’t be friendly with people who espouse those views and honestly, if db0 were to start federating more of these communities it would denigrate the space enough to make me want to leave. part of what i like about here is that there is no weird snakey people trying to convince people of crazy fucking conspiracy theories. just anarchist nerds doing tech shit. if we invite these people in, we’ll lose ourselves. i don’t think i’d want to use a forum that will leave me associated, no matter how loosely, with literal fascists. it’s a big part of what drives me away from mainstream social media to here and if need be it will drive me away from here, too.

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[–] fantasyocean@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Boo, no tankies.

TBH though, whatever you want.

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[–] masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] Deralax@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

If I wanted censorship I would have stayed on reddit. Open the gates.

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[–] ZeroGravitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Aye.

When wit is the only thing required, I say the bigger the picture, the better.

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