this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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/0 Governance

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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

(page 4) 50 comments
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[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No way in hell. The reason I'm here is because we don't federate (and I like anarchism and piracy but that's beside the point), I left .ml the second I could when db0 popped up during the exodus. If we federate with them I'll have to switch again.

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[–] Enzyoo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

I am anti censorship and we need the users to develop critical thinking, because then the problem would eliminate itself. However, as instance owners, you (unfortunately) have the responsibility what content is visible on your instance, even if it is just some copy from somewhere else (the law is not quite compatible with distributed systems). This means, you have to block any extremist views which could endanger any of your instance’s users (even visitors, technically). So even if it is censorship, the survival of this instance is of more value, than to enforce pure anarchy.

I am for blocking lemmygrad. And hexbear. And @dessalines@lemmy.ml.

In others words: don’t ever federate again.

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[–] chaoticnumber@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Absolutely not, this is a terrible idea considering that they were defederated for being toxic and aggressive to our overall community, and also many people there are disingenuous in their takes, it's not a discussion community, it's brigading. The only way I could ever support anything like this is if their domain expired and someone used it to make a completely different instance.

That hasn't happened so I can't support this.

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[–] swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’m voting no, I’m against it.

I’m of the mindset that if there’s already been a decision to defederate, there should be a very good reason to consider refederating. After looking at the posts over there it seems pretty dead. I don’t think there’s anything of any quality being missed, and I don’t personally see any reason why we should undo the defederation.

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

So, it appears unruffled is MIA and I can't reach him about this right now, so...

I've revised this vote to make it more fair to the objectors (without permission :3). The main problem seems to be that lots of you don't want to see grad content, and that's fair; personally, I think their instance can produce shit takes a lot. So in this revision (and FAQ) I'll try to address everything.

The original plan was: run a trial vote, federate for a month, and then immediately run another vote to cement/reject this.

Thanks to the comments here, here's my personal changes:

  • Shorten the trial to two weeks instead, thanks to the two users that suggested this
  • After the trial, defederate immediately instead of running the next vote asap. Then once Lemmy properly fixes instance blocking (I.E. completely block an instance, as if it was actually defederated), we can run the vote, but more fairly; users who've this will get it, and users who reject this can easily block it, as if it never happened. Win win?

Forgive me if I'm missing stuff, I'm far away from home and busy, and can't do too much admin duty, and I'm only really commenting this since unruffled is offline xd.

FAQ:

Why, and why now?

A lot of users, including one just recently who quit their instance, are sick of liberals. This is mainly meant to be a counterweight to that. Although seeing some users here live some of their content, I guess that's a plus, too.

As for why now? Well this really started over two casual conversations about grad, tankies, and liberals.It's odd I have to admit, but oh well ¯_(ツ)_/¯

What if I change my mind and want to defederate again?

Besides the fact that instance blocking will be fixed during that time, anybody can always start up a vote for defederation! This isn't a permanent, set in stone thing

Didn't we have good reason to defederate before? Why refederate?

Well, kinda? Not really. I asked db0 about this and here is his response:

The reasons are simple, I didn't know much about hexbear at the start and took them at their words that they're not just tankies, LG was stalwartly running apologia red fash regimes like North Korea and that was a bit too much to stomach for me. By how I learned that LG is basically the same as hexbear ideologically just without the left unity and dirtbag left approach.

And afaik grad has been defederated from the very beginning anyway, no voting took place.

I hope I covered everything. Personally? I don't really care about this too much, whether it passes or not I probably wouldn't mind. Most of us admins are neutral/skeptical, since we've never federated with them we've never interacted with them at all.

Anyways, this is the community's choice. If you guys don't like it we won't force you, and if you like it we'll respect your wishes.

If you have any other suggestions of compromise, feel free so reply here. Cheers

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[–] UnrefinedChihuahua@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] tlekiteki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I have slowly grown to appreciate having some hexbear users around to help balance out all the turbolibs.

Same. There's a difference between socialism, anarchism, communitarianism, communism, etc., and too many turbo libs chock all of that rich political tapestry up to "tankies".

While I do think there are dictator apologists out there, I don't see the down side to open communication so long as there's healthy debate. As soon as ad hominems are introduced, where people are attacked and not their ideas, I think that's when we draw the line.

I don't really have any experience with lemmygrad though. Hexbear I've started warming up to. As with Lemmy.ml

Edit: I'd say let's try the month period and see what happens. And if this doesn't work, I don't think that should be the last time we try to federate. We should elect to keep an open mind to see if things change. I do think that dbzer0 should allow users to block entire instances though. One of the reasons I came to dbzer0 is because lemmy.world banned too many instances that I was interested in.

So yeah, count me in. Aye

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[–] confusedwiseman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I spent some time browsing, and we choose to federate, my block list will need to expand. If others want that…OK, but that’s very much not for me.

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[–] Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Against, fuck tankies. Literal imperialist Russian propaganda mills at this point.

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[–] stopforgettingit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

No, I disagree. The near worship of authoritarian leaders is a hard no go for me.

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[–] The_Helmet_Stays_On@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Completely forgot they were an instance so I am fine if they stay gone.

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[–] Infernal_pizza@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'd be in favour of this. I came over from lemm.ee, I'm pretty sure they were federated with lemmygrad and TBH I hardly ever saw any posts or comments from them. They seem to keep most of their insane views to their own communities (although that may just be because so many other instances have blocked them)

Personally I think defederation is mostly pointless now that users can block instances themselves, and one of the main reason I picked this instance is that not many other instances are defederated. I'd rather defederation was only used when absolutely necessary. To me the whole point of Lemmy is that it shouldn't matter where anyone created their account.

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[–] N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Opening lines of dialogue can be a good thing. I like that it’s set up with a trial period. If it creates problems, they can be dealt with quickly and permanently closed off shortly after.

We live in an online ecosystem designed to encourage divisiveness and anger. I personally think it’s a good thing to hear viewpoints outside of your comfort zone. People of differing ideologies have way more in common with each other than with the billionaires and their bootlicking armies that try to divide everyone for their own benefit.

Ceterum censeo Epstein didn’t kill himself.

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[–] RavingGrob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] basiclemmon98@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I was not here for the original drama, but more potential leftist intersectionalism is never bad, esspecially when there is a flare-up of Fascism.

so Aye, let's refederate them.

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[–] GreenMartian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Aye for a trial.

I'm an adult; I think I can block users and communities on a case-by-case basis. If it becomes unbearable, I can still vote no at the end of the trial.

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[–] onoira@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

my feed's pretty barren after blocking most libshit (for the sake of my mental health), so i'd welcome more (multilingual) leftist posts. i've seen insightful Lemmygraders under Hexbear posts but can't see them from dbzer0.

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

No, I don't like giving a voice to absurd extremists.

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[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I see NO reason to change that. The instance itself is almost empty (judging by their top-week as guest), it's content usually crossposted from\to ml\hex. My only concern is blocking it's non-powerusers, but I doubt there are many who use this instance exclusively.

If people on lg.ml are comfortable with db0 defed, let it stay, because I feel like not our but their feeds would be filled with db0 posts up to the point they'd defed themselves.

I'm not against trial, but I find it rather pointless. Most of us won't even notice that besides spam reposts with rare if ever interactions.

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[–] rivvvver@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s gonna be a no from me, fam

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[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No.

I'd just block it on individual level then same as hex

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[–] SadSadSatellite@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm in for a trial. Different viewpoints are good, and worst case scenario, we just defed again.

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[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I say bring them back. If people don't like them, it's super easy for individual users to just instance-block.

.ee went away. Dubvee.org (which was a great place) went away just today. Lemmy is breaking down, and all this separation will just hasten the demise. There are plenty of tools for people to individually block things they don't like.

So my vote is for re-federating them! And thank you for bringing this up!

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[–] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've had nothing but good experiences with hexbear in my lemmy history, I think, but then again I value more the communities than the users, and thus I prefer instances that won't arbitrarily keep me from getting good content from elsewhere. I tend to not track where a user is in the Fediverse - every internet dog is free to create accounts anywhere, anyway.

But... comparatively speaking, lg.ml seems to have little if anything to offer in comparison. The "tinted left" stuff that I care about can be more easily found in l.ml anyway.

I'd say give it a two weeks trial. A full month might be a bit too much, both for the people pro and con.

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[–] codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm broadly against defederation in general without good material cause (such as: instance does a lot of trolling or brigading, instance hosts illegal or deeply immoral content).

I like the hexbears! There's some bad ones of course, but there's people on this instance I don't like or agree with so that's hardly an argument against. I can block the worst tankies of lemmygrad as well, or the whole instance if it really personally bothered me.

In broader terms, I think we see enough of an amount of center-lib arguments that it's essentially the water we swim in. I'm glad that out and out right wing takes are very rare, but I think some more extreme left views could be good. I don't agree with vanguardists at all but I can't act like coalition with them against overt fascists isnt necessary sometimes.

And anyway, federation isnt about political coalition. It's about exchange of ideas and I'm confident enough in the correctness of anarchy to not feel threatened by the ideas of other leftists.

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[–] Mannimarco@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Aye, yes, I think a trial period is reasonable.

If it gets bad we can defed again, but I think we should try to be as federated as possible, especially with other leftist instances

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[–] brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Giving it a trial run might be okay though I'd lean towards leaving things as-is.

Does kind of feel like the overall community wouldn't be too thrilled. I'm having a hard time understanding why the instance would be entertaining a change now. Like I can't think of any communities I care to participate in over there, just seems like spamming up people's All feed for no discernible benefit.

OTOH you have a point, people can do instance blocking in their user settings so that is an option.

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[–] afc@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yes. We need to expand the chiral network.

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[–] HBK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm gonna vote no on this one

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[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] Black_Beard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I find the average user less grating than the average world or ohshitit'sjustfash users. There's some fucking wankers but hey it's the internet.

Good to get perspectives critical of the imperial core and usually more insightful than the average conservative/lib take. Like I might think that glazing NK is hilarious, but it's not like you don't find hundreds of users glazing farcial "representative" democracies constantly which are only marginally further along in terms of real freedom to act in a way contrary to the nation state.

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[–] whysofurious@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Personally, if this account ends up federated with grad, I’ll abandon it. I’ve been here since the Reddit API migration 2 years ago, when grad was originally defederated, but I’ll drop this shit in half a heartbeat. I have other options. Y’all can do what you like.

No thanks for me though. I also don’t want shit to do with hex or .ml. Those are harder to find instances defederated. But also worth having nothing to do with, I’ve found. For every serious anarchist or communist you might actually want to talk to, it seems you have 4 “for real bro” shitposters ruining it.

I’m actively looking for places I don’t have to interact with that level of toxicity. If dbzer0 isn’t it anymore, I’ll move on.

If I want to see what nonsense they have to say I can create an account on their dumb servers. I don’t want to know what assholes think, though, when they could -just as easily- go somewhere else to interact if they want to be heard.

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[–] sinokon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’m also in for a trial, when it comes worse to worse deferate again. Would be interesting just to see some discourse and how it goes.

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