There's been discussion of federation with Lemmygrad. I think this is probably a good call. I just want to know how the anti-sectarian rule would be enforced. Like, it someone makes an anti-anarchist post on lemmygrad.ml and it shows up on hexbear.net, would the moderators hide the comment on our end but not on Lemmygrad? Would repeat offenders be banned from hexbear.net even though they made the comment on a different iteration?
Same for one of the bigger anarchist instances like lemmy.blahaj.zone which has good leftist and trans content but also has regular struggle sessions about "tankies." It seems like federation with then would be a boon for both sites, but moderating the left unity rule would be a nightmare.
Also, another thought: would downbears from other instances carry over here?
I really wanna know the answer to the downbears. For such an insignificant back-end change, I think removing them did a lot to shift site culture for the better.
What is better about it, though?
They didn't really help filter out low-effort content and we're mostly used as an "I disagree" button. Removing them meant it took a little bit of effort to dogpile someone and the site seemed much friendly after they were removed.
Of course, it means we can no longer down vote wreckers and trolls to hide their comments, but the mods usually ban them pretty fast anyways (
to our mods )