Shame the instances list doesn't include reason for blocking. Looking at the names most seem obvious (and I don't feel like I'm missing out on those) but there must be some grey areas.

[–] stankmut@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Having a reason listed would be nice. I picked one off the list that I couldn't figure out from the name alone why it would be banned and decided to take a look and see why. I was apprehensive. What horrors was I about to see?

Couldn't figure out why it was banned from the content alone. I looked it up and found a website that has their defederated instances list and the reasons. I didn't see anything that matched the reason given, but I didn't care enough to keep digging further.

I think the list is shared among a few instances.

[–] suth@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there any chance instances will start (or already are) blocking other instances based on instances they're linked to? Similar to the way some subreddits would automatically ban users for participation in other subs, it could further enforce echo chambers. If Lemmy.world is a little more open, I'd hate for it to get blocked by somewhere like Beehaw just for that.

[–] zkikiz@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

It's possible, any admin can do anything they want, but it would be relatively rare. The way I've seen that play out is like if an instance pops up that seems like it's run by a Nazi but you can't really tell so you look at who their friends are. Usually it's like if the admin is interacting a lot with Nazi instances or content you can guess where their loyalties will lie. But a lot of instances simply won't block random small instances that haven't caused trouble yet, through nothing but being unaware.

Some communities want to be insular though, it's totally valid to want a "private forum" for let's say kids or religions or schools or a marginalized demographic. So they may block nearly everything for their own internal reasons.

My advice, don't hang out near Nazis and don't hang out in a place that doesn't make it clear that Nazis aren't welcome. Lemmy doesn't really have a lot of code of conduct stuff set up but that's the main thing to pay attention to.