1) My server isn't its own insular community - it federates with many other Fediverse instances and I interact with plenty of other people from these.

2) You claim I complained about the "its own insular community" part; where? Care to quote me doing so?

Sure, but these aren't my words, and you told me to stop complaining about something that I didn't complain about. I can't teach you basic rules of attributing speech, either.

In particular, the original submission has a comment which, among other things, said:

> The author seems under to be under the wrong impression that Mastodon servers are isolated communities (and therefore compares them to subreddits). This is incorrect. (...)

And then a person further replied with:

> This is only true among mastodon servers that connect to each other. As I recall, most servers would not talk to gab's servers.

It is as if there existed only two exclusive options: either you federate with Gab, or your server is a lone island. If you share the same sentiment, I think I can understand your wider experience and frustration with the Fediverse.

do you have a point you're trying to make?

Sure, in no particular order:

* Choosing not to federate, just like choosing to federate, is a feature, not a bug;

* You no longer lose your followers during account migration on Mastodon;

* If my instance does not federate with e.g. Gab, it does not mean that my instance is an insular community disconnected from others;

* I'm not complaining about Fediverse instances being insular communities and in fact I don't experience them being that way;

* You're getting multiple posts in a row flagged off HN and there's likely a common reason for that.

>* Choosing not to federate, just like choosing to federate, is a feature, not a bug;

i never disagreed with that part just the part where you thought that means that instances that don't federate actually do federate.

> * You no longer lose your followers during account migration on Mastodon;

always nice to meet with a fan

>* If my instance does not federate with e.g. Gab, it does not mean that my instance is an insular community disconnected from others;

Of course not, that comes from all the other instances its also not federating with.

>* I'm not complaining about Fediverse instances being insular communities and in fact I don't experience them being that way;

then this is all just a big misunderstanding and your original post was completely irrelevant to the thread

> You're getting multiple posts in a row flagged off HN and there's likely a common reason for that.

Gee whiz not the internet forum moderators! what ever shall i do? please don't take away my upvotes!

There is a difference between blocking every other server and blocking a singular server and the different shades between. In particular gab is full of toxic, stupid, offensive, psychos wearing human skin masks so that they can blend in and prey upon actual humans.

Most people when consuming content at scale want SOME filter on the content whether they know it or not unless the community is very small and self selecting. This is because a singular scumbag can trivially ruin the good time of a thousand users. Large completely unmoderated communities always turn into nightmares at some point.

The block if any should be at the user level per user and not at the admin level. No matter what gab user's beliefs are, it's wrong to dehumanize them. If anything, you're doing the same thing you're accusing them of doing: Dehumanizing humans with different (race)beliefs to commit (genocide) segregation.

Choosing not to associate with a person or a group of people is one of the most basic human rights, not dehumanization. A private Fediverse instance has the full right to invite, or uninvite, any sort of people or content; you're just seeing the effects of that right being exercised, independently, by multiple administrators of multiple instances.

But you CAN choose at the individual level. If the server you are on doesn't implement your desired policy you can move to another or host your own.

yeah but its not just gab that gets blocked, just about every instance has a long list of blocked instances, and most instance admins will block anything that hosts content they disagree with. im not being hyperbolic when i say that a sizable portion of the fediverse is run by admins who think free speech is analagous to nazism.