Oh yes, I know why it's blocked. There is no moderation and a couple nasties interacting with people on other servers early on brought that down on us. It's mostly self policing and block lists these days. Generally a fun group but there's things that come up in the free speech area some people don't want to hear.
No matter, I'm also on another server that's highly technical and federation seems to be working fine.
MMasnick's moderation speedrun article, although targeted at emerald boy, applies equally (mostly) to every new Mastodon instance admin. Unless your instance is locked down to just you. Or you and a couple of close friends.
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...