Exploding-heads.com is another instance on Lemmy where alt-right MAGA types tend to reside. Some people on this server want us to defederate from them immediately, some people want to save defederation as a last resort. They have 104 active users (more stats below).
It seems that exploding-heads has also experienced a recent botswarm invasion. This is obviously another point in favor of defederating them, assuming you are worried about botswarms, which is currently being discussed here.
My advice to you all is please try to discuss this in a civil manner, we need not allow them to create divisive conflict inside our communities. No matter how the vote turns out, you're not going to be able to defederate from your fellow sh.itheads so be nice.
I've linked many of the previous discussions below so people who are out of the loop can get a general sense of the situation.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126 https://sh.itjust.works/post/410325
Lemmy.world just recently defederated them.
https://lemmy.world/post/747912
https://lemmy.world/post/577526
Although this could be considered a point in favor of defederation, it actually means even if we vote to remain federated, people have a great alternative in lemmy.world where they can still participate in our communities and simultaneously be protected from exploding-heads.
Ensuring diversity of servers is beneficial to the platform as a whole, but it is also not our responsibility to bear that burden.
TLDR, just wrap up any last points in this thread before we open the vote tomorrow. Please be civil.
EDIT: To clarify, this isn't the official vote, this is the final discussion. The vote thread will be posted tomorrow and you will only be allowed to make a single comment saying Aye or Nay.
EDIT2: Vote thread is up, this thread is now locked. Very lively discussion thread sh.itheads. Please try to be more respectful next time.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888
Do you mean this post? This is not a functional democratic process. The OP himself describes it as a shitshow. If we had simply defederated them based on that, I'd have everyone else at my throat for allowing a sham of a democracy.
This, right now, is a democratic process. I linked all of the other threads, the people have access to all of the information they need to decide on their vote. We are currently having an informative discussion.
I think this is working, don't be so pessimistic. Lemmy is going to be different.
First, I want to make it clear I'm not specifically talking about you personally, though I'm sure you're included in the group I'm talking about. I understand there's a lot of administration involved... That is one reason a big instance isn't a great idea, it takes much more work to do anything or make any significant changes.
I was pretty active on this instance and I have no idea who manages what. All I know is agora opened, we had a vote, and then we had a long period of people asking what's up and not being given any answers. Something like "we'd like to get a better voting system in place first" would have gone a long way.
The voting process was young. It probably wasn't great. It might have even been a "shitshow." But it was still good enough to agree on defederating a malicious instance.