Yes it's fantastic how PieFed has absolutely solved the problem of onboarding. I even recommend it to people who are adamant about not switching from their existing Lemmy accounts - just taking a look at the PieFed onboarding can help inform things on their existing account, plus there's always the chance that they may fall in love and stay... :-)

Although now that PieFed is outright censoring votes, that's not going to play well with people trying to escape The Algorithm, which decides for them what they are allowed to see or not. An opt-in new sorting function would have been entirely different but as it stands the only way to opt-out is to avoid every instance that implements the vote quota, which is not easily or authoritatively even possible to find out before joining (and could get changed upon each subsequent update).

Maybe you can try to convey the controversy - like PieFed is great in some ways but others may not like it for "reasons", but ofc that increases the complexity of the recommendation. And it's not like Lemmy has zero controversy to its name as well. So perhaps just include one of each, without any explanation?

Also, use of a 3rd-party app negates most of PieFed's onboarding utility also, which is a further complication.

PieFed.zip is a fine recommendation - maybe no need to go into any of the above and just recommend checking it out? If 3rd-party apps don't support the onboarding, that's kinda on them and isn't PieFed's fault.

Edit: oops I seem to have misunderstood what you meant in your edit paragraph. Well, I'll leave this here in case it is interesting but it is not so precisely relevant (although it does kinda touch on the subject somewhat in general?), I see that and apologize. I disagree about labeling downvotes being disabled as "manipulation" bc anything that is done TRANSPARENTLY is not nefarious. While if stated plainly and clearly in the rules (I haven't checked that for this community, so take the following with a grain of salt), then it seems fine? Users can simply choose to use another community if they don't like this one - or even make their own. When you are in someone else's house, you follow their rules.

In reality, this shit is complicated, yo. Like PugJesus did not "manipulate" so much as he "affected" the visibility of content, using traditional means of using votes for the exact purpose they were designed for. But then is Rimu the one now "manipulating" the votes...? In one sense yes but perhaps in the greater sense no, bc it isn't a nefarious underhanded changing of them so much as an unclearly-stated alteration of the literal rules of how votes work. So manipulation of the rules rather than of votes themselves directly, and ostensibly for some kind of a purpose, albeit a very very bad one that rather than providing an opt-in new scoring scheme to not allow highly active voters as much influence as previously, instead altering the vote counts themselves directly.

In short, Rimu has just implemented an "Algorithm" that now controls what we see on the Threadiverse, deciding for everyone using it (even people on Lemmy! if they are federating with a community located on PieFed) what we are allowed to know or not. Which brings PieFed instances closer to acting more like Reddit, Threads, and X(hitter), at a time when people are desperately trying to get AWAY from such.

So while I disagree that disabilng downvotes is similar in degree (quantity of impact), yes I see the connection that it is similar in kind (quality).

Basically every PieFed community would now need a warning message attached about how it does not "fully" federate and has various caveats attached, which even that would be insufficient since iirc this change also affects votes sent to communities located on Lemmy instances as well.

Honestly this change is SO BAD that I expect it will be rolled back soon. Even then though... it will still have ripple effects for years to come.