So I want to make this post because I don't know why instances, mine specifically, choose to block others. Now, don't get me wrong that blocking instances that are CP related and anything illegal is something that should and needs to be blocked and/or removed. but if its something like Threads, let me choose to block a user myself, give me the freedom to do so. I've seen Brodie Robertson's video talking about this, and I whole heartily agree with his stance on this where letting the user have the freedom to block a user or instance themselves.
I just feel that some lemmy instances are turning into big tech companies where they are controlling everything, and don't get me wrong, its their server space, do what you want to do, but at least since you are using foss to run your lemmy server, at least be different then Reddit or YouTube etc. I created a lemmy account just to have a more private experience from Reddit without being tracked all the time. guess I was wrong.
not trying to get on the wrong foot here, I am just a fan of internet freedom, and I think you should have the right to do anything you want online, that's within legal waters.
Thoughts...
Beehaw is not a non-walled-garden instance. They are a very choosy and defederating instance.
Perhaps, but your reasoning is a bit too vague to be convincing. So what am I missing? Beehaw registration is open. I had no problem getting an account there; over Tor in fact. I don’t recall if they were using the Q/A interview field back when I signed up. OTOH that screening mechanism has become quite typical these days.
W.r.t defederation, I only know that Beehaw defederated from centralized instances, which is fair enough from the PoV of those embracing the decentralization principle. I skimmed through their several page long policies which boil down to “don’t be mean”. So I would guess they defederate from hate-rich nodes - not sure. What specifically do you have in mind?
The Cloudflare instances I listed are walled gardens because they restrict access hard and fast to various demographics with arbitrary exclusion of various groups of people (which IMO is an even harsher form of walled garden than some of the corporate walled gardens). I would not call having a code of conduct indicative of a walled garden, otherwise we would be calling just about every single instance a walled garden and thus not a useful place to draw a line.
More defederation means lesser users to interact with, and lesser fostering of a federated culture. Beehaw is not in line with Fediverse spirit. That is all there is to it. Beehaw's "bee nice" is a very vague rule, one that has no standardisation or basis, not anything concrete most Lemmy users have seen.
Not to toot my own horn, but I am one of the few old Lemmy users who helped build it up to what it is now, ignoring the Reddit exodus part (it was a wild time, too many ship jumping redditors). We did not like the friction Beehaw created in such a fragile time, wanting to become its own mini reddit, although Lemmyworld is far more guilty of this.
lemmy.ml (formerly dev.lemmy.ml) was centralized by Cloudflare (after the renaming iirc). It was an embarrassment that the flagship instance was so antithetical to Fedi philosophy. Perhaps due to that well-placed criticism, lemmy.ml eventually dropped CF. But lemmy.ml is still today centralized by disproportionate size. There is also copious political baggage with those admins which has helped drive people off (thus beneficial shrinkage) but which ultimately enabled/led lemmy.world to become the biggest most centralized instance (which is centralized by both factors: Cloudflare and disproportionate size).
In the big scheme of things, AFAICT beehaw is federated and reachable from other Fedi-principles-respecting instances. I can reach it from other non-walled-garden instances I listed. Grouping beehaw with the walled garden instances is a weird place to draw a line. I’ve only heard about beehaw defederating from instances that are antithetical to the fediverse spirit. But I only know w.r.t the big instances.. feel free to point out counter examples. There probably wouldn’t be much chatter about defederation from small instances.
I was one of the main people who called against it, and asked to develop an indigenous captcha. And I do not think the CF association happened for that long, as opposed to instances like LW.
Beehaw is somewhere in the middle between federation loving instances and federation hating instances. Beehaw does not hate federation, but says it has a different "vision", one I did not like since I prefer federation with minimal censorship (CP, fascism, basic universally hated elements).