this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026

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General off-topic chat for the crew of startrek.website. Trek-adjacent discussions, other sci-fi television, navigating the Fediverse, server meta (within reason), selling expired cases of Yamok sauce, it’s all fair game.

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FYI: StarTrek.website is no longer federating with Lemmy.dbzer0.com (startrek.website)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by Admin@startrek.website to c/quarks@startrek.website

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If you're not familiar with how Lemmy/the Fediverse works, basically everything you read at StarTrek.website is hosted by us, even if the content originated elsewhere. That means we are responsible for everything here and we have to decide if we are comfortable boosting content from other instances.

If you're curious, the final straw here was learning that db0 explicitly allows hosting discussions about hurting people, which needless to say goes against our instance values and we simply don't have the manpower to moderate that volume of content incoming from their server to a degree that we feel meets our quality standards, which left defederating as the only viable option.

In keeping in line with past trends we're announcing this because is is a larger instance and don't want to leave any of the crew confused as to why something may be missing.

EDIT: Just to be crystal clear, this change ONLY affects users on THIS instance, if your account is on a federated instance then it doesn't apply to you and your experience will remain unchanged.

EDIT 2: Locking this because it's getting downvote brigaded by accounts from other instances which is preventing local accounts from seeing it. Local users feel free to DM me or another admin if you have questions.

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[–] Aspis@lemy.lol 23 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

As an admin with the same responsibilities, I find it questionable that you've also decided not to give any proof of your claims. Could you please demonstrate some? Otherwise, we (the admins of lemy.lol) will unfortunately have to defederate from Startrek.website in response. There have been a number of reports of the behavior surrounding the administration of this instance to call into question this specific action. This seemingly made directly after an illegal DDOS attack was perpetuated on dbzer0 is... strange. It's more than enough for us at our instance to drop you as well.

We're not entirely comfortable with admins using their instances as a fiefdom. If you want to defederate, I can understand the decision. It is one that I've had to consider numerous times. But to paint an entire instance (the third largest, from what I'm aware) as allowing content that you're refusing to provide evidence for? It's questionable. This made only further by the fact that Corgana and SysAdmin have been demonstrated by others to be the same user in the past as well as the... quite numerous claims of abuse from the admins of this instance. Hell, I've currently got access to screenshots of the admins of this instance requesting another instance to ban a user simply for reporting on the publicly available modlog on YePowerTrippingBastards.

As far as I'm aware, you also haven't taken any public stance on this up until this point. "Final Straw?" What were the first ones? This post leaves far more questions than it does answers. I'd recommend deleting this now and making either a sensible response worthy of an admin or to just drop this entire situation.

[+] Admin@startrek.website -15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You are on a different instance so this won't affect your experience :)

That said if you are curious about our instance principles see this link: https://startrek.website/legal

[–] Aspis@lemy.lol 27 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I'm an admin of another instance and questioning your behavior and wondering if its worthy of defederation from my own instance.

I, and others, are simply asking for your evidence that you used to base your decision off of. Is that the answer you want to go with? Complete disregard and dismissal?

Every comment of yours here has been to dismiss everyone while saying "You're not on the instance so it won't change things for you." You are not addressing the problem and, seemingly, waiting for people to have a problem with it only from that instance. The one that you blocked. So are you sure that "Disregard, dismissal, and refusal to elaborate or communicate" is what you want myself and other admins to take away from this post?

Edit: Well, with several more comments posted (including a dodge attempt at providing evidence by saying its against their rules to shame someone) but nothing in response to this, clearly the answer is yes. That is what the administrators of this website want us to take from this. That they do not need to provide evidence, they do not need to clarify, they do not need to elaborate. Now. Combine that with the numerous reports of direct harassment and abuse by members of their admin team. Add on the fact that your modlog shows no activity from any of your admins for months up until last week when this Tesseract stuff started. Then the user of this instance who has been extremely vocal about everything going on. I, as an admin responsible to my users like you are to yours, have to ask myself. Is this really an instance worth staying federated with?

Admins of our instance are having a discussion about defederation. If we decide to do so, we will inform you and our own instance before actually doing it.

[+] Admin@startrek.website -16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Sorry we have a prime directive of sorts, and I can't give out ammunition that could be used to create drama for users on another instance. If you have an issue with them, take it up with them but please don't try to involve us.

[–] realbadat@programming.dev 17 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Isn't that exactly what you're doing? Generating drama?

No proof or reasoning, while saying "Nah don't look at me I'm not involved" while doing a thing thats creating drama?

I have to assume this is related to the tesseract debacle, and I have to assume that this sort of drama generation - which is what this post is - will continue from startrek.website now.

I guess I'll go elsewhere for my trek themed lurking.

[–] Aspis@lemy.lol 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

If you have an issue with them, take it up with them but please don’t try to involve us.

I don't. I have an issue with you because you are making these claims. You're asking me to go to the people you're accusing and asking them to prove a negative, if it is false. Something that you know full well is utterly impossible and does not hold up in any court, law or public opinion.

I am going to ask this for the last time.

Are you willing to provide any evidence at all to back up your claims?

If you are not willing to prove your accusations then your accusations are without merit. It also will have demonstrated that Startrek.website is engaging in hostile administration and weaponizing defederation for unknown reasons. Which is all that any other instance would need to defederate from you.

This is your last chance of handling this in a professional manner.

[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

db0 explicitly allows hosting discussions about hurting people

Give some direct examples.

[–] Luci@lemmy.ca 20 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This feels petty

[–] kbal@fedia.io 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Why? What does "discussions about hurting people" actually mean? Even starship captains engage in such discussions at times.

[–] nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Hello, i understand I'm on a different instance and this doesn't directly affect me, however, for the greater health of the fediverse i am concerned that i don't see any specific evidence?

I understand you're claiming you have your own prime directive of sorts but i don't think Section 31 vibes are healthy when it comes to defederation. You're welcome to disagree- it's your server and all but im just saying outside looking in, id be concerned any time a server is defederating without specific evidence. My server has defederated servers before and i know exactly why because my server admins are very open and tell us why.

How would you expect the denizens of Deep Space Nine to react if suddenly starfleet's alliance with bajor was ended and no bajorans are allowed in the station with no specific rationale given?

And while you may say it doesn't affect me directly, that would mean there are less bajorans in these halls. When i visit your communities it will be a bajoran-free zone. That does affect me indirectly because while i can still participate here, it means there are less people to engage in nerdy space talk.

I hope you reconsider sharing more info. Thanks for your time and effort managing your server.

[–] Admin@startrek.website -4 points 5 days ago

They have a right to operate however they see fit, and we have strict rules about linking to other instances with the intent of shaming someone or influencing their policy. If you have questions about dbzer0's policies I recommend you take your questions to them.

[–] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm on a different instance, so this doesn't directly affect me.

With this in mind this action and the discussion raise many questions. Defederation is a broad and extreme measure, affecting many users and the structure of the fediverse as a whole. When larger instances are involved this is of interest to everyone.

The thin explanation isn't satisfying anyone's curiosity and let's the decision look questionable at best.

I'm no fan of db0, but I am for open discourse. Just going against the "values" doesn't feel like a good reason for an instance ban. This should be explained in more detail with examples.

[–] Admin@startrek.website -5 points 6 days ago

I mentioned this elsewhere but we consider linking to posts/comments with the intent of directing traffic to "bad" behavior to be brigading and is very much against our rules. The only reason I cited the example I did is because it is something explicitly permitted. We're not trying to create drama or lob false accusations.

Ultimately we are a small team running a small instance, and we have to be selective about what responsibilities we take on. And as I've been repeating, it ONLY affects users here and we don't have a local only community to post this to (though maybe we should 😛)

[–] Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

[–] goferking0 1 points 6 days ago

So this user of yours will also be banned for not following the instance values?

https://startrek.website/u/kirk

Specifically not following authenticity, ie saying they're a different user but could be trying to increase the moderation you may need to do, and extremely disrespectful, unless that value only counts towards members of this instance.

This is being brought up specifically as while yes you are a small instance non of this apart from that user would bring traffic here you would need to moderate so it seems as if you are just doing this to cut off a large portion of the fediverse explicitly against principles those in star trek would be for.