While I want to blow off this comment with something like, "zealots will be zealots", that first link reads almost like a fantasy novel description of cartoon bad guys. It is a bit weird seeing it laid out like that, and that is from someone who spent a bit too much time in church during my late teens.

@TheDude

Hello and thank you for taking the time to respond to my post.

I appreciate you clarifying your stance on future blocking for both personal reasons and along the human decency lines. While I may lean fairly deeply into free speech territory, I also recognize the need for certain limits. The balance you've struck seems to be very reasonable, though I admit to being a hair surprised by the community driven approach.

I look forward to seeing which direction the community takes the instance.

When I skimmed the announcement where he created the Agora, I missed that part completely. I thought it was just about people donating. Based on the link in the post, I thought he was making all these decisions himself while maybe considering input from others.

Doesn't seem like there is much point in DMing him now.

That makes sense and I probably should have considered it more, though I also thought it would be useful if the response was public. Since I went searching for it myself, I thought other new users might do the same.

Ah, thank you for filling me in.

That's okay. I appreciate the response anyways. It seems that I stepped in quite the pile today.

I fully agree and if you read through my post you will notice this is not my first instance. It is just one that seems like a pretty good fit and has a name I like. I am hoping this one oddity is just that and not an indicator that @TheDude plans to block a bunch of other political instances later.

If this was one of the larger instances that has defederated a bunch of instances like lemmy.world, I wouldn't have blinked that it defederated another one. Sh.itjust.works has exactly two blocked instances, one of which seems to invite pedos the other seems like a political group. In my mind, those are a bit different and worth asking a question or two about before deciding this place isn't as welcoming as it seemed from the outside.

Thank you for literally putting words in my mouth, quotation marks and all.

If you had bothered to spend one minute reading the post, that I literally spend thirty minutes typing up, you would have noticed that the first sentence was to express appreciation for the time and money @TheDude on creating and maintaining this instance. At no point did I say he was wrong or even that I disagreed with his choice. I just asked for clarification on the matter.

That is quite the interesting thread. Especially that History of Lemmy link. Not sure what I expected but it wasn't that.

And you are repeating my own words back to me in a different order as if it will surprise me into keeping my questions to myself.

Pardon me for trying to find out if I just wandered into an environment that is as chill and welcoming as it seems from the outside or another reddit where many genuine questions will get shouted down.

Seems like you didn't actually read my post.

This is the new parking lot that I am checking out. It seems pretty nice so far, but there is a weird statue in the corner. If it is just a one off that is cool. If it is the first among many then maybe I need to keep driving around.

Edit: Seems like I combined the two posts when responding, but I think I am going to leave it as is.