There does seem to be a problem with a lack of empathy with people wanting to share something that’s deeply personal. And I think you’re right that federation kind of works against those posters. Not all instances seem to have good manners when it comes to other people’s sexuality.
In the end that comes down to moderation. I don’t mean to imply that mods and admins are doing a bad job in any way, but they’ll always be fighting a losing battle. The manpower and tools just aren’t advanced enough to deal with it all before the damage is done.
I know you mentioned it in another comment and I’ve mentioned it before in the past, but the instance overall always feels like it’s having an identity crisis and doesn’t know what it wants to be. Sexuality is a very broad spectrum and the nature of that means that most people are going to find the sheer existence of certain parts of that spectrum that don’t include them unsavory or offensive.
Before anyone grabs a pitchfork, I’m not saying it should be a free for all and predatory things like pedo and beastiality absolutely need to be banned, but if you’re someone who isn’t into kink or gay or whatever else then there’s always going to be friction with those that are. Personally I’d say the instance as a whole needs to take a more specific stance on what it wants to host for this specific stage of growth.
The problem is with a certain immature section of the audience. Perhaps there needs to be the equivalent of private subreddits for the OC and people have to prove they aren’t going to be troublesome before they get access.
Restricting access would probably not be successful. It would just fragment and wall off significant sections of the already small communities.
AutoMod tools are the answer, if a comment has certain keywords, or even a negative sentiment a good automod can remove the comments pretty much immediately. We’ve talked about automod for awhile, and I definitely want it, I’m going to start experimenting with existing solutions soon.
We’ve talked about wanting to implement an automod solution for awhile, and finally there are some tools for that, I personally am going to start experimenting with some of the tools, and will begin to provoke more chats with the other admins to start creating a plan of action in regards to that.
Also, as far as separate instances like that, that can get muddy, I think, unless you have a really clear definitions of what’s “too hardcore.”
What we don’t allow on the site are
- things that are illegal (like CSAM and beastiality)
- things that would be illegal to host on the sites servers because of where they’re located (like animated beastiality, shota and loli)
- things that are generally considered very extreme (like scat and barf)
The last one is because lemmy doesn’t have a good automod system and most people don’t want to see that kind of thing. I would argue that, outside of those things, what people are into varies greatly and that’s why we allow pretty much everything else.
I think the problem lies in the fact that, unlike reddit and most other social media platforms, lemmy has no personalized algorithms. This means that everyone on an instance gets the same “hot” and “active” page. So I think the main reason the content seems all over the place is because the algorithms aren’t personally catered. Reddit has just as many, if not more, niche communities, but their “best” and “hot” pages have personalized algorithms so that you see more of what you like.
Personalized algorithms like that aren’t insanely difficult to create, but it’s the nuances of it that are difficult. It’s something I would like to look into and partner with some of the other admins that have dev experience to maybe create for use on any lemmy server, but as of now there is nothing developes on that front.
That being said, I don’t think the answer is to split the content even more by making more instances and then having potentially even more uncertainty about what is and isn’t allowed.
I think the answer is for us admins and mods to continue to do our best to reduce toxicity, to continue to improve our mod tools, and continue to have active discussions about what would be good for the growth of the instance.
But if you have other reasoning that you feel that the instance is having an identity crisis, I’m all ears, we’re always open to constructive criticism and suggestions to improve the overall user experience on the instance