this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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I'm perpetually shocked that there's zero vetting for federation...
Like, I get needing to give a new instance a chance, but it feels like shared between all the admins that federate, keeping an eye on them wouldn't be hard for a probationary period.
But like..
Admins really saw a blank instance with "chan" being the only other word besides "lemmy" and thought shit was gonna cool?
Is federation really automated to the point no human makes a decision? If so, that's an obvious flaw and trolls will just keep spinning up instances to troll from. If one person has to pay it all the time, it's a hassle. If ~100 people are pitching in or taking turns and they don't care what the domain is because they know it's temporary...
Have admins even considered how to prepare for that?
Instances can either be blocklisted or allowlisted. A given instance must choose one method or the other, and almost all instances choose the former. Hexbear is the only one I know that chose the later. They vet instances individually before allowing them. Keep in mind that the fediverse is not just Lemmy. It would be a lot of work to vet each new fediverse instance that comes along.
Thanks!
So it's just a setting they can flip at any time. When (not if) instance spam becomes an issue, there's already a way to address it.
This could (hopefully would) be mitigated by blocklist admins monitoring one of the resources that quantify instance activity after like x months. If everything checks out, let em in with a reminder in y months to circle back.
Semi related:
I've always wanted to see a mod list that breaks down "local". Like, you look at .worlds modlist from the main page, and it's every mod action from every federate instance.
It makes it hard for users to see what their own admins are up, especially with how frequent these discussions is, I feel that option would increase transparency for how an instance moderates so users can make informed decisions where to set up roots.
Yeah that'd be nice. Modlog has always left much to be desired. Although the core concept is great, it's not fleshed out enough to be as useful as it should be. Sometimes it can even be weaponized by rogue mods to slander certain users. Because when you ban someone, that mod action is permanent and you get to put whatever text you want as the ban reason.
It definitely needs work but I can understand other things taking priority, considering most users will never interact with the modlog anyway.
It's happened to me, I have gotten banned from communities just because I was banned from other communities, one of them even says "check the modlog"
I guess on the bright side at least it shows the text of the comments that got removed right there, and links directly to the thread. So people can easily verify for themselves whether they would agree with the ban or not. It's more of an annoyance than anything, they can put whatever reason they want for banning you, but they can't edit your comments or control the words you actually wrote down. So if you stand by what you wrote and others agree with your perspective, it just makes the mod look bad and they can also get removed for abusing mod powers.
In some ways, I think context also matters. For example, you can debate a topic theologically in a different manner to politically. So for example, "dancing is a sin in flaxifarianism, and we should hold to flaxifarian values within our temples" in a flaxifarianism community is different to saying "dancing should be politically outlawed" in a general community, or worse, one dedicated to dancing.
Yeah totally, but that's why it links to the threads with the full context if you click on the modlog