an incompatible protocol with less features and worse UX

And yet, they have the one thing that matters: the users.

It’s not a matter of opinion, look up the definition of the word, chief.

Okay, still not what “theme” means, tho. Maybe “skin” is the word you’re looking for?

I disagree with the use of “theme”. It evokes a visual for me.

That’s on you, because the word “theme” does not mean “visual” at all.

No, because that directly supports Trump. That’s hardly an apt comparison to talking about HP on an obscure website with no ads or links to Rowling whatsoever.

Because continuing to engage with her content is a form of endorsement of her viewpoints

This is a pretty significant leap that doesn’t seem realistic.

Engaging in communities that reinforce a positive viewpoint of a story written by a transphobic hateful person is harmful to those communities in ways that are both overt and subtle.

How? If the community at large is against Rowing and is inclusive in defiance of her stance, then it would seem to me that they have enough self-awareness to take care of themselves and mitigate any of this nebulous harm.

“The rule isn’t there!”

“Yes it is.”

“Okay, but now the rule should be something more that I just now decided on.”

Like, my guy… It’s a community for people who want to discuss a story about wizards and magic. What do they need to do to score with these shifting goalposts, take a blood pact denouncing Rowling? They already said no transphobic content is allowed. That already covers it.

At what point is engaging in HP fandom distasteful?

I’d say when the material that makes up the HP franchise, itself, becomes distasteful. I’m not hugely invested into HP, but last I’ve seen of it, the franchise is LGBT-inclusive, directly in spite of Rowling. I see no reason why one shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy the story.

Yeah, Rowling may still profit from it. But the bitter pill is that she’s allowed to. People are entitled to make money from their IPs, it’s how society enables creatives. Just because somebody’s a shit person doesn’t mean they’re not allowed to earn a living. And realistically, she’s going to make money from it, anyway. Blocking a Lemmy instance has literally zero impact on Rowling’s bottom line, making the act little more than posturing.

The HP material, itself, is fine. And the HP community largely seems inclusive toward LGBT fans. I can’t think of any reason to consider liking it or talking about it to be distasteful. Rowling’s a TERF shitbag, and I think most of the HP community is generally onboard with that notion, too.

Don’t bother, the person you’re replying to has a storied history of notoriously bad takes, such as “porn of petite women is the same thing as CSAM” (paraphrased), and deleting comments that call out their awful takes in communities/instances they run. They aren’t a sensible person.

Why lie about something that we all can easily verify for ourselves?

Rule 1: Before using the website, remember you will be interacting with actual, real people and communities. DiagonLemmy.Social is not a place for you to attack other groups of people. Every one of our users has a right to browse and interact with the website and all of its contents free of treatment such as harassment, bullying, racism, antisemitism, discrimination, transphobia, hate speech, violation of privacy or threats of violence.

https://diagonlemmy.social/post/108

Man, the gatekeeping is wild these days.

You’re allowed to like a story you grew up with as a child and also dislike its bigot author, they’re not mutually exclusive. Talking about Harry Potter doesn’t give Rowling magical transphobe powers; Voldemort logic doesn’t work in real life. The rightsholders have already taken great strides to distance the HP property from Rowling and adopt it to be more inclusive in spite of her TERF bullshit. It’s not a hate crime to like a story about child wizards anymore.

If people want to geek out about some books or movies they like, they should be allowed to do so without the insinuation that they’re by default enabling transphobia or something. But the beauty of the Fediverse is that your community has just as much right to exist as any other, so as long as you can maintain a healthy, hate-free community that isn’t posting a bunch of pro-Rowling bullshit, I say go for it. Anyone who would block your instance for merely existing probably isn’t worth your time, anyway.

deleted by creator

Pointing out that something exists doesn’t mean condoning its usage.

Cool, thanks for verifying that!

Is Micro.Blog actually federated with ActivityPub? The site says it supports cross-posting to Mastodon, which sounds like it’s more of a post mirroring service than an actually federated instance. I couldn’t find much more clarification on their About page.

How often are you using Firefox on your TV?

explain to me why I should care what the designer thinks anyway

Because they’re the ones who ultimately control the future of the AP protocol. How it behaves today may not be how it behaves tomorrow. If their intent was to create communities that are isolated islands on the internet, they would’ve just made a new phpBB. So understanding their design philosophy is going to be important when it comes to running a community on that protocol.

I could see it as being part of Meta’s plan to make the Fediverse fracture itself to make it easier to manipulate.

Okay, but that’s a disingenuous argument to be making. Yes, AP is designed with the options to block instances, but that’s not the core function it’s built around. That’s a failsafe, not the selling feature that would make communities adopt it. Communities can already exist without federating with other platforms: by running their own, non-AP platform in the first place. The developers of AP didn’t say “I want to make a protocol built around blocking connections”.

Nobody buys a car for its brakes, but you still need to have them for safety purposes. Defederation is pumping said brakes. It’s a necessary feature, but not the main point of the car.