You're just being asked to be thoughtful before opening your mouth. Is that so awful?

We're at an inflection point where millions of people might be able to break free of the big social media companies. People are disgusted at the incumbents and are looking for someplace, anyplace to land.

Unfortunately, "Don't be a dick" is in the critical path to success for the fediverse, We, the currently existing community, have to make it worth their while to jump to fedi, because if it's a hassle, they're just going to go somewhere else like bsky or Threads. Then we'll all dragged along via network effects, riding the Wheel of Pain for another decade or so until that platform enshitifies and we maybe get another bite at the apple

You're really illustrating the problem the OP is trying to fix quite nicely.

Instead of dropping a turd on our doorstep, why not have a policy of not commenting on stuff in places that you don't really belong, like an normal person would in their regular life.

BTW, having a fedi-wide stream of popular posts was a mistake.