Thanks for replying. And for your input.

I wasn't really aware of this. But now that I'm thinking about it, I've also had contact with a few annoying people on some of the more popular and 'open' communities. And usually a nicer atmosphere on the more focused ('nerd') communities. Just to be clear: There are also many exceptionally nice and helpful people here on Lemmy.

I've been critizising beehaw for their way of de-federating at will, a feature that's unfortunately also designed badly. And causing all kinds of trouble for the rest of the fediverse and effectively dividing people. Just my opinion. I get the point but I think this is detrimental to the fediverse as a whole and shows small-minded thinking. But I only know half of the story. Maybe I'm wrong here.

I share your view of things. And I'm not sure about a conclusion. Maybe it's something like an invite system. But that takes away from being welcoming to new people. I like to take pride into allowing people to take part, no matter who they are. But allowing everyone in has the obvious consequence of you needing to deal with the a-holes later, when it's more difficult. And I don't think an application form slows down people who like to be emotional and argumentative or troll.

I've been part of PeerTube for a while. And during the pandemic, there was a massive inrush of Covid-deniers and conspiracy theorists. After some time they got banned from, or got in trouble on the major platforms. And they started flooding PeerTube with re-uploads of their most crazy stuff. To the point where everyone was annoyed and new users immediately been turned away after having a glimpse of a timeline of one of the instances. It's been some hard work, but we confined them to a corner of their own and cleaned the timelines of the major instances. To highjack one of their terms: I think this has been my 'awakening'... Regarding 'free speech' vs 'moderation'. And dynamics like we're just now talking about. We can't directly compare our situation here on Lemmy to the events on PeerTube or Mastodon. But we can (and should) draw conclusions.

For Lemmy, there are a few low hanging fruit left. I mean when it comes to technical solutions. Better moderation tools etc. And things are already been worked on. But I've always been curious about the sociological aspects. It's been mainly one big migration event for us here. It felt like a revolution and a fresh start after Reddit. And people picked up on this. Nonetheless we're often rebuilding the structures we already know. Sometimes including the tone of speaking with another.

I 100% agree on your assessment that moderation in the early stages has an important effect. We're in the process of inventing/defining this place. Every interaction counts. From the atmosphere and tone the users set, to what moderators deem appropriate behaviour, to how instance admins handle disagreements and security incidents.

I have to think about this a bit more. My main takeway at this point is: Next time I want to say 'I wish more people would realize Twitter is a bad place, Elon is making it worse by the day, and they should leave and use the better alternative...'. I'll stop and think about the consequences and if this is really what I want or need.