The instance seems to be mostly right wing trolls. I know defederating is unpopular but I don't think much is to be lost in this case and it can save the mods some headaches.
Edit: the response on exploding-heads.com to my reporting of transphobia. Courtesy of the "second in command"
Surely there's a middle ground between "defederating hundreds of instances" and "defederating practically none".
I vote "practically none". If the admin stance on this changes, I'm outta here.
That's fair. And you'll also have to deal with more bullshit for seeking out that kind of community but it might be a worthwhile tradeoff for you.
In the end, most likely I'll just be forced to run my own instance.
You'd definitely have the ultimate control in that circumstance. Plus if you wanna get into web hosting and programming type of stuff it could be a good project.
I'm a software developer with 15 years exp, but thanks for the suggestion ;)
Well then it's definitely be a lot easier for you than me lol. I'd run my own instance too but I've only learned a tiny bit of C and python. I have a general idea of some software development paradigms but haven't actually studied them very much.