If you're not familiar with how Lemmy/the Fediverse works, basically everything you read at StarTrek.website is hosted by us, even if the content originated elsewhere. That means we are responsible for everything here and we have to decide if we are comfortable boosting content from other instances.
If you're curious, the final straw here was learning that db0 explicitly allows hosting discussions about hurting people, which needless to say goes against our instance values and we simply don't have the manpower to moderate that volume of content incoming from their server to a degree that we feel meets our quality standards, which left defederating as the only viable option.
In keeping in line with past trends we're announcing this because is is a larger instance and don't want to leave any of the crew confused as to why something may be missing.
EDIT: Just to be crystal clear, this change ONLY affects users on THIS instance, if your account is on a federated instance then it doesn't apply to you and your experience will remain unchanged.
EDIT 2: Locking this because it's getting downvote brigaded by accounts from other instances which is preventing local accounts from seeing it. Local users feel free to DM me or another admin if you have questions.
I'm on a different instance, so this doesn't directly affect me.
With this in mind this action and the discussion raise many questions. Defederation is a broad and extreme measure, affecting many users and the structure of the fediverse as a whole. When larger instances are involved this is of interest to everyone.
The thin explanation isn't satisfying anyone's curiosity and let's the decision look questionable at best.
I'm no fan of db0, but I am for open discourse. Just going against the "values" doesn't feel like a good reason for an instance ban. This should be explained in more detail with examples.
I mentioned this elsewhere but we consider linking to posts/comments with the intent of directing traffic to "bad" behavior to be brigading and is very much against our rules. The only reason I cited the example I did is because it is something explicitly permitted. We're not trying to create drama or lob false accusations.
Ultimately we are a small team running a small instance, and we have to be selective about what responsibilities we take on. And as I've been repeating, it ONLY affects users here and we don't have a local only community to post this to (though maybe we should 😛)