Here's my view. Lemmy.nz is intended for an NZ audience. Hexbear has been defederated from 5 of the top 8 largest instances. This is problematic for us, as their All is much more likely to show lemmy.nz posts than All on other instances. It starts to feel like we're being brigaded, even though we aren't, because their instance is the 10th largest Lemmy instance and yet they don't see most Lemmy posts (but they do see ours).
I don't have a problem with international audiences occasionally posting in our posts, even people with no connection to NZ. I think it provides some great perspective on our issues. But when you post a thread, and it gets overrun with international users, I think this becomes a problem.
This may not seem fair on them, but what I want is a friendly-feeling community, and recently we have had a different vibe.
Personally, I have become less inclined to participate. I've written up a post about the Papakangahorohoro street, then decided not to post it because by the time I'd written my 150 word article the thread had such hexbear comments as "Get over it crakkkas" and "sounds like the crackers should go back to europe if they dont like it".
I want to participate in a friendly community, and the last couple of days I have felt like I didn't want to participate because of the hexbear participation - and the participation of others stemming from that. For that reason, and no other, I think we should defederate. However, I want to hear what others think. Some counter-arguments would be great.
Holy shit dude, have you used one?
Please place item in bagging area. Are you using your own bags? [Yes]. Please wait for staff member to come over and give you permission to use your own bags. Would you like a receipt? [No]. Please take this 30 centimetre long piece of receipt paper that isn't a receipt, it's just printed with stuff you don't want.
I don't think it's justified getting all upset about a few comments, but if I saw an article about someone getting arrested for smashing a self-checkout machine then I'd assume the machine probably deserved it.