@KitsuneAlicia@octodon.social @lynnesbian tbh for a sock puppet, mastodon is hardly difficult to spin up and get working. if i can do it in five minutes (not counting compile times) despite being a sketchy admin then im pretty sure that anyone can get it up and running in a similar amount of time. and then there's an actual webhost for it soooo
@KitsuneAlicia@octodon.social @lynnesbian on the flip side, if everyone believes a certain platform is a heaven for Bad People, then it can happen despite good intentions due to self selection. for instance, if every small instance migrated from mastodon to pleroma today, then you'd see a very different perception of pleroma and the developers working on the project would likely be a bit more diverse.
if we don't use it because reasons, then the ecosystem is starved.
@KitsuneAlicia@octodon.social @lynnesbian actually, the best way to stop hostile users is to make it uncomfortable for them to ask questions. terms of service, community culture, etc - they should all be maintained in a way that makes it clear that abuse is neither tolerated or supported
as a user, ive seen that pleroma doesn't really seem to do this. they're software devs that think a passive attitude towards their hostile users is enough. it isn't, tbh. that's a failing.