Yeah - what I meant by ‘unilateral’ is that beehaw defederating from .world is that .world users can’t interact with beehaw communities, PLUS beehaw.org users can’t interact with .world communities.

Unilateral defederation to me would mean the first case, but not the second.

You sure about that? I’m pretty certain that unilateral defederation is not possible yet.

The purpose of the fediverse is to have things that are spread out and can talk to each other, right?

My point was only beehaw trying to cultivate a safe space that is closely policed isn’t easily compatible with that baked-in interaction with other spaces which they can’t police. Unless they play server whack-a-mole.

And then once large instances are cut off because they contain too many users to police when they interact on beehaw.org - what’s the point in being part of the fediverse? Why not just be any other type of link aggregating forum?

It would make a little more sense if you could defederate unilaterally (i.e. non beehaw members cannot post on beehaw, but beehaw members can go interact on other instances). But as far as I understand that’s not how it works.

Sure, but I don’t think beehaw’s philosophy suits the fediverse very well. They want to create a safer space where discussion and disagreement is encouraged, but more closely policed. Which makes sense for a closed system - not one where “unpoliced” users can interact with your community. Otherwise you end up playing server whack-a-mole… exactly like beehaw has done.