Seriously? Invoking Godwin's Law in the VERY FIRST reply? That has to be a new record.

And I find it extremely hard to believe that a server rule where you tell people that you would much prefer that they do not yell at each other over politics and religion, translates directly into "I'm secretly a neo-nazi running a Mastodon server that I want people to use for disseminating far-right slurs and conspiracies without the rest of the world knowing."

Are there servers where it is true? I'm sure there are since you mention it. Are they per definition all nazi bars? Very unlikely.

I have no idea who this person is, nor their motivation. I agree 100% the rule is inappropriate for an open registration regional service.

I too believe we can advance trust and safety in this interoperating space, and I work full-time on that specific issue.

(Also unpaid)

"and discouraging people to speak up about injustice" - that is one hell of a stretch from the "but we'd appreciate if if you wouldn't us this platform to plaster it in other people's faces."

I can easily see where the server owner is coming from, and I don't necessarily disagree.

I've seen so many discussions ruined and derailed by some moron who can find a political correlation between you liking chestnuts and you being a left-leaning treehugger that hates the working class, or whatever nonsense reason they needed for plastering their political views in other people's faces.

Same goes with religion, although the hardcore fanatics are much fewer. An honest discussion about how religion may play a role in a politically charged situation may be fine for the first five posts, but in my experience that is about as far as it gets before the namecalling starts, and usually it does not take that long for Godwin's law to be invoked and Hitlers name is mentioned.

If a server is about music and art, I can very much understand the request for people to check their political and religious views at the entrance, and I honestly can't see the problem when someone tells you that on their server it is tolerated but discouraged. There are plenty of servers where you can go postal in political and religious debates.

Like, if Server X wants its members to stick to talk about Dungeons and Dragons or whatever, then just write "posts that are off-topic should have content warnings".