Others have said this. More and more, I think it's true: the Homeowners Association (HOA) culture on the Fediverse is hurting it.
Except, people who tend to push an HOA agenda don't even tend to be "homeowners". They don't code. They don't run servers. Many of them are recent arrivals to the Fediverse.
I don't bring that up to say that anyone's more or less important because they code or admin or have been active for awhile. But surely, if you're going to be a gatekeeper, you should have something to qualify you as the self-appointed enforcer of the HOA.
Usually, these self-appointed gatekeepers have never made any investment in this community. Instead, the HOA are outright hurting this community by being unwelcoming jackasses.
Just to give an example, why has #BlackTwitter soured on #Mastodon? It's the HOA in action. And who's currently uttering death threats to server admins? It's the HOA. They are toxic, and everywhere they go, they spread toxicity.
The worst FUD about the Fediverse isn't even coming from the likes of Big Social or Bluesky or the Press. It's from the HOA.
Who's spreading fears about "embrace, extend, extinguish"? It's the HOA. Who's creating uncertainty about whether ActivityPub can survive a corporation's use of it? Again, it's the HOA. And who believes that the Fediverse will die because something happened without their approval? It's the HOA every time.
The HOA has no authority here. The Fediverse has no board meetings, never mind a board of directors. Their decision making power is a complete delusion, a total fabrication of their collective imagination.
To be blunt, I'm done with entertaining the HOA's bluster, speciousness, and pretensions.
From here on out, at least on spaces I have tangible power, I'm gatekeeping the gatekeepers.
