Okay I guess there's a lot still that I do not understand.

What is a "reaction gif" then? Mine apparently did not qualify? Is it only gifs from certain sources, like tenor or giffy or some such, and with no explanatory text added? Even so, the URL for mine is https://media.tenor.com/IBdbO5idxJcAAAAM/garak-garak-ds9.gif so seems to qualify on all counts, unless somehow including "alternate text" (for blind users or if the image does not resolve) prevents it from being toggled? My example seems to suggest that perhaps what you mentioned is an experimental feature, which is not turned on for regular servers e.g. piefed.social... maybe?

And by "reputation" then do you mean "attitude"? That is even less useful than reputation, as I have never once seen anything based upon it. I could imagine an icon being put next to someone's name, but that would require ENORMOUS bias towards something, like theoretically if someone only did 10x "reaction gifs" for every comment that included even so much as a single actual word (in English or otherwise)... which again, so what? For an instance that decided that they wanted "serious posts only", which piefed.social seems not to, that could be a "feature"?

The crucial parts of that last bit are: (1) that it is INTERNAL to the instance, not like a down-vote sent back to the OP's home institution would be - if the latter happened then I 100% agree with you there that such a feature is BAD BAD BAD; and (2) that the feature is something that can be toggled off or on, as the instance owner chooses. In that case, it is not something that "PieFed" does, but something that "[piefed instance name here]" chooses to enable, which PieFed (the software) allows but does not mandate. So a bit more complex than full yay or nay here, yet still if 99% of instances turn this off (as I would expect, for something like this that seems designed purely for "serious discussions only" - after all why else would someone do this?!?), then it's not like "all" or even "most" of PieFed is this way, but rather only some? i.e. it's a feature that PieFed instances are OFFERED, not like a foundational feature of what PieFed IS. It seems to me anyway, but a lot of this is based on premises that again I do not fully understand (most especially, whether it is even happening at all or not, or if it is merely something experimental under consideration) so I hope I do not come across as coming against you or anything here. :-)

Instance admins are not mods, and mods are not normal users. I think this is fine. Or at least... those same identical arguments were once levied against the usage of Lemmy altogether, when we were back on Reddit. "They don't know what they're doing", "The instances will fail and people will lose ownership rights to all content that they have ever created - yes they can migrate but then what if they wanted to delete something later, they could not because the original user account is gone and there is no way to prove subsequent ownership rights?", "Most people will not leave Reddit, it's too big, the niche content simply will not be there", "The number of trolls and toxic users - kicked off of Reddit because they were TOO TOXIC EVEN FOR REDDIT - is just too damn high!" It was all true then, and what you are saying about PieFed may be all true now... but so what? It's all a grand experiment anyway! :-) We move forward, and we improve things. Your arguing against these features will help kill them, or perhaps cause them to be modified like making them significantly harder to turn on, or with warnings on that it should only be used in special cases, and so on.

People abuse Lemmy all the damn time. As this very community attests to:-).

Suppressing communities at an admin's whim is already possible? Farid and I went down a very interesting rabbit hole over on StarTrek.Website where ChapoTrapHouse@hexbear.net was specifically disabled (plus another one too that I now forget, perhaps on lemmygrad.ml) - you could see other Hexbear.net communities, but not that specific one. Though there was no mention of this anywhere that I could find: no announcement post, it did not appear in the Instances list as blocked, again you could view other communities, and again I forget the details but you might even have been able (at some point, but then not later?) to view past posts there. So while your concern is valid, this is in no way shape or form limited to PieFed: this has been happening for at least a year on Lemmy already, given how desperately desired the "instance block" feature was, especially compared to how lame it was when it finally came out (e.g. it still allows users from that instance to send you DMs, triggering notifications, etc.). And there are counter-examples where this tool can be used in the RIGHT way too?

I will think more about what you said about Digg. Although my naive first thoughts are... that is already the way of the world? I do not want "echo chambers" either, so I suppose it depends on the implementation: does every single post from certain users get up-weighted? That would be bad. Or does a user simply become "trusted" after like 10 comments with 5+ upvotes, after which the signal to a moderator that someone has made a new posts gets labelled as being much less urgent, since it was submitted by a "trusted user"? That type of class I have no problems with: you are a stranger, then a probationary time period that usually won't last long, then a full citizen, no further subdivisions required (although some still exist: mods for one, admins for another, creators of communities regardless of current mod status still another, etc.). So VERY LIMITED vote weighting, for extremely LIMITED purposes I am okay with. Is that all that is going on, or is there more? The devil is in the details I suppose.

Fwiw I agree with you that votes should not matter which instance it is from. Now, I am a huge fan of blocking trolling instances - the tankie triad for one, maybe some others like your OP here as well, especially if the blocking is done at the individual user level so that my decision to do so affects nobody else - but once someone is in, a "full citizen" as it were, then they should count the same, I agree. Maybe make a post about this in one of the c/Fediverse communities? I also spoke out against the anonymous vote thing. I am glad to see that one die. Polls are one thing, but to spam other instances with obfuscated data, just... why? Let things either be done in the light or else the darkness, but if someone chooses the latter then they have no right to complain when they get blocked - for the simple reason that my rights end where someone else's begin.

Oh wow I thought you were joking about "piefed.world", simply misspelling "piefed.social" and conflating it with "lemmy.world" that you are so used to. That is... fascinating!

I view PieFed as merely software. Lemmy is likewise software, but more of a "black box" for most people it would seem, who can't simply open it up and modify it to suit their needs, whereas instance admins could do that more readily for PieFed, either for good or for ill. Both Lemmy and PieFed have their advantages and disadvantages. At least the devs of PieFed seem eager to listen... mostly, and especially if someone is offering actual code contributions, but even when not. The Lemmy devs on the other hand... have made the software what it is, and it will not be made differently no matter how much people ask. I've seen code requests languish for FIVE YEARS, at which point they are either severely overloaded trying to work with the language, or it represents a choice not to do it, or most likely both. In contrast, PieFed is starting off behind Lemmy, but it is catching up - having already surpassed it in most ways (not searching, that one Lemmy still wins hands-down), and I have already watched it blossom greatly over the last half a year from being barely functional alpha to fully-functioning beta. It will get better, especially with help from people offering their thoughts about how to make it better:-).