Overall though they seem connected: not wanting to defederate from either lemmy.ml with its constant calls for guillotines (I mean… not that I don’t understand the reason for such:-) or from hexbear.net, mainstream users are being turned away.

If I hadn’t found a way to block Hexbear I’d have been gone. It took me about 2 weeks to realize the users that were the most insufferable to me were largely all from there, and I was a hair from quitting Lemmy because of it. So, for me at least you have it exactly right.

Is .ee one of the ones with bad rep? I picked it randomly.

I have never encountered a posting like that, but I’d be interested to see an example of it if you have one. Happen to have a link to one?

Edit: So that’s a no then. That’s a… problematic thing to make up.

Last I read about this was years and years ago, and the claim at the time from the source I learned about it from was that the cause of this behavior is unknown. Is it known now?

What’s that from? The Simpsons?