Ehh I’d suggest feeling it out for yourself to be honest. I’ve had some great interactions on .ml communities, as well as .world communities. But also some hair-pulling insanity. That’s where some of the most active conversations happen, but that also means you’re more likely to encounter some trolls and some awful petulant fools. When you do, just unsubscribe from the community or block the user and you’re all set.

Self-curation is one of my favorite things about Lemmy, and it’s why I like .ee as an instance, because it’s quite neutral and they let individual users choose what communities we want to see and don’t force decisions down our throats. The beauty of this place is that you can always switch instances or block communities and users you dislike, you just have to spend some time curating your experience.

The mods of .ml are pro China/Russia authoritarianists, and will ban you for posting comments that disagree with them. I’ve received a ban for discussing my experiences teaching Taiwanese and Chinese students, because I described the way the Chinese students reacted in the face of evidence that Taiwan is a self-governing sovereign state as “brainwashed.”

I was banned under rule 1, which is listed as being polite and civil. Trust me when I say I have said far more less polite and civil things directly to mods, so it’s concerning that politely expressing real lived experiences that contradicts their opinions on Chinese authoritarianism is what counts as being rude and uncivil around those parts.

I haven’t blocked them. Many of those communities include the founders/creators of Lemmy, so to block the community feels disjointed from the app, to me. But I think twice about wasting my time on individual conversations in or from people in .ml.

I would recommend completely ignoring what Instance people/communities are hosted on

Personally, I don’t think so. Like you point out if the Marxist Leninist instance has content you enjoy then why would you avoid it? - perhaps just don’t get into overtly political discussions / arguments.

You don’t have to be trans to visit or use a trans instance, non-anarchists can be on the anarchist instances, but do remember where you are and, most importantly, that you’re a guest/visitor and try to act accordingly. The same advice goes for .world

I’ve had no problems wherever I’ve gone - so far.

Depends on how you feel about communists

As far as far left instances go, ml is actually pretty unspicy, despite the bee in their bonnet people got.

So like, if you can’t stand hanging out with em pinko commies, avoid it. If you’re fine with that, don’t.

Yes, blocking them is a good start.

I find that mods on .ml are less likely to ban you for common sentiments in America. .world is just Reddit 2

Having checked the mod logs I avoid anything from there. They regularly show up a deleting insightful comments - I thus wish to ‘punish’ the instance by ignoring is. I hope that makes it less valuable to everyone who uses it.

alone I’m almost nothing of course but others are like me and together .ml is the worse.

Generally, if you lean left and partake in anything leftist, you’re going to run into the far left, the authoritarian left.

.ml is good to remind you of that kind of interaction. It isn’t always a bad thing, but people that engage in identity politics are very often monomaniacal. Not always! But often enough that it can get tiring. .ml runs high to individuals that practice identity politics, with the politics being authoritarian left. This means that our can be boring as fuck because people that think like that tend to never be able to stfu about it, they’ll wedge it into anything.

But the whole instance isn’t like that. If you avoid the political communities, and avoid politics in general, you don’t scrape up against the ideologues as often. Now, lemmygrad? That place is batshit across the board lol. .ml is definitely hard left leaning, but you can talk about other things, and the users aren’t all going to bring their ideology with them into every conversation. Some do, but not all of them.

My advice is to hang back and observe .ml communities before interacting on them. The more on topic a community stays, the less likely you are to run across the crazies

I would be more careful on Lemmy.world. Feels like a lot of Lemmy.world doesn’t like instances where they question things like capatilism and such. I have blocked more communities and users on lemmy.world them .ml.

But that’s my own personal experiences.

Yes.

I won’t subscribe, post, or comment in ml.

.ml is fine for anything other than politics, as they will ban over the slightest hint of criticism of China and other communist authoritarian countries. Especially calling anyone a tankie.

But the trchnical and other non-political communities are pretty similar to any other instances communities.

if you can’t handle political content then just excluding worldnews from your feed should be enough

.ml is unavoidable for some niche tech communities unless you make your own with blackjack and hookers, but for example, Linux has [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. Privacy has [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

Should you?

Depends on your tolerance for Stalinists and Maoists. I don’t think you have to but I have. Thanks to Dessalines and co for making Lemmy but if you’re going to enact or enable shithead mod rules you’re going to drive people away.

On the plus side, there really aren’t any cryptofascist accounts that survive for long on .ml, and you certainly can’t the say the same for .world and .ee, so there’s at least some benefit to it.