I like being able to block instances, without my instance doing it for me, lemm.ee is pretty good about that, like yeah, I blocked lemmygrad and hexbears but still have the option to see their stuff without switching accounts
The problem with such a "block", applied by the base Lemmy web UI or an app like Voyager that merely applies the same, is that it only mutes communities - which is basically the same as unsubscribing from each one individually (except it does save you some time, and affects newly created ones, and also visibility while browsing the All feed).
The actual users from those instances can still harass you, making comments, triggering notifications, voting on your content, etc. I made the mistake of replying to a comment in ChapoTrapHouse@hexbear.net and another one somewhere in Lemmygrad.ml and each time I received notifications for WEEKS and WEEKS afterwards, long after I stopped responding.
I almost quit the Fediverse entirely as a result. That is not what I signed up for. Btw browsing by All doesn't show the sidebar of ChapoTrapHouse, nor of hexbear.net. How was I supposed to know!? What I did see was the sidebar of such places as Lemmy.World and Discuss.Online which is... well, more than a little different focus (remember the human and all of that).
Like porn, I think such content as is in ChapoTrapHouse@hexbear.net should be properly labeled so that people aren't taken by surprise, going in there unawares. THEY can do whatever they want, but why are WE federating that content to the entire world - without such a label having been applied?
Yeah, it's genuinely a problem when you just want to not see entire instances based on the userbase they culminate. I wish blocking instances would actually block the users associated with it, but alas.
I've taken to blocking everyone @lemmy.ml on sight since every time I see them it's some vitriolic rant about how trans people are class traitors or some other weird shit I don't wanna see, but it is a bit of extra effort and annoyance each time a new one pops up.
on base Lemmy, you basically cannot - for whatever reason, the devs do not seem to consider this a "priority"?:-P
the Sync or Connect apps let you do this though
PieFed allows you to block all the users from any instance that you choose, without needing admin support; PieFed also has fantastic features such as hashtags and categories of communities, though notably its base UI is significantly less advanced than Lemmy's, e.g. it lacks user tagging (e.g. @openstars@piefed.social does nothing)
the only instances that have defederated from the big 3 are lemmy.cafe and dubvee.org (also quokk.au but that has a single admin and people report not being able to join it)
Any discussions may be opted out of by disengaging
However, do not add anything else as hexbear's disengage rule only applies if you don't use it to have the last word in the matter.
Also, while some hexbear posts may sometimes contain nudity (though I have never seen any pornography on there and it's probably not even allowed), it should be labeled as such. Anything potentially triggering or unwanted should have content warnings in the title.