I think replying to every single point you made would be way off topic, so I'm not going to.
What I will respond to is your very first comment. The far right, worldwide (not just republicans) is practically frothing at the mouth about trans people lately. Their rhetoric is borderline genocidal, with open calls to "exterminate transgenderism". No civil discussion can be had when one of the sides is literally out for blood.
There are many issues that you can take many perfectly reasonable differing opinions on, and have a civil discussion over, but this isn't one of them.
My understanding is, a community doesn't start federating until someone on your instance kicks it into motion, usually by searching for it (as you have just done). From that point onwards, posts from that community are shared with your instance, but it doesn't go backwards in time.
This is my impression, but hopefully someone else will chime in.
I had this same problem. Try looking it up over here: https://kbin.social/search possibly without the ! mark, not sure.
I think the magazines list only shows magazines/communities that have already federated. But, search kicks that into motion if it hasn't started already.
I hear you, but politics are literally unavoidable. Also, for some of us, especially members of minority groups conservatives have it out for right now, literally just existing openly in a space will sometimes have folks crying politics.
Last few years have been rough. Things seem to be turning around lately though (new job, etc). Do the cards have any advice to keep the improvements coming?
This was a fantastic read, thank you for sharing it!
I was never on LiveJournal, but I remember spending a lot of time on all sorts of random websites in the 90s and early 00s. Many hosted on Geocities, or Tripod, often with free forum software of some sort, making hundreds of tiny little communities. And over time, each one disappeared.
The fediverse gives me hope; it definitely has its problems, but fundamentally no single person owns the whole thing. Individual corners may come and go, but the network will remain, and that's awesome.
Also seems better for seeing posts from smaller communities I'm subscribed to. Other settings, the big communities always end up at the top and I miss threads I'm otherwise interested in.
HROT! Quake styled retro fps. I am enjoying it :)