Previous threads about these filters were people complaining about them being hardcoded, completely ignoring that they are completely optional and off by default. It would go something like this:
Look at this awful thing PieFed does!
def do_the_thing():
# relatively simple code that does the thing
It completely ignored the context that the do_the_thing function is only called if the admin wants to do the thing.
They're just making shit up. In their mind I guess Javascript that is intentionally included by an admin to customize their instance counts as ACE. In that sense any webserver you ever browse to is capable of ACE.
arbitrary
You mean the Javascript that would need to be written and added by the instance admin? Something that any admin with infra access could do anyway? Hardly seems arbitrary at all. ACE usually means something not intended.
I'm sure you will be pleased to know that the filter this post is about and most of the others mentioned in this thread are, in fact, off by default.
It's also a checkbox on the admin/misc settings to make it easier to disable.
I know the blocking stuff is actively being worked on as we aren't happy with it yet. However, that is an issue where it would be literally impossible for every user to be happy with whatever end state it results in. That is an area where the different software platforms can offer people different experiences so that they can seek out the type of experience they are looking for.
Almost everything else you listed here can be turned on/off by an admin. I didn't know about the 8-character username thing, probably worth revisiting that. The downvotes being disabled with low attitude is one I don't see being removed, but could be an admin-set threshold (or disabled) in a future version. In fact, I suspect that the formula was written this way to make the threshold more well bounded instead of a simple up - down calculation.
If you are seeing those on lemmy or in a different client than the web ui, that would have to be something else. The red triangles don't federate at all, nor are they in the api, they are just based on the local content of a user on that instance.
the whole þ fiasco
That has since been removed. Yeah, rimu is certainly opinionated and passionate about what he believes in, but has also been pretty receptive to feedback, both from users and from admins (like in the private voting case). Fortunately, there are alternative threadiverse platforms out there for people that want them. Both lemmy and mbin do some stuff better than PieFed, and that's ok. The different projects have maintained working relationships at the dev level to try to make sure interoperability outside the base activitypub spec doesn't completely break (the post-moving feature/FEP was a collaboration between PieFed, lemmy, and NodeBB for example).
I don't necessarily disagree. I haven't really taken a close look at how this is implemented, but it also hasn't really been a high priority to revisit, at least not for me. There are still plenty of more fundamental features to get right first in my opinion. The big one I have worked on for the next piefed version is to get local sticky posts working for example.
My experience from working with rimu though is that he has been pretty receptive with contributions to make it less opinionated in these kinds of ways. I have removed or made optional tons of stuff that he spent time coding and I haven't really gotten any pushback from him over it. I know it kind of makes me sound like a douche to just say open a PR, but if somebody out there feels strongly about this filter, that is probably the fastest way to get it changed.
Also fun fact, you can probably upload it to most other piefed instances just fine.
rimu has pretty strong opinions on social media. This filter is optional and can be turned on/off by an admin. Some of my contributions to piefed have been to make filters or features that are strongly opinionated like this optional. For piefed.social specifically though, rimu has all of them on because that is his instance and he runs it the way he wants.
Interstellar has a standalone desktop app and supports all three threadiverse ecosystems (lemmy/piefed/mbin).
Some instances have used it to do something like a dynamic message of the day. That is the most I have seen it used for so far.
Edit: See the top of the main content pane of anarchist.nexus as an example.