How to use:
The url must be the hostname only, NO SLASHES, like this: lemmy.dbzer0.com
, don't use https://, don't append a slash afterwards (lemmy.dbzer0.com/
), only the hostname including the subdomain if it has it (in this case, lemmy
).
If the instance has blocked the IP address from the server, or it is stuck and its API is not working correctly, it returns "Not a Lemmy instance" (I am too busy to fix this right now).
If the url is not formatted in a way it can process it, it will say Invalid URL. Better processing can come in the future. I won't be updating it now.
In the backend, it just scrapes https://fba.ryona.agency/?domain={url}
and uses the api https://{instance}/api/v3/federated_instances
PRs welcome.
Honestly it works better when deployed locally in a development environment. I think Vercel's IP address is just blocked by cloudflare and other blacklists that stop automated stuff? Idk. Can check back in a few days.
You have to think about this a bit broader. You are one of many actors in a federated network that together help shape the network.
Let's say Facebook opens a fediverse instance (which they will soon do) and most of the well managed instances imediatly block them since they are a known bad actor and actively harmful to the ecosystem.
If you now intentionally look for a instance that federats both with these instances and the one run by Facebook, that is a form if ban evasion that is indirectly detrimental to the health of the wider Fediverse.
No it isn't. Let's say I join "littlehorseylemmy.org" which has, say, 30 people, and I just wanna see what the facebookers are doing and what the regular lemmings are doing, as long as I am not sharing content between sides, I am not even affecting any of both sides.
This is short term thinking.
Instances block other bad actor instances to either get them to stop being bad actors or to isolate them from the network. Its a kind of built in immune system so to say.
By intentionally choosing to not participate in this collective effort you are at best a fool directly helping Facebook to get a foothold in the Fediverse.
Nah, by not following the footsteps of a bunch o people who think they know better than me, I am at best finding pleasure in life and not following the spooky arbitrary rules others set for me. It's not short-term thinking, it's long-term thinking about what's best for me. My effect on me will always be much greater than the infinitesimaly small effect I have on a collective made up of hundreds of thousands of people. As long as I'm not trolling or ruining people's experiences, I am free to do whatever I want.
And besides, you're arguing about the biggest possible problem that there will be, and even then the effect I can have is tiny. My effect on other things such as the SJW-Beehaw block, or the lemmyworld-beehaw block, is even tinier, because these two are not even targeting each other, but are simply trying to make moderation easier. My so-called "ban-evasion" would not be harmful to any as I am not even the target of this "ban".