I definitely think that sticking with our policies is far more important than worrying about federation, since what matters most is what our users think of us, not what other users think of us. I saw someone compare this to countries in the past, where you’re going to put the needs of your country over the needs of others. I think that’s fairly accurate for this.

While I would love to see this instance grow, that does make sense. If one wants to see the other stuff that badly, they can join the other instances. There wouldn’t be much of a reason, in my mind, to sacrifice the ‘identity’ of the instance just for that.

Though I may be a bit biased in that regard. Not a lot of forums are labelled as ‘loli friendly’.

As for the other point you mentioned… I could see that. That happened even on reddit, with whole subreddits sometimes banning users who participated in one subreddit or another.