Yes, likely very bad design on their part (if it is hard-coded not once but 3 times and if all 3 of those represent the same use cases), though until a few months ago not many PieFed instances existed except to test the evolving codebase, so this is all VERY new.

See also this discussion of so many frustrating and LONG-STANDING bugs in Lemmy that the instance admins of slrpnk.net will switch to PieFed that (reportedly) is less buggy overall.

All of the Threadiverse software is still new-ish and under active development - PieFed more than most, and what blows me away is how it is doing so even without a NLNet grant, just entirely freely developed by real people making actual contributions in return for basically nothing at all. Somehow this software being developed in a Western nation is out socialism-ing the literal communists, who btw also make it impossible to donate directly to the development of code without also supporting the heavily politicized lemmy.ml instance (which people have noticed a LOT of time is spent on moderating… time that could have been spent on code development, e.g. in fixing those long-standing bugs?).

TLDR: the entire Threadiverse is new, and PieFed has “potential”. At least as much if not significantly more so than Lemmy. It will be good to see both of them improved in the future.

Wait until you see what is coming up next in Lemmy:

latest case in point: the next version will hardcode lemmy.ml as a source to pre-fetch popular communities

it uses lemmy.ml as the source of truth for that, and there is no way to change that

(Edit: I forgot to add the link to source)

At least PieFed allows you to edit the list. I still agree that it should not have been hard-coded, but this is not a case where Lemmy is a shining beacon of all goodness and PieFed is pure shit - both have their flaws, and Lemmy’s is MAJOR (and unchangeable) whereas by comparison, PieFed’s is fairly minor as these things go.

Plus haven’t the PieFed devs already changed the code in response to this very thread? (In 2 of the 3 places, but I haven’t taken time to actually look directly myself, and the 3rd place should also be changed too, if it hasn’t been already, to remove the list from being hard-coded.) The PieFed devs, instead of telling the userbase to piss off and only reluctantly change things after a large outcry, are (especially by comparison, but also very much objectively too?) VERY responsive to feedback? I bet you will even be thanked for bringing this to their attention… though in the future you could also try submitting a codeberg ticket:-).

Anyway, you are helping make the installation experience more streamlined and smooth for future users, so (while I have nothing whatsoever to do with the devs), I will say thank you just by myself!:-)

These aren’t specific community *blocks (they’re not blocks as such). They’re keywords. It jus so happens that “196” was a community as well, although that has now been removed.

No clicking the link to show it was about removing racial slurs! Only out of context snippets!

Eventually, but only reluctantly and after first telling the userbase to simply piss off and stop asking.

In contrast, the PieFed devs seem to have edited their codebase within mere minutes of this discussion having started to have already started changing things in highly positive directions, even prior to being officially asked on codeberg.

The contrast there is eye-opening, and I hope indicative of what the future holds for the Threadiverse. There are far too many LONG-STANDING issues remaining in Lemmy that only continue to get ignored as the years drag on… Lemmy is their codebase, you exist at their leisure, whereas PieFed is ours, able to be modified in ways that we collectively want it to. Obviously I mean on the spectrum, aka “PieFed has highly responsive devs”, who not only receive but even outright ask for advice on things like prioritization (see e.g. last year’s !piefed_2025@piefed.social, although nowadays they are doing that via codeberg issue tickets).