SysAdmin
A chimpanzee and two trainees in a trench coat
The admin team doesn’t make instance decisions based on what’s “popular”. It’s actually against our mission statement. Though that doesn’t mean community input is ignored.
But that being said, admins can see who’s voting and we can see that the downvotes are not coming from users with much/any history in this community. So we are not taking their feedback strongly into account.
OP- you are not on StarTrek.website. You’re on feddit.de. When you scroll /c/Risa you are scrolling a “copy” on feddit.de.
I assure you we are fully functional.
EDIT: FWIW I checked /c/Risa on feddit.de and thumbnails loaded fine …maybe try clearing your browser cache?
The problem is nobody wants to grow and maintain a federated “Trek adjacent” community. I’ve even offered the opportunity to host one on this instance and nobody wants to put in the effort.
(Also, I just need to point out that Stamets was not “right” about anything involving our team. He claimed the Risa mods were “transphobic”, and set up a new community where he repeated the claims. When one of our Admins asked Stamets if he intended to continue, he cried harassment and used the attention to promote a GoFundMe.)