Looking at mastodon.art, the admins seem to have blocked/muted hundreds of instances, including mastodon.social, mastodon.online, qoto.org, all of which are moderate instances with a clear policy against racism, harassment, etc., I don't see how this is good for artists, who probably need engagement. I think mastodon.art admins are trying to push their agenda by pressuring other instances to adopt stricter restrictions and limit users' freedom, instead of simply protecting their users (which is not achieved by restricting users from interacting with moderated instances).
Presumably the artists are smart folks and can switch instances if they feel the rules are too limiting [1]. mastodon.art's policies are too restrictive for my tastes, and so...I don't use them, and wouldn't encourage others to use them, either, unless they really liked them.
But, I don't see why we have to assume this is the instance admins having an "agenda" and trying to "pressure other instances to limit users' freedom". Maybe they just want to run their instance their way -- the ultimate freedom!
[1]: I think I may have stumbled across the mastodon instance that you use. I can see why you might feel strongly about mastodon.art's policies.
You're a right I had to be more precise about my arguments, I found the post describing why they have silenced .social/.online https://www.patreon.com/posts/silencing-social-74474015, .social/.online can federate with mstdn.io, an instance banned on mastodon.art, silencing .social/.online will not change anything in defending their users but only to pressure these instances and quote: "I am, of course, hoping that maybe by us silencing them, we can initiate some kind of change in the moderation there.". You say: "Maybe they just want to run their instance their way -- the ultimate freedom!" but it is clear that they are trying to moderate the instances of others according to their own vision.
I don't think it's about pushing an agenda. Each instance can only set the rules for their own community. Dozens of art-related instances have popped up like mushrooms overnight, so there is a good chance people will find one where they agree with the rules of the house. And it's easy to move to another instance later.
This post confirm that silencing and blocking moderated instances is more about pushing an agenda than protecting their users. They silenced .social/.online because they federate with mstdn.io, an instance banned on mastodon.art, so silencing these instances will make no difference in protecting their users and quote: "I am, of course, hoping that maybe by us silencing them, we can initiate some kind of change in the moderation there.". The pressure against instances with an open federation policy or in general against instances that dare to even federate to instances blocked on .art for political reasons is quite clear. I think people don't like the term "agenda," which is misused many times, but I think it describes the situation in this case quite well.
Credible? Most new instances are literally just a few weeks old.
Welcome to the fediverse, where not everyone is on the same big server: There is wandering.shop if you're into writing. If you're into dinosaur paintings, go to sauropods.win. If you like math-art, it's very much on-topic on mathstodon.xyz. Try inkblot.art if you like non-conventional instances. Or genart.social if you like algorithmic art.
Those are just the ones I discovered by accident recently, without trying. Try picking a general instance you trust, and browse an artistic hashtag there. Also, most general instances are okay with art (try the #mastoart hashtag).
(Also the three instances recommended by .art when you try registering there. Probably not for you if you don't like .art.)
Not sure about that, but i'm mostly just interested in the local community.
That said if the cost was a bit lower i was mildly tempted to standup a Blender community. However that seems like a lot of work, in addition to being a bit expensive.
